for the Porsche enthusiast

Davey's Recollections of Vasek Polak
By Davey Jordan
Page 2

Davey Jordan and Vasek Polak with the Porsche 911, 1967.

I arrived at Del Mar, early as usual and found Vasek already there, and his Porsche RS-60 already unloaded. His plan was that I race the car that weekend for practice, which was a dream come true for me, even though I hadn't set in a Porsche Spyder before. Vasek gave me a quick lesson in the strange start gear shifting arrangement, and sent me on my way. The car was wonderful, similar to the Speedster I had been driving but with a lot more power. Driving the first few laps I thought to my self, "do I really want to go this fast?" In the Saturday race we narrowly got beat (1 second) by Frank Monice in his new Lotus 23. On Sunday we were running 2nd to Frank again, but ran out of gas. We found out later that someone had put sugar in the gas tank, during the night. This event got us off to a good start with Vasek.

Vasek was working his endless days at this time and decided to send Gary Auberlen and myself (the father of BMW star Bill Auberlen) to take care of the car at the track. We went to a lot of races. At one race at Laguna Seca Vasek and my wife were both able to go, and on Saturday evening Vasek took Norma and I to dinner on the Monterey pier.

This was a time before the American alligator was protected, and on the pier they had a tank of live baby alligators for sale. Vasek saw them and told Norma that her children (Carol and David) needed alligators. He had his wallet out, and Norma was pleading her case, that her children didn't need alligators. After he relented, we all had a good laugh with some before dinner Scotch (Norma normally doesn't drink).

Gary and I towed the RS-60 to Tucson for a National Race, and it was the only race we went to that the engine didn't run right. We borrowed a set of Autolite plugs from Jim Kennedy who had an RSK, but the new plugs didn't help. When we got back to Vasek's shop and told him what we had done, he was a little more than upset.

The following week I met with Vasek hoping to convince him that we needed to improve our performance if we were to stay competitive. We could beat most other Spyders, the only one that had beaten us was Ronnie Bucknum in Otto Zipper's RS-61 at Willow Springs, but we couldn't beat a well-driven Lotus 23. Vasek also had a like new RS-61 in his showroom, and I though it might be my answer for a winner but Vasek rejected that idea. At this time I learned a valuable lesson about ultimatums, I told Vasek "if he didn't want to improve the performance of the RS-60, I didn't want to drive it". His reply was "goodbye Davey".

The next race was at Pomona, and I was a spectator watching Rudy Bartling drive Vasek's RS-61. But I was lucky and another racing opportunity came along.

Davey Jordan and Alan Johnson at turn 9 Laguna Seca, 1967

In 1966 Vasek entered the new Porsche 911 in the Pacific Coast championship Races, his driver was Jerry Titus, and the results were the best. The car and driver combination captured the Class "D" Production National Championship. Jerry was also the 1966 Trans/Am Champion and due to an expanded Trans/Am schedule for 1967, he would be unable to drive Vasek's new 911 S, and recommended me for the ride. After a meeting with Vasek, he and I shook hands for the 1967 season.

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