There was a time not that long ago when “911” didn’t mean emergency or tragedy. It meant the Porsche 911, just about the fastest sports car out there.
There was a time not that long ago too – before ultramarathoning and extreme sports – when the 24 Hours of Le Mans was arguably the most grueling event on the sporting calendar. The most famous Grand Prix race, Le Mans was designed not for speed but rather to see which cars could cover the most ground in a 24-hour span.
Very few sportsmen – if any – blended “Porsche” and “racing” to the degree of success that Al Holbert did.
June 19 marked the 40th anniversary of Holbert’s first win at Le Mans; his Porsche team covered over 3,100 miles in the span. Warrington’s Holbert would win Le Mans two more times before his tragic death cut short a career that, though truncated, still stands among the all-time greats.
Holbert’s father Bob opened the second Porsche dealership in the United States – on 611 in Warrington – when Al was just 6 years old. Al literally was surrounded by fast cars his entire life; Bob also was a noted sports car racer.
Al Holbert graduated from Central Bucks High, and then from Lehigh in 1968 with a mechanical engineering degree. He worked under racing legend Roger Penske while studying on South Mountain.
Holbert’s versatility as a racer was nearly unprecedented. He was a five-time IMSA (International Motor Sports Association) series champion with 49 career race wins; that was a record when Holbert’s career ended. He is just the second racer to have won the Triple Crown of Endurance Racing twice – Le Mans, the 12 Hours of Sebring and the 24 Hours of Daytona.
“Things that he taught me are still with me today. And he taught me as a person too. Honestly, when I heard he had died, it was crushing,” two-time Indy 500 champion Al Unser Jr. told Auto Week in 2018. “He was more than just a friend ... Al was the closest Penske-like car owner I ever worked with. His equipment, his preparation and his desire to win.”
Holbert logged four top 10 finishes in the NASCAR circuit, while also finishing fourth in the 1984 Indianapolis 500 – the lone year he raced Indy Cars. From 1979 to 1982, Holbert won 10 times on the highly competitive Can-Am circuit. In 2016, Car and Driver called Can-Am “the greatest racing series ever.”
His racing resume alone is superlative. In 1993, Holbert was inducted into both the International Motor Sports Hall of Fame and the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America. Yet he was also a businessman who was able to see the entire spectrum of racing. Holbert served as Porsche’s first director of North American Motorsports, launched Porsche’s first IndyCar team and also ran several Porsche dealerships.
In November 2021, Porsche renamed their Carrera Cup North America racing series trophy the Al Holbert Cup. “This award recognizes the true racing spirit of Al Holbert conveying his professional driver’s skill, engineer’s precision and a gentleman racer’s passion,” Porsche stated.
“Gentleman” is a word that surfaces repeatedly in conversations about Holbert. He was a born-again Christian and a strong supporter of Motorsports Ministries, an organization that provided the racing community with chapel services during weekend competitions. He was a devoted family man to his wife Joy, son Todd and daughter Laura.
“Al was a fierce competitor. In fact, he was kind of a wild man. Pretty rowdy,” recalled Hurley Haywood, the other Endurance Triple Crown winner, to Auto Week. “Then he met Joy and became a born-again Christian. Al was always a gentleman on the race track. You loved driving against and with him. His engineering knowledge was phenomenal. He was so smart in and out of the race car.”
Holbert was heading back to Doylestown to see his family on Sept. 30, 1988, six weeks shy of his 42nd birthday. A private pilot, Holbert left Columbus after watching his two Porsche 962 entries qualify in the Columbus Ford Dealers 500, a race in the GTP series. Holbert’s team had been the defending three-peat series champions.
A door flew open in Holbert’s private Piper aircraft soon after takeoff and in his attempt to return to Columbus airport, the plane fatally crashed.
One month prior to Porsche renaming their championship racing series cup, the Holbert family received another posthumous honor: the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission dedicated a familiar blue and gold plaque to Al Holbert near the intersection of 611 and Bristol Road.
If you happened to be speeding by so fast that you missed it, don’t worry. Holbert would smile and understand.
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