fourth. However, a broken fuel-injection pump forced their retirement mid-morning. The Corvette retired with a broken conrod while leading the GT category. Bucknum and Hawkins, early race-leaders, had driven hard to get back up to 6th after their overnight delay when they were finally halted by engine issues at 9.40am. So by 10am, the three-quarter mark, there were only 16 cars still running. Gurney and Foyt had already covered 293 laps, twenty more than McLaren and Amon had the previous year at the same time. With a decent lead, the leading Ford could afford to drop its lap times by 30 seconds a lap. Even though the Ferraris were lapping 10 seconds a lap faster and could go 20% further between fuel-stops, they were unable to make significant inroads, and the remaining quarter of the race was largely uneventful. Finish and post-race In the end it was a comfortable victory for the all-American Ford with Gurney and Foyt winning by four laps, having led for all but the first 90 minutes of the race. Theirs was the only one of the ten Fords that did not have any issues throughout the race. Perhaps surprisingly for such a big engine, they also won the Index of Thermal Efficiency from their record distance covered. Ferrari salvaged some pride after the previous year's debacle with second and third, with McLaren/Donohue fighting back to fourth. Siffert and Herrmann were 5th in their Porsche 2-litre, covering just 12 km less than the 1966 winners. They led home four more Porsches including Pon/Elford in 7th, being the first Group 4 car home. The privateer Porsche in 8th just beat the Alpine of Grandsire/Rosinski who won the 1300-class. The Swiss Ferrari GTB of Spoerry/Steinemann was the first GT home, coming 11th, nine laps ahead of the French 911. The Austin-Healey, perennial finishers, was the only British car to make it to the end, in 15th. The little Abarth, after a race bedevilled by issues, did finish (in last place) but had not completed enough laps to be classified. When the winners mounted the victory stand, Gurney was handed the traditional magnum of champagne. Looking down, he saw Ford CEO Henry Ford II, team owner Carroll Shelby, their wives, and several journalists who had predicted disaster for the high-profile duo of Gurney and Foyt. They had said that the two drivers, who were strongly competitive in the United