The Le Mans Era
1953: Top Ten Trio
Text by Kane Rogers
John Fitch in the C-5R crosses the line in seventh place just ahead
of the winning Ralt/Hamilton C-Type Jaguar. Note body side panels
ruptured by air pressure building up in the engine compartment.
Benett had first met Briggs in 1951 at Elkhart Lake where he was driving a borrowed Allard. Briggs, impressed with Benett’s talent, had said to him, “We’ve got to get you a ride in a Cunningham.” Two years later and across the Atlantic, Benett had his ride. He went on to race for Cunningham for several years and eventually had a hand in Briggs’ later partnership with Jaguar.
The Cunningham team had arrived at Le Mans well prepared for almost any eventuality, even to the extent of having projected the average speed required to win. What they did not allow for, however, was Jaguar’s use of the innovative new Dunlop disc brakes. The Walters/Fitch C-5R’s top speed was higher than the Jaguars by a wide margin, but the British cars were able to maintain their velocity much deeper into the corners, thus erasing the Americans’ advantage. “Long after we started braking,” Phil Walters said, “the Jags were still going flat out.” Despite averaging almost eight miles per hour faster than the previous years’ winners, the Fitch/Walters car finished third, behind two factory C-Types.
Cunningham and Spear also beat the previous year’s winning time and finished seventh, with Moran and Benett bringing the coupe home in tenth for a Team Cunningham top-ten sweep. “Three cars-third, seventh and tenth-in the top ten at Le Mans,” Briggs later commented, “I guess that wasn’t too bad.”
Charles Moran, who in 1929 had been the first American to race at Le Mans, agreed: the seventh place he shared with John Gordon Benett was his best ever and his final drive in the 24 Hours.
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