1977; Jacky Ickx wins his fourth Le Mans, in a Porsche 936 turbo, with co-drivers Jurgen Barth and Hurley Haywood.(50th Anniversary countdown)

Making their first U.S. competition appearances at the Daytona 24 Hours are the Ferrari Boxer, the Chevrolet Monza V8, the BMW 320i and the Lancia Stratos.

A.J. Foyt wins his fourth Indy 500, 10 years after his third. Janet Guthrie, the first woman to qualify for the 500, drops out when her car spills fuel into the cockpit. That's when she learns there's no shower for women drivers at Indy.

Hal Sperlich leaves Ford after 20 years to become vice president of product design and planning at Chrysler. Henry Ford II creates a three-person "office of the executive,'' promoting Phil Caldwell to equal rank with Lee Iacocca. The other shoe won't drop until 1978.

Shadow Formula One driver Tom Pryce dies in a freak accident at the South African GP at Kyalami when his car strikes a turn marshal running across the track to fight a fire. The impact kills the marshal; the fire extinguisher he is carrying hits Pryce in the head.

Crain Communications buys Autoweek. "Few changes'' are forecast. One will be in our name, with the W getting promoted to upper-case. Keith Crain hires Bob Irvin, the top auto reporter in Detroit newspapers, and puts him in charge of both AW and sister publication Automotive News. Irvin works in Detroit, though the rest of AW is still in Reno, where Dutch Mandel toils as editorial assistant under associate editors Charles Cannon and Cory Farley. Most racing coverage now appears behind the classified ads, allowing AW to publish later news about both racing and the industry.

Canadian Walter Wolf launches an F1 team and hires 26-year-old Jody Scheckter to drive the Wolf, designed by Harvey Postlethwaite. It's the first all-new car to win its maiden race (the season-opening Argentine GP) since the Lotus 49 in 1967.

In one of the most competitive F1 races ever, Mario Andretti battles wheel-to-wheel with Niki Lauda and Scheckter to win the U.S. Grand Prix West. Driving a JPS-Lotus, Andretti is the first American to win an F1 race in the States.