How Hurley Haywood overcame tragedy to win at Sebring '81

“I don’t think anybody really understood mental health at that time, the issues that he was going through,” says Haywood.

“We all knew that something was wrong. He was taking medication, but Peter always thought that he was smarter than medication. So in a lot of cases, he didn’t take it.”

After a period of estrangement, the two finally met up again in late 1980.

“Peter called me up as though nothing had happened,” said Haywood. “He’d met a girl called Deborah and had married her very quickly, a few days before. He said she was cooking lunch and why didn’t I come over?”

“It was a total surprise. I went over, everything was totally cordial, and we had a really nice lunch. Peter was full of plans for the future. He was planning to go Indy racing with me as the driver, he had it all mapped out. Next morning he went to a shop, bought a gun, walked onto the beach and shot himself.”

Looking back upon the event, Haywood feels that even without the widespread lack of mental health awareness, there isn’t a huge amount he could have done to intervene.

“We didn’t really understand what the signs were that say: ‘This guy needs some help.’ And even if we did, I seriously doubt whether Peter would have taken that advice,” he says.

“Peter always thought he was smart enough to deal with it on his own, in his own way. But we now know that that was not the case.”

Loyal to his friend, Haywood helped Gregg’s family the best he could after his passing, but in terms of his own self-preservation, the endurance legend turned to what he knew best for therapy: racing.

First after Gregg’s death was 1981 Daytona 24 Hours, which ended in a DNF. Next up was Sebring. His friend’s loss was still very much at the forefront of his mind as the visor came down.

“It was difficult, because we had lost Peter and everybody felt it. He was a pretty significant reason why I got some early success and so not having him there was kind of a really weird, weird feeling,” says Haywood.

“But we pressed on – everybody deals with those kind of losses in their own way.

“Racing is a wonderful mask for things that are going on.”

“We pressed on – everybody deals with those kind of losses in their own way”

Haywood was entered at Sebring in ‘81 with an associate of Gregg’s, team owner Bruce Leven. Leven was also driving as an amateur, with three-time Le Mans winner and IMSA legend Al Holbert making up the trio, entered in a Porsche 935/80.

“Al was a dream to drive with,” Haywood remembers. “He always did a monumental job, he was always good to the car, he understood the mechanics behind them. He would be one of my top picks to drive with.

“Bruce was very adequate, he didn’t make mistakes but he was an amateur driver. So, in a race like Sebring, all the owners had their own agreement where they would do one or two middle stints, and then that usually was enough for them – they were competitive with each other.

“This happened to me once, when I was leading a group of five 956s. We all missed the turn and everybody ended up in knee-high grass!

“It was amazing that nobody hit each other, but we had to sit there for a minute or two and figure out where the racetrack was. That was a shot of adrenaline – a real eye-opener!”

Haywood’s rise and entering into endurance legend has been synonymous with Porsche, and the 935/80 the Leven team was driving at Sebring was particularly to his liking.

“It was a beast, but it was fun to drive. Every driver I think had his own style of coping with a 991 car which had a lot of horsepower.

“The engine was in the rear, and it was somewhat tricky to drive. It was always a challenge to get the setup right, but once the setup was good, and you had a good crew chief that understood all that kind of stuff, the cars were really, really fast and very fun to drive.”

Once the race got underway, Haywood said it became clear their car was well suited to Sebring.

“Bruce’s cars were always pretty radical on the body work,” he says. “The body style worked at Sebring, had a lot of downforce but was still very fast on the straightaways.”

Despite the pace advantage, Haywood comments that you were always reminded of which racetrack you were on.

“The surface was brutal on the car and the suspension – every point on the car was stressed” he tells us.

“It was a pretty tough and intense race. We went back and forth from first, to third or fourth and then caught up again.

“Al and myself did most of the driving. We just kept the pedal to the metal, survived and won.

“It was a good race. When you’re in a race like that, even if you’re not on the podium, just finishing is an accomplishment.”

After victory at Sebring, Haywood would go on to make more endurance history. Two more wins at Le Mans were added to an eventual joint-record five Daytona wins.

However, he says the pain of losing his friend with his friend Gregg stayed with him, dealing it in the same way as other difficulties he encountered in his life – compartmentalising it, as so many drivers of the era did

“When I broke my leg at Mosport in 1983, the race car was the only place that I could go and not think about the pain that I was in, because you were so focused on what you were doing,” says Haywood.

“It’s the same thing with a loss of a friend or somebody that’s important. After the race is over, it’s a different story.”