Winning Le Mans
Geoff raced twice at Le Mans for Nissan – and could have won the 1990 race, as they were leading when a fuel tank split at half distance – and when the IMSA deal nished in 1992 he received a mysterious phone call from Europe.
“It was a weird one. I was sitting in Florida and the phone rang and there was this lady at the end. She says, ‘Are you interested in driving for a team in Le Mans,’ and I said, ‘Who is it?’ And she said, ‘I can’t tell you, but if you’re interested I‘ll let them know and they will call you.’ So I said okay and put the phone down.
“Two days later Jean Todt rings up and asks me to drive for Peugeot! I thought that was fantastic, so I rang David (his brother) and said, ‘You’re not going to believe this, I’m running for Peugeot at Le Mans!’ Dead silence on the other end of the phone. ‘David, are you still there? David!’ Turned out he was chasing that drive, and to this day he believes that Jean Todt got the names muddled up and rang me by mistake!
“And it made it worse when I won the race! “The car was fabulous. It was so much better than the Nissans. The Toyotas (that year) were a little bit quicker than the Peugeots but they kept having little issues. We just ran at-out, just as hard as you could go.”
There were three works Peugeots, and Geoff was the experienced hand with two Le Mans rookies, Frenchmen Eric Helary and Christophe Bouchut, in the #3 car, which ran faultlessly. Near the end of the race they were leading, but Geoff was fearful that one of the more fancied
French cars or drivers would be allowed to take the glory in France’s biggest race.
“The Toyota challenge had nally disappeared and we were running 1-2-3, and I was just waiting for Jean Todt to tell us to slow down and have their number one car nish rst, and he never did.
“In fact, in the rotation I wasn’t going to nish the race and Jean Todt changed the rotation so I was in the car at the end and I actually crossed the line, which was amazing for me. I’ll never forget that. I don’t know why he did it. I asked him several years later and he just shrugged his shoulders and said, ‘You deserved it.’ I’ve never got my head around why he didn’t let one of the French drivers nish the race. I’m just eternally grateful to him.
“So I did the last lap, with all the ags going, and all the spectators came on the track before the race nished… When we came around to take the chequered ag there were people
everywhere and I only just crossed the nish line, and then the track was just blocked. I got out of the car and they people-surfed me all the way to the pit wall. It was probably the highlight of my career. And then I never went back…”
The following year he was to drive for Porsche, but they pulled out in protest over a change of rules. Then the following year he and David were set to drive for Joest, but David wanted more than a one-race deal and didn’t call team boss Reinhold Joest, unbeknown to Geoff. “I rang Joest and he was so pissed off with David, and I was saying it was nothing to do with me, I’ll still do it, but he didn’t want to know us so we didn’t get the drive – and the damn car won the race! I was not happy.”
Perhaps it was payback for David missing that winning drive with Peugeot…