Career
Joest"s driving career began in 1962 in a local hillclimb race in the Odenwald mountains. Joest"s first entry in the 24 Hours of Le Mans was in 1968, with a Ford GT40 co-driven by Helmut Kelleners and sponsored by a German car magazine. His first remarkable result came in 1972, after the dominating Porsche 917 and similar cars were not allowed anymore.
Without any modern cars available, Joest borrowed an outdated 3.0 L Porsche 908/02 Langheck Coupé from the Jo Siffert Museum.
He and his two co-drivers finished third with the 1969 model car. Despite being part of factory Porsche teams on several occasions, he never managed to be in their winning car.
He came close in 1980, finishing second together with Jacky Ickx in his privately entered Porsche 936 that was called a "Porsche 908/80" as Porsche did not officially sell the 936. Despite never winning as a driver at Le Mans, Joest ended his driving career in style.
He retired after winning the Kyalami 9 Hours with Jochen Mass at the end of the year.