PRDA 5000th Member To Speak At Watkins Glen "Legends Speak'

Watkins Glen, Sept. 11th, 2009

Leo Mehl (5000th PRDA Member) first visited Watkins Glen early in his career as a Goodyear Race Tire Engineer working on Carroll Shelby’s Cobras, and as boss of the Formula 1 Team in the Era of Sir Jack Brabham, Sir Jackie Stewart, Denny Hulme, Graham Hill, and Mario Andretti.

As General Manager of Goodyear’s Worldwide Racing Program from 1974-1996, he has visited Watkins Glen on many other occasions throughout the years, overseeing tire performance of Sports Cars, F5000, NASCAR, and Indianapolis-type cars.

Mehl joined Goodyear as a tire compounder in 1959 and moved into the racing department in 1963 when Goodyear began to look at a bigger involvement in the sport. He played an important role in developing the tires with which Goodyear won the Indianapolis 500 that year and later that year was posted to Goodyear's European headquarters in Wolverhampton and was made head of European Racing, replacing Fred Gamble. In October 1971 he became chief engineer of all Goodyear Racing activities and three years later took over as Director of Racing. His final promotion was to be head of all Goodyear competition activities in 1979. He retired from Goodyear in 1996 and became executive director of the Indy Racing League and a vice-president of Indianapolis Motor Speedway. He remained in that role until the end of 1999 when he retired from the sport.

Lyn St. James and others are also scheduled to speak.

For more information, see GrandPrixFestival.com.

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