earlier and was quoted by a colleague as having said its power "scared the pants off me". Porsche racing manager Rico Steinemann was quoted as having pled with Woolfe before the race to allow his works-driver teammate Herbert Linge to drive the first stint, but he demurred. Woolfe crashed approaching Maison Blanche when he got two wheels on the grass and lost control. He was thrown free of the car as it spun, rolled, hit an embankment, and exploded. Woolfe was taken by helicopter to a nearby hospital, but was dead on arrival. The nearly full fuel tank from Woolfe's car became dislodged and landed, burning, in front of the oncoming Ferrari 312P of Chris Amon. Amon ran over it, and Woolfe's fuel tank jammed underneath causing Amon's to rupture and explode as well. Amon set off the on-board fire extinguisher and was uninjured but forced to retire the car. Debris virtually blocked the road and a number of cars were affected including the Healey, Gardner's Ford and Jabouille's Alpine. The rest of the field was virtually halted and slowly picked its way through the carnage. Stommelen led the race to the first pitstops, leading a train of five Porsches (Stommelen, Elford, Siffert, Mitter, Herrmann). Bonnier's Lola was sixth, but then Stommelen was delayed by oil leaking from the transmission. Gardner brought the Alan Mann Ford in several times with overheating because debris from the accident had holed the radiator. Jo Siffert and Brian Redman took over the lead until they too were crippled by an oil-leak in the gearbox after four hours. This moved the Elford/Attwood 917 to the lead, ahead of the other 908 team cars of Mitter/Schütz, Herrmann/Larrousse and Lins/Kauhsen, pursued by the Matra of Beltoise/Courage then the Wyer Ford of Ickx/Oliver in 6th. In the sixth hour a number of cars had problems: Herrmann was delayed for 20 minutes repairing the front suspension with parts from Siffert's car (dropping to 12th), and the Matra lost two laps fixing a faulty rear light. The leading Alpine of de Cortanze/Vinatier (running 11th) lost a wheel at Indianapolis corner. With a large crowd of observers he 'fortuitously' found the right tools on the grass verge but dropped well back. The Matra was being raced very hard and by dusk, at 9pm, had made it up to second only to be delayed repeatedly by slow pitwork. Night As night fell,