Preston Henn 1931-2017

Legendary raconteur and sports car racer Preston Henn (pictured above, far right) has died at the age of 86. According to his lawyer, the renowned driver, team owner and two-time winner of the 24 Hours of Daytona passed on Sunday from natural causes.

The loss of eccentric millionaire, known as much for his self-made empire that fueled his passion for racing as his success during the formative days of the IMSA GTP category, robs the sport of one of its greatest characters.

Among his signature achievements, victory at Daytona in a Porsche 935 as a co-driver with A.J. Foyt, and the late Bob Wollek and Claude Ballot-Lena in 1983, and again in 1985 as an owner in a Porsche 962 (pictured below) with Foyt, Wollek, Al Unser and Thierry Boutsen continue to stand as hallmark achievements by an independent entrant.

"Damn, I hate to hear that about Preston," Foyt told RACER. "I just sent him a letter few days ago thanking him for hiring me that day at Daytona and for giving me the trophy that I was able to give to my daddy before he died. That was a special trophy and memory so I just decided to write him and I hope he got it before he passed away."

"I didn't know him, but after my car broke, he asked me if I wanted to drive and, if so, I needed to be back at midnight," Foyt continued. "I guess it worked out OK and we've been friends ever since. He came down to my ranch a couple times to hang out and I enjoyed his company. He had a lot of money but didn't play the big shot, he was a super guy."

Born in Murphy, North Carolina, Henn was the son of a movie theater owner, and after his parents divorced, he moved to Southern California with his mother in his teens. The highly educated Henn, who earned a college degree in chemical engineering, chose a unique path in life by merging what he learned from his father and a natural flair for sales and promotion into the Swap Shop, his Florida-based movie theater/flea market empire.

"He was on the freeway in Compton, saw a drive-in movie theater that had a sign that read 'swap meet Saturday and Sunday,' and he stopped in and couldn't believe what he saw," Henn's longtime friend and 1983 Daytona-winning crew chief Kevin Jeannette (pictured) told RACER. "In California, they're known as swap meets, but most people know them as flea markets, and took that idea to Florida. He liked the idea that they could make money during the day on this big drive-in property by charging people to come in and sell their stuff, and then they cleared out and he showed drive-in movies at night."

Henn's main Swap Shop property in Fort Lauderdale was soon joined by a small chain of Swap Shops opened around the state. With the income generated from multiple flea markets, concessions from feeding the buyers and sellers, and the multiple attractions he created – everything from a dedicated circus to a personal car collection that grew in value beyond the $100 million mark – the Swap Shops gave Henn the financial power and authority to go racing on his own terms.

"He was an offshore racer with power boats, first, which is normal in Florida," Jeannette said. "In one race off the coast, he crashed and the only thing that saved him was a helicopter came by and saw him bobbing up and down in the water. After that, he said enough with the water; I'm racing on land. He changed his tune and got into racing cars, did some sharing of cars, got into an Interscope [Porsche] 935, and then went to owning his own stuff."

Henn would venture into professional sports car racing in 1977 at the 12 hours of Sebring driving a Porsche 914, and soon moved into bigger, faster Ferraris and Porsches with proven team like Interscope, the Whittington Bros., Bayside Racing, and N.A.R.T., which took him to Le Mans for the first time in 1982. At the urging of Jeannette, who'd worked with Henn in the past, the decision was finally made to buy a new Porsche 935 and focus on assembling the best possible team at Henn's Swap Shop Racing program.

"It was the high point of my career," he said. "For me, it was a big moment to tell Preston – and not many people could get away with telling him to do anything – that if he bought a better car, we could win races. That steered us into the 1983 24 Hours of Daytona."

A throwback in every sense, Henn dictated the terms of his life until his final days. He fought, sued, and argued with whomever he felt deserved his wrath, and as Jeannette recalls, earning Henn's trust was the only currency that mattered.

"For me and him, it was kind of special," he said. "If you had his trust, he'd let you run with things. We met when I was at the Daytona IMSA finale in 1981; he blew a turbo when he was driving with his daughter Bonnie, nobody had the stuff to fix the turbo, but I did, so I offered to help, and after that, we developed a relationship. If he knew you were there for the right reasons, and many weren't, he was the most generous person in the world. He became like a second father to me."

Long after Henn contested his final race in 1986, he would rely on Jeannette's Gunnar Racing operation in Florida to repair and restore a number of vehicles in the Swap Shop collection. The most famous car, an ex-Le Mans Ferrari 275 GTB/C, was restored by Jeannette, and at an estimated worth of $80-$100 million, it's widely regarded as the most valuable car in the world.

With the loss of his cantankerous friend, Jeannette hopes Henn will be remembered with the same hard-edge reverie that's bestowed on his most famous driver.

"There was a respect level between A.J. and Preston because Preston was his own man in the same way A.J. is his own man, and I hope people show Preston the same kind of respect for being a trailblazer in his life like A.J. has been," he said.

"Preston had a temper, but I know the other side of him that many might not have seen. People think A.J. has a temper, but he never threw a helmet at me ... but Preston did! With Preston, he was the type of guy to give you the full magazine of ammo, full throttle, and if he gave you a blistering, it was because he liked you. If he didn't like you or trust you, he wouldn't even talk to you. You don't realize how much you miss somebody like Preston until he's gone. He was a giant part of my life."