HEMMINGS FEATURE – Meaney Racing

Not Just Flat, But Flat Out

The Porsche (don’t call it a Volkswagen) 914 gets angry on the track

By Jim Donnelly from May 2012 issue of Hemmings Sports and Exotics

''What you're looking at here is the very first race in North America that had a Porsche 914 in the starting field. It was the 1970 Watkins Glen Six Hours, at the exit of the hairpin, during this world manufacturer's championship. Ralph Meaney owned a dealership, as I recall, in the Boston area. Here, he was teamed with Steve Behr, with whom I'd actually served in Germany in the Army's 10th Special Forces Group. Around this time, Steve was a co-winner of the Cannonball Baker dash that Brock Yates had created. These guys finished 20th overall. Okay, maybe one of these cars had run in a club race somewhere that nobody had ever heard of, but this is definitely the very first pro-level race ever, much less a world manufacturer's round on this continent. Coming up on the outside to pass is the works 917K of Kurt Ahrens and Richard Atwood, who finished sixth behind the winners, Pedro Rodriguez and Leo Kinnunen in a John Wyer 917K.''

”What you’re looking at here is the very first race in North America that had a Porsche 914 in the starting field. It was the 1970 Watkins Glen Six Hours, at the exit of the hairpin, during this world manufacturers’ championship. Ralph Meaney owned a dealership, as I recall, in the Boston area. Here, he was teamed with Steve Behr, with whom I’d actually served in Germany in the Army’s 10th Special Forces Group. Around this time, Steve was a co-winner of the Cannonball Baker dash that Brock Yates had created. These guys finished 20th overall. Okay, maybe one of these cars had run in a club race somewhere that nobody had ever heard of, but this is definitely the very first pro-level race ever, much less a world manufacturer’s round on this continent. Coming up on the outside to pass is the works 917K of Kurt Ahrens and Richard Atwood, who finished sixth behind the winners, Pedro Rodriguez and Leo Kinnunen in a John Wyer 917K.”