Ronnie Bucknum and NASCAR regular, Dick Hutcherson, teamed up to drive the #5 Holman Moody-entered Mk II. Bucknum had been to Le Mans the year prior, driving the Scuderia Filipinetti GT40. Hutcherson had plenty of miles under his belt since Ford had hired their NASCAR drivers to help test the Mk IIs reliability. However, the American had never raced in the rain... and the Le Mans 24 Hours is rarely a dry event from start to finish.
Right from the start, Bucknum pushed the pace. The #5 car moved steadily up the field from ninth to third in the first hour. He held his own amongst the race leaders, moving up to and spending a good deal of time right behind the leading #7 Mk II of Graham Hill. As the race progressed, the American duo held their own. However, when the rain began to fall on Hutcherson he immediately wanted out of the car! John Holman urged him to just take it easy and 'just keep it on the road, Hutch.' Running down the Mulsanne at over 200mph... in the rain... at night... he wondered what he was doing, risking life and limb!
As night turned to day, the #5 Holman Moody entry was sitting pretty. Twelve laps behind the Miles/Hulme and McLaren/Amon cars and nine laps ahead of the fourth place Porsche, the team knew they only had to endure the final hours. And so they did, flying in formation with their Ford teammates during the final laps to round out a 1-2-3 photo finish!
