1984: Kreepy Krauly

Ken Howes did not have great expectations when he took his new Kreepy Krauly team to Daytona Beach for the first time to race in the 1984 Rolex 24 – then known as the SunBank 24.
Little did he know that the event would have a profound effect on his future career.
Daytona Beach was just a dot on the map for Kreepy Krauly Racing before that event. Most of the Atlanta-based team had never been there before – and the team even struggled to find the entrance to the speedway.
The team was owned by Kreepy Krauly, a South African manufacturer of pool cleaning equipment. The team bought a year-old Porsche-powered March 83G from reigning Camel GT champion Al Holbert, and Howes – along with drivers Sarel van der Merwe, Graham Duxbury and Tony Martin – had very modest expectations entering the event
“We were not expecting to be around long,” Howes recalled. “We knew very little about Daytona – only Sarel had been there before – and the car had never even finished a three-hour race up until that point.”
So the team decided to make a strong first impression – even if it would be a short one.
“We thought we would make the best show we could while we were running,” Howes said. “That’s why there was that big battle up front with the Andretti Porsche and our car. We figured at five or six o’clock we’d be done and loading up.”
The Andretti entry was the first example of the Porsche 962, driven by the legendary Mario Andretti and his son, future Indy car star Michael. Other top entries among the 18 Camel GT Prototypes included a pair of Group 44 Jaguars – one with Brian Redman at the wheel – along with four Marches, four Lolas and a pair of Aston Martins.
Not surprisingly, the elder Andretti captured the pole position in the plain white No. 1 Porsche 962, followed van der Merwe by the surprising No. 00 Kreepy Krauly entry.
Andretti took the lead at the waving of the green flag, with the persistent No. 00 attacking like it was a sprint race.
Various problems then took their toll on the lead cars. The Kreepy Krauly team ran out of fuel due to an electrical problem at the eight-hour mark and fell back, while A.J. Foyt and Hurley Haywood’s Porsche 935s ran up front.
Then, both Porsches had problems. When the Bruce Leven car of Haywood and Holbert went behind the wall at 1:30 a.m. with 14 hours remaining, the Kreepy Krauly team was back up front.
They never looked back. Van der Merwe, Duxbury and Martin led the remainder of the race, winning by nine laps.
“We were in shock,” Howes recalled. “We were also worn out – we hadn’t slept in a week.  I guess you can say we had beginner’s luck. We ran out of gas once, and the gearshift knob came off, but other than that, we had no real problems.”
Finding the way to the gate at victory lane opened many other doors for Howes, who is now Hendrick Motorsports vice president of competition.
“The Rolex 24 victory had everything to do with this,” Howes explained. “We managed to run the full series in 1984 and started out 1985 but ran into sponsorship problems. It just happened at that time that GM wanted to run that Corvette, and it was fortunate that we were able to oblige.”
NASCAR Sprint Cup Series car owner Rick Hendrick was assisting GM with the Corvette GTP, and he offered Howes the opportunity to manage the team. When that program ended in 1989, Howes joined Hendrick’s three-car NASCAR team. He worked his way up the ladder from Ken Schrader’s crew chief to manager of the team’s research and development program. He was named competition director in 2001, and elevated to vice president of competition in 2005.