Lake Underwood

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Lake Underwood in 1963 at Bridgehampton road course [1] when he won first place in Class E of SCCA
Lake Underwood in 1963 at Bridgehampton road course [1] when he won first place in Class E of SCCA

Lake Underwood (born 1926) is an American entrepreneur who competed in the racing of prototype automobiles and motorcycles. He is a master mechanic who, although high performance fuel delivery and carburetor design and mechanics were his specialties, 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 participated in the training of Paul Newman to drive race cars for the 1969 movie—Winning—which sparked Newman's lifetime enthusiasm for the motorsport. Bob Sharp gave the driving lessons.

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 U.S. 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.

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[edit] Biography

He was born into the family of mechanical engineers who worked on the heavy water project in the development of atomic energy and in the Manhattan Project. After serving as a flight crew airman in the United States Navy during World War II, Lake Underwood was graduated from Lehigh University. He opened automobile dealerships in Maplewood, New Jersey where he dealt with the direct importer of Jaguar, Mercedes-Benz, Porsche, and Volkswagen—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.

[edit] 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 Region chapter of the Porsche Club of America and—by nomination in 1957—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, George Mennen, and Stirling Moss.

Lake Underwood raced in Class F, F-Production, FP, in SCCA, factory Jaguars, Jaguar D-Types, and Costin Lister Jaguars for Briggs Swift Cunningham II, Porsche 356s, Porsche 550 spyders, and on the Cunningham Team in Porsche 904s and Porsche 906s.

In 1965 Lake Underwood raced in 12 Hours of Sebring for the Porsche factory. Co-driver, Gunther Klass, and Underwood drove a 904 GT in the race and they won first in under-2-liter GT class, fifth overall, and first overall in the prestigious Index of Performance.

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 under-2-liter and ninth overall 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.

[edit] Other sports

Underwood also is an accomplished all-around sportsman in aviation, boating, hiking, hunting, offshore game fishing, and skiing. Deep water fishing is a favorite pastime combined with boating. An excellent marksman, he completed his American sheep and mountain goat grand slam while hiking in the high Rockies and in the Alaska Range during the 1960s, before becoming an advocate of conservation, wildlife management, and habitat conservation.

[edit] External links