Lake Underwood

Lake C. Underwood died at the age of eighty-two in Roseland, New Jersey, on September 12, 2008.

Porsche Club of America identified Underwood as one of four race car drivers who established Porsche as "the giant killer" in the early days of its racing in the United States. Carroll Shelby described him as one of the top ten drivers in the U.S. and in September 2003, Excellence: The Magazine About Porsche, named Lake Underwood as Porsche's Quiet Giant in an extensive article on some of his driving history.

Underwood was 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.

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.

In 1965 Lake Underwood raced in 12 Hours of Sebring for the Porsche factory. Co-driver, Günter 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.

At 12 Hours of Sebring in 1964, Briggs Cunningham and Lake Underwood drove their jointly owned silver Porsche 904 GTS, Number 37, to capture first place in under-2-liter (prototype class) 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.

Underwood also was an accomplished all-around sportsman in aviation, boating, hiking, hunting, offshore game fishing, tennis, and skiing. Deep water fishing was 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. He also became a patron of the conservation organization, Friends of Seagate Inc., through his close relationship with its founder, Kafi Benz.

Underwood became a founding member of the Northern New Jersey Region chapter [1] of the Porsche Club of America, serving as its second president. By nomination in 1957, he is among the few ever invited to join the Road Racing Drivers Club, serving as its president as well. He maintained friendships with others driving both motorcycles and Porsches, such as Mark Donohue, George Mennen, and Stirling Moss.

He won two F-Production National Championships in 1956 and 1957 with one of the "bathtub" Porsches. Driving a Lister Jaguar, he finished sixth in his class at the 1959 12 Hours of Sebring. After switching to a larger engine in his Porsche in 1963, Underwood won his third F-Production National Championship.

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, (the founder of AER Research in Madison, New Jersey) who was able to reduce the weight of the parts without altering their effectiveness—giving the vehicle a distinct competitive advantage.

Lake Underwood (July 4, 1926 – September 12, 2008) was an American entrepreneur who competed as a champion in the racing of prototype automobiles and motorcycles. He was 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.