1957 12 Hours of Sebring

rdf:langString 1957 12 Hours of Sebring

rdf:langString World Sportscar Championship

rdf:langString The 1957 12-Hour Florida International Grand Prix of Endurance for The Amoco Trophy took place on 23 March, on the Sebring International Raceway, (Florida, United States). It was the second round of the F.I.A. World Sports Car Championship. This was sixth running of the 12-hour race, and with the growing popularity of sports car racing in post World War II America, the event was finally coming into its own since its creation in 1952. Besides the governor of Florida, LeRoy Collins, who proclaimed March 18–23, 1957 as International Sports Car Race Week, thus gaining additional media attention for the event, the people of New York and Detroit were well aware of the significance of this race. For weeks leading up to the event, national newspapers and magazines who fed the public's interest by reporting on the international celebrities who would drive in it, like Marquis de Portago of Spain and Count Wolfgang von Trips of Germany. Just days before the race, the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile issued an appendix to its rules concerning the race, mandating that during the first tyre change, the team had to use the spare tyre that all the cars were required to carry. While this did not affect the Corvette and some other cars, but for the Ferrari and Maserati, it was a major problem, as on their cars, the wheel on the front and rear of the cars were of different sizes. Ferrari's Peter Collins, a representative from Maserati and the organiser, then met with the FIA to discuss this problem. Collins told the press that these changes were in violation of FIA's own rules concerning how such changes were adopted. Supposedly any rule changes had to be unanimously approved by all the competitors or it is rejected. It is assumed that this argument carried the day with the FIA, and the race saved. The even-vocal Collins also had a few words to say about the use of 55-gallon oil drums outlining the track. Despite the Englishman protested that their use was "very, very dangerous..." and that they should be "banned", Sebring continued to use them for several more years.