From gas station owner in 1954 to leading Le Mans in 1967, sports car racer Scooter Patrick enjoyed an amazing career. Perhaps best remembered for his prowess and speed at the wheel of Otto Zipper’s many Porsches in the ’60s, Patrick also enjoyed racing success in a wide variety of racecars including the Shelby-owned Toyota 2000GTs, James Garner’s Lola T70 and L-88 Corvettes, as well as F5000s and notching up the last Can-Am victory of the mighty McLaren juggernaut. Casey Annis recently sat down with Patrick to explore his remarkable career and his surprising relationship with mentor Ken Miles.
How did you get started in racing?
Patrick: It must have been about 1954. I had a new ’53 MG TD and I used to go to the races with a bunch of my friends from the beach. Then I got a ’54 Jag XK120 Roadster and went into partnership in a gas station in Venice with a guy by the name of Bill Atkins who had a brand-new 300SL Gullwing. At that time, he and I were running in an organization called RRTA, which was run by a guy by the name of Mac McGraw, out of Colton, and it stood for Road Race Training Association. We used to run time trials at places like Willow Springs and Del Mar and we had instructors like Ken Miles and Sam Hanks. I was taking care of a friend’s 356 Speedster and we used to run it in the time trials and at the end of the day we had kinda, I don’t know what you want to call them, heat races, or whatever, and I got kinda pegged as having the same type of driving style, I guess you’d call it, as Ken Miles at the time. And Ken became interested in what I was doing and spent a little extra time with me.
About that same time I hooked up with Hans Adam and Don Mitchell and we formed PAM Foreign Car Service down in Manhattan Beach. We bought an old 550 Spyder, which we proceeded to cut up and basically throw the chassis away. In hindsight that was a million-dollar mistake but in ’58 there was no thought for that! Anyway, we won two Pacific Coast championships in, it was either under 1500 or E-Modified—it might have been one of each, two years in a row. In the end, we couldn’t really afford to go outside the area and kind of hung it up after ’62. For about seven months, I didn’t do anything—I guess you call it “retired.” Then, I got a call from Otto Zipper who wanted to know if I wanted to go to Sebring in ’64. This is probably toward the end of ’63. So that was the year that Davey Jordan and I drove one of the first 904s that was in private hands at Sebring in ’64.
Had you known Otto very long before that or did his offer come from out of the blue?
Patrick: I knew Otto because he was president of the Cal Club and was on the board of governors and I went through that whole thing with the big fight between Cal Club and SCCA, with one banning the other and all that nonsense in the ’50s and early ’60s. One of the last things that I accomplished in the 550 Special that we made was at Pomona—I believe it was late ’60—when we were able to beat Ken Miles in the under-2-liter and Ken was driving a brand-new RS 60 that Otto owned. Soon thereafter, Ken went to Shelby, which caused a conflict of interest between the Cobras and the Porsches. He obviously couldn’t drive for Otto, so Otto asked Ken who he would suggest, if anybody, to replace him and Ken suggested me. And that’s how Otto and I got together and we spent over 12 years together in 904s, 906s, 910 and two Alfas, and ended up having a better success rate than he and Ken had for the years that Ken was with him.
Ken was pretty instrumental in your becoming a professional racecar driver then?
Patrick: Yes, he was, there was no question about it and one of the big, I can say, semi-disappointments in my life was a race I had with Ken at Laguna Seca in, I want to say ’67. Anyway, we both were to race matching Porsche 906s. Ken had just come back from that controversial Le Mans finish thing that he was involved in with Ford and was going to run the second car at Laguna with me. I’d been running ’em all along and had quite a bit more experience in ’em, not that that really made a whole lot of difference in my opinion, because I know from my standpoint I was always able to adapt to cars rather quickly and I’m sure Ken did too. But, in any event, I was a little concerned about this event since he was a sort of mentor to me and this was going to be the first time the two of us raced each other in the same car. So I went to Otto and asked him about it and he brought us both together and said, “Here’s what we’re going to do. There’s no rule as to who’s going to win or finish ahead of the other, but if you can’t do it cleanly, don’t do it and whoever’s ahead is ahead and that’s it.” I said, “Yeah, well that’s OK with me, I don’t have a problem with that, that’s fine.”
So we went out and started qualifying and in the under-2-liter category, why I’d get on the pole and then Ken would go back out and he’d get the pole by 2 or 3/10ths and then I’d go back out and I’d get the pole away from him. Well, this went on, I don’t know, four or five times, something like that, and I finally thought, “You know, this is dumb.” We’re not paid anything for pole, payday’s tomorrow. Who cares which of us is on the pole? So I ended up 2nd on the grid against him. Well, my experience paid off in the respect that we were still doing standing starts and I had a lot more experience in that car in standing starts than he did. So at the start, I jumped him and was out in front and I was there for, I don’t know, 10 or 12 laps I guess, something like that. And I made, in hindsight, what was probably a mistake, going into Turn 9; he was fairly close to me and I didn’t protect the line. I didn’t figure I had to. So I went over to the right, getting ready to turn in and as I turned in, I saw, out of the corner of my eye, Ken coming down on my left side all locked up. He hit me in the left rear tire, spun me out into the hay bales at 9. So I got started again, and of course I’m pissed. He was just going over the hill when I got started and I am pissed and I took off after him. Fortunately for both of us, after about 3 laps, I was just on top of him. So it was one of those adrenalin shots. It ended up the last two laps that I ran with the car I was almost a full second faster than he’d qualified. And my full intention was to, if you’re that familiar with Laguna, the old course, as you go under that bridge out of Turn 2 toward the hill—in those days there was nothing out there but dirt and a bank and the tops of trees that were probably 50 feet tall. And I had every intention of just trying to slide him right off the racetrack there. That’s what I was going to do. I don’t know why, but I was that mad. And fortunately, before I could get that close to him, coming out of Turn 8, that engine blew so high it was ridiculous and I coasted into the pits. All the while this was going on Otto was out there on the pit wall shaking one of those copper knock-off hammers at Ken when he came by. Otto was upset big time. So, I got out of the car and parked and Otto didn’t say anything but I knew he was mad and he knew I was mad but Ken ended up winning the under-2-liter.
After the whole thing was all over, we were standing behind the trailer; Otto was there and Ken was there. I looked at Ken and I said, “Ken, I don’t appreciate what you did.” And I said, “Fortunately, I blew up before I did what I had in mind, but I’m here to tell you right now, I’m younger than you are. I got more time in these things than you do, and I respect everything you’ve done for me. But if you ever do something like that to me again, I will guarantee you that I will take you out somewhere and you’re gonna have a hospital ride. As long as you understand that, it’s just fine.” And he never said a word. And unfortunately things happen. [Miles died soon thereafter in a testing accident, Ed.] We never ran again together. But, that was probably one of the greatest disappointments in my life.
The rest of this article can be found in the November 2006 issue of Vintage Racecar.
