Bruce Leven

Bruce Leven's Bayside Motorsport Porsche 962C

Front view

Bruce Leven (born September 27, 1945 in Seattle ; † September 15, 2017 there ) was an American racing car driver , racing team owner and entrepreneur.

Entrepreneur

Bruce Leven was successful as a versatile entrepreneur. 1964 founded in his hometown of Seattle, a waste disposal company that in the 1980s, over 400 waste disposal vehicles at ten locations in the state of Washington possessed. In 1987 he sold his Bayside Disposal Company Inc. for 60 million US dollars . Despite the large sum, Leven regretted selling his company and wanted to get back into the waste disposal business. However, a clause in the sales contract prohibited him from such activities in the state. An arbitration court reached an agreement and Leven was able to get back into business. He acquired the Great Falls Company of Great Falls , Montana with the permission of the purchaser of his old company.

In addition to the waste disposal business, he also worked in the vehicle trade from 1987 and sold Porsche , Saab , Jeep and Toyota vehicles in the Puget Sound region .

Motorsport

Bruce Leven began his racing activities in the late 1970s. Equipped with financial strength and in order to be independent, he founded his own racing team with Bayside Motorsport , which almost exclusively used racing vehicles from the Porsche brand. His first racing car was a Porsche 934 , followed by a Porsche Carrera RS , which he acquired from Peter Gregg . A Porsche 935 followed in 1979 . With this vehicle he started with increasing success in the Trans-Am series . Leven contested race without exception in North America, yet celebrated a great international success since it 1981 together with Hurley Haywood and Al Holbert that the World Sportscar Championship scoring 12-hour race at Sebring could win.

After the less successful attempt with the Lola T600 with Porsche engine in the IMSA GTP series in 1983 , successes followed as a team boss with a Porsche 962 chassis and drivers such as Bob Wollek , Paolo Barilla , Scott Pruett , Jochen Mass , Bobby Rahal , Klaus Ludwig and Hans-Joachim Stuck in the late 1980s. In 1987 (Mass and Rahal) and 1988 (Ludwig and Stuck) the racing team won the Sebring 12-hour race twice in a row .

Both as a driver and as a team boss Leven ended his motorsport activities and sold his racing team. As a driver, he achieved one overall win and one class win in 92 starts and a total of seven podium finishes.

statistics

Sebring results

year	team	vehicle	Teammate	Teammate	placement	Failure reason
1980	Bayside Disposal Racing	Porsche 935 / 77A	Peter Gregg	Hurley Haywood	Rank 10
1981	Bayside Disposal Racing	Porsche 935/80	Al Holbert	Hurley Haywood	Overall victory
1982	Bayside Disposal Racing	Porsche 935/80	Al Holbert	Hurley Haywood	Rank 5
1986	Bayside Disposal Racing	Porsche 962	Bob Wollek	Paolo Barilla	failure	Engine failure

literature

• Ken Breslauer: Sebring. The official History of America's Great Sports Car Race. David Bull, Cambridge MA 1995, ISBN 0-9649722-0-4 .
• Peter Higham: The Guinness Guide to International Motor Racing. A complete Reference from Formula 1 to Touring Car. Guinness Publishing Ltd., London 1995, ISBN 0-85112-642-1 .

Web links

• Bruce Leven at Racing Sports Cars
• Bruce Leven at IMSA History

Individual evidence

1. ↑ The Associated Press: Sports Car Owner-Driver Bruce Leven Dies at 79 . In: The New York Times . September 21, 2017, ISSN  0362-4331 ( nytimes.com [accessed October 2, 2017]).
2. ↑ BUSINESS MANAGEMENT: The 360 Degrees of Bruce Leven . In: Waste360 . April 1, 2000 ( waste360.com [accessed October 2, 2017]).
3. ↑ BUSINESS MANAGEMENT: The 360 Degrees of Bruce Leven . In: Waste360 . April 1, 2000 ( waste360.com [accessed October 2, 2017]).
4. ↑ Lake Washington Waterfront Home of the Day: Glazer . In: Seattle Waterfront Homes . February 3, 2011 ( seattlepi.com [accessed October 2, 2017]).