Classification
Originally, the race results were determined by distance. The car which covered the greatest distance was declared the winner. This is known to have caught out the Ford team in 1966. With a dominant 1–2 lead, the two cars slowed to allow for a photo opportunity at the finish line, with Denny Hulme slightly ahead of Bruce McLaren. However, since McLaren's car had actually started much farther back on the grid than Hulme, McLaren's car had actually covered the greatest distance over the 24 hours. With the margin of victory determined to be eight metres, McLaren and his co-driver, Chris Amon, were declared the winners. Not only did the decision cost Hulme a victory; it also deprived his co-driver Ken Miles of the win. Miles had already won the other two endurance races at Sebring and Daytona. With a win at Le Mans, he would have become the first man to win all three, not to mention in the same year. Miles was one of the oldest racers on the circuit. Tragically, he was killed in a crash later that year. The greatest distance rule was later changed when a rolling start was introduced, and instead, the winner is now the car that has completed the greatest number of laps. To be classified in the race results, a car is required to cross the finish line after 24 hours. This has led to dramatic scenes where damaged cars waited in the pits or on the edge of the track close to the finish line for hours, then restarted their engines and crawled across the line to be listed amongst the finishers.[citation needed] However, this practice of waiting in the pits was banned in recent years wit a requirement that a team complete a set distance within the last hour to be classified as a finisher. Another rule instituted by the ACO was the requirement that cars complete 70% of the distance covered by the overall winner. A car failing to complete this number of laps, even if it finished the race, was not deemed worthy of classification because of poor reliability or speed. Christopher Arthur Amon MBE (born 20 July 1943 in Bulls, New Zealand) is a former motor racing driver. He was active in Formula One – racing in the 1960s and 1970s – and is widely regarded to be one of the best F1 drivers never to win a championship Grand Prix. His reputation for bad luck was such that fellow driver Mario Andretti once joked that "if he became an undertaker, people would stop dying". Apart from driving, Chris Amon also ran his own Formula One team for a short period in 1974. Away from Formula One, Amon had some success in sports car racing, winning the 24 Hours of Le Mans race in 1966. Bruce Leslie McLaren (30 August 1937 – 2 June 1970) was a New Zealander race-car designer, driver, engineer and inventor. His name lives on in the McLaren team which has been one of the most successful in Formula One championship history, with McLaren cars and drivers winning a total of 20 world championships. McLaren cars totally dominated CanAm sports car racing with 56 wins, a considerable number of them with him behind the wheel, between 1967 and 1972 (and five constructors’ championships), and have won three Indianapolis 500 races, as well as the 24 Hours of Le Mans and 12 Hours of Sebring.