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Lake Underwood

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Lake Underwood (born 1926) is an American entrepreneur who competed in the racing of prototype automobiles and motorcycles. Underwood attained the world championship of motorcycle racing for several years before beginning to compete in what is considered the premier tier of international automobile racing. He also invented automobile improvements, especially in electronics for German automobiles. Lake Underwood is one of the founders of the Watkins Glen Racing School where he taught racecar driving skills. He trained Paul Newman to drive race cars for the 1969 movie about that type of racing—Winning—which sparked Newman's lifetime enthusiasm for the motorsport.

Porsche Club of America identified Lake Underwood as one of four race car drivers who established Porsche as the giant killer in the early days of its racing in the USA. Carroll Shelby described Lake Underwood as one of the top ten drivers in the USA and in #122 September 2003, Excellence:The Magazine About Porsche, named Lake Underwood as Porsche's Quiet Giant in an extensive article on his driving history.

Biography

He was born into the family of a physicist who worked on the heavy water project in the development of atomic energy and in the Manhattan Project. After serving as an aviator in World War Two, Lake Underwood attended Lehigh University. He opened automobile dealerships in Maplewood, New Jersey where he dealt with the direct importer of Jaguar, Mercedes Benz, Porsche, Volkswagen, and Fiat—Max Hoffman, who was renowned for handshake deals in direct contacts with the manufacturers of the foreign vehicles, rather than the American model of contracts.

Racing history

Lake Underwood began sports car racing in MGs initially, but soon was piloting a vehicle powered by a Porsche 356 engine loaned to him by the inventor, Ben Shereshaw, who owned a 1952 Porsche Supercar. Porsche factory disk brakes—not used on production vehicles at the time—were adapted for the vehicle by Dick DeBiasse. Managers at Porsche recognized that racing in American circuits could increase sales and they chose Underwood and his team to become the recipients of engineering tips from the factory and factory equipment. Underwood became a founding member of the Northern New Jersey chapter of the Porsche Club of America and he is among the few ever invited to join the Road Racing Drivers Club. He maintained friendships with others driving both motorcycles and Porsches, such as Mark Donohue, Steve McQueen, George Mennen, and Stirling Moss.

Lake Underwood raced in Class F, F-Production, FP, in SCCA, at Indianapolis in the Indy 500 of the Indy Racing League, and prototypes in the Grand Prix motor racing circuit in Formula One racing of Maseratis, factory Jaguars, Jaguar D-Types, and both Costin and Knobby Lister Jaguars for Briggs Swift Cunningham II, Porsche 356s, Porsche 550 spyders, Porsche 718s, and on the Cunningham Team in Porsche 904s and Porsche 906s.

Aerial view of the Sebring Raceway, courtesy of the Florida Photographic Collection
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Aerial view of the Sebring Raceway, courtesy of the Florida Photographic Collection
He was following Don Wester when Don's automobile struck Mario Andretti's at Sebring in 1966 and Underwood had to drive blindly through the tragic accident scene where four spectators were killed after they entered a prohibited area and were struck by Wester’s vehicle that Underwood estimated was going 140 mph at the time. Previously  at 12 Hours of Sebring in 1964, Briggs Cunningham and Lake Underwood drove the silver Porsche 904 GTS, Number 37, to capture first place in P3.0 for the race car—during its debut racing season—good photographs of the automobile taken by Bill Kutz are accessible via the external link provided below to the Internet site of racingsportscars.com, which has posted many historic photographs of the automobiles that participated in that event and data of interest to enthusiasts.

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