Not every driver that takes to the grid at the 24 hours of Le Mans is receiving a salary to compete. In fact, a significant proportion of the grid will contribute vast sums of money to secure their place in a team. Doctors, stockbrokers, lawyers and entrepreneurs gather every June to share their common addiction for speed and competition.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, a cast of excessively funded amateurs appeared in American sports car racing. As it would transpire, Don and Bill Whittington, John Paul and Randy Lanier, were funding their racing illegally. All would be arrested for separate drug trafficking and tax evasion offences by the end of 1986.

Racing alongside John Paul and Randy Lanier in the latest Porsche 934s and 935s, the Whittington’s maximised their on-track potential with seemingly endless budget for top equipment. In 1976, Porsche 934 race cars could be acquired from Weissach for $40,000 dollars. The Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) believed the Whittington drug trafficking operation generated $73 million in revenue. So, cash flow was no issue for Team Whittington.

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The Whittington’s opulence stretched further than their exotic race cars. During the 1978 season, Road Atlanta racetrack appeared as a solitary sponsor on the Whittington’s Porsche 934 and 935. Having acquired the Braselton facility, the brothers used the circuit’s extensive back straight to indulge another of their excessive passions, airplanes. It was not uncommon for Don Whittington to call in and order for racing activities to be paused while he landed his private aircraft on the circuit. Just a couple of years later, the Whittington’s quietly sold Road Atlanta to Randy Lanier, a fellow racer and kingpin of his own drug smuggling operation. Lanier’s rationale for acquiring the circuit was simple. Testing his growing fleet of race cars, and laundering money.

At Le Mans in 1979, America’s beloved Hollywood megastar Paul Newman, found himself taking on the Whittington smugglers for outright victory. Newman desperately craved to produce a racing movie after starring in ‘Winning’ in 1969. This story of an all-American hero valiantly attempt to crush the hopes of some rogue racers might have fitted the bill.

Much like a Hollywood thriller, the cards were stacked against Newman in his quest to overhaul the Whittington brothers at the world’s greatest motor race. Porsche 935 ace, Klaus Ludwig, joined the Whittingtons in the cockpit. Worse still, Ludwig wasn’t the Whittington’s only ace card.

By the end of 1978, Porsche had bludgeoned all manufacturer opposition into submission with the 935. Norbert Singer’s Weissach skunkworks continually turned the screw on the competition with ever faster versions of this production racer. This relentless development culminated with the 935/78, or ‘Moby Dick’, as it was affectionally known. Following Moby Dick’s all too brief tenure, Porsche left private teams like Kremer and Joest to carry on the mantle for the 935 in 1979.

‘Moby Dick’ provided the framework for the most revered 935 of them all, the Kremer 935 K3. Conceived by two brothers, Erwin and Manfred Kremer, the 935 K3 was perfected from the already

sublime 935. Once purchased off the Porsche production line, Kremer installed lighter and more aerodynamic Kevlar bodywork designed by Ekkehard Zimmerman. Kremer also outfoxed the FIA rule makers by discovering a way to legally fit an air-to-air intercooler. This boosted reliability and reduced the engine’s weight.

Paul Newman teamed up with Californian owner-driver, Dick Barbour, to run his customer specification Porsche 935. A notch or two behind the envied Kremer 935 K3. Nevertheless, Barbour’s outfit were on a roll at Le Mans. Brian Redman and Dick Barbour won their class in 1978, driving alongside the notorious John Paul. Known for his light switch temper, Paul later became known as sports car racing’s darkest character.

Rolf Stommelen completed the Dick Barbour Racing line up in a red Porsche 935 backed by suntan lotion brand, Hawaiian Tropic. Stommelen was vastly experienced and boasted an enviable CV, including wins at the Targa Florio, Daytona 24 hours and the Watkins Glen 6 hours.

Porsche’s own effort for Le Mans in 1979 focused on the 936 prototype, which ultimately flopped with uncharacteristic reliability issues. However, no fewer than fourteen 935s were entered by Porsche’s loyal customer base. In a race where only twenty-two of the fifty-five starters made it to the finish, Porsche’s armada of privateer 935s ensured the Stuttgart factory swept the podium.

Kremer’s enhanced Porsche 935 K3 lorded it over the other 935s in qualifying. Only the works Essex Porsche 936 prototypes were slightly quicker. Paul Newman’s #70 Dick Barbour Racing entry languished fifteen seconds off the pace of Ludwig in the Whittington’s Kremer machine.

Although Don and Bill Whittington paid handsomely for the privilege to compete with the Kremer team, Manfred Kremer insisted that Klaus Ludwig start the race. A logical decision considering Ludwig’s fifteen-year experience at the top of the sport. However, Bill Whittington had other ideas. When brother Don suggested that Bill start the race, Manfred Kremer strongly refused. After all, Kremer owned the car and Ludwig was comfortably the faster driver. “How much is the car?” came the reply from a determined Don Whittington.

A worryingly short amount of time later, Don Whittington appeared with a suitcase stuffed with $290,000 in cash, twice the value of the 935 K3, and handed it to the Kremers. Bill Whittington would start the race.

Luckily for Bill Whittington, the race started in clear weather, but the night brought the peril of fog and heavy rain. Although Ludwig had been side-lined for the start, the German star exhibited his guile and prowess through the pivotal hours of darkness. Ludwig’s astounding stint through a sodden Le Mans night built a comfortable lead which proved useful when dawn broke.

While Ludwig and the Kremer 935 K3 charged ahead, Dick Barbour’s trio quietly chipped away. Newman, Barbour and Stommelen, rotated regularly with one-hour stints. A clever ploy to conserve the energy required to guide their seven-hundred horsepower Porsche 935 through the monsoon.

By morning, the #41 Kremer 935 K3 looked for victory on its maiden outing. Despite the fact the car had completed just thirty-nine laps of testing at the Nurburgring. However, Le Circuit de la Sarthe can haunt the leading car whenever she chooses. With Don Whittington on board, the 935 K3’s timing belt ripped and left the American stranded in the pouring rain on the Mulsanne straight. Long before the days of full course cautions and slow zones, the remaining cars screamed by at over 200 miles per hour. To say Whittington was in a precarious position would be an understatement.

Watching a seemingly certain win leak away, Whittington toiled in the dirt, furiously fixing his stricken Porsche. After several failed attempts, Whittington eventually botched a repair and limped to the pits where the Kremer mechanics jumped into action.

While this calamity ensued, Paul Newman and the Dick Barbour crew snuck up on the leading Whittington car. By the twenty-second hour, the #70 Hawaiian Tropic Porsche 935, caked in grime, took the lead of the race. Could the star of ‘The Hustler’ and ‘Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid’ pull off victory on his debut at Le Mans?

Sadly, it would be a deflating anti-climax for Newman and the plucky Dick Barbour Racing outfit. At the final scheduled pit stop with an hour remaining, Barbour’s mechanics discovered a seizure which required the entire front left suspension to be replaced. Pushing flat out to catch up, one of the 935’s cylinders cried enough, forcing Rolf Stommelen to coax the car home in second place.

Both the Smugglers and the Movie Star endured their fair share of struggles to reach the finish of the gruelling 24-hour classic, but it would be the Whittingtons who prevailed. However, their race with the law would eventually throw the chequered flag on their extravagances.

Paul Newman never returned to race at Le Mans. A private man who longed to race in peace, Newman felt the frenzy surrounding his attendance at Le Mans stripped away his enjoyment of taking part. However, the Holywood megastar’s enthusiasm for racing never waned.

Newman raced on past his eightieth birthday, becoming the oldest racer in history to compete at the Daytona 24 hours. In fact, the national treasure became the oldest winner in Daytona 24-hour history, a week after his seventieth birthday in 1995. Families all over the world continue to share Newman’s love for racing through the much loved ‘Cars’ animated movies. Immortalised in the voice of Doc Hudson, Newman’s gravely tones live on.

Bill Whittington pled guilty to filing false tax returns to cover the proceeds of marijuana smuggling operation. He was sentenced to fifteen years in prison in March 1986 but released in November

1990. In connection with the case, Don Whittington pled guilty to tax fraud and was jailed for eighteen months.

In 2013, law enforcement agents raided the Fort Lauderdale offices of the Whittington’s private aviation firm, World Jet Inc. A DEA affidavit alleged that World Jet had leased jets at inflated prices to known drug traffickers and laundered proceeds through their hotel in Pagoda Springs. Don Whittington was never charged with any crime in connection with this investigation.

Bill Whittington was convicted of tax evasion in 2018 and sentenced to eighteen months in prison as part of a plea agreement. Whittington failed to declare $9.7 million of investment income from two offshore bank accounts in Lichtenstein.

Although Paul Newman fell agonisingly short of toppling the illicitly funded Whittington’s and their dominant Kremer 935 K3, the actor turner racer will be remembered fondly.

Don and Bill Whittington won fair and square on the track at Le Mans in 1979, but the money in which funded their effort was as dirty as the bodywork of the twenty-two cars that made the finish on that horribly wet day.