Tag Archives: Al

Double Trouble – MG-B

Sea Ray Boats – Wildcat Cosworth IX

The story behind Ueal Eugene ‘Pat’ Patricks Wildcat Indy cars allegedly begins with the Oil Crisis during the mid 70’s. The US Government desperate to secure it’s own oil supplies ran a programme designed to encourage exploration for oil reserves of which Pat Patrick’s ‘Patrick Petroleum’, a wildcat oil exploration company, was a beneficiary.

The rumour goes that Patrick used some of these ‘funds’ to finance the manufacture of racing cars called ‘Wildcats’ for his team that had won the 1973 Indianapolis 500 with Gordon Johncock driving an Eagle Offy. Allegedly Patricks racing car construction programme was a total write off billed as part of the expense of drilling for oil.

By 1982 the #20 Wildcat XIII designed by Gordon Kimball and Peter Gibbons won the Indy 500 driven again by Gordon Johncock. For 1983 Chip Ganassi, seen above in the #60 Sea Ray Boats Wildcat IX joined Gordon Johncock in the Patrick team.

Chip qualified a 16th and finished a career best 8th, from 5 Indy 500 starts, 5 laps down in the 1983 Indy 500, his CART career was interrupted by a crash in 1984 and he hung up his helmet 1986. By 1988 he purchased an interest in Patrick Racing and the following year they entered the #20 Penske PC 18 in the Indy 500 which Emerson Fittipaldi drove to Victory Lane at Indy in 1989.

For 1990 Chip went his own way starting his Champ Car team which won titles in 1996, with Jimmy Vasser, ’97 & ’98 with Alex Zanardi and ’99 with Juan Pablo Montoya, in 2000 Chip entered his first IRL race and won the Indy 500 with Indy Rookie JP Montoya.

Ganassi subsequently switched his open wheel team to the IRL and his drivers won the IRL Championship in 2003, ’08, 09 and ’10. Scott Dixon won the 2008 Indy 500 in a Ganassi entered car and Dario Franchitti repeated the feat last year.

Chip is also part of the Ganassi with Sabates NASCAR team currently running Juan Pablo Montoya and Jamie McMurray, the latter won the Daytona 500 and Brickyard 400 last year.

To round out his portfolio Chip Ganassi also runs a Grand Am team which won championship titles in 2004, ’08 and ’10 winning the prestige Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona Grand Am event in 2006, ’07, ’08 and ’11.

‘Pat’ Patrick wound up his team in 2000 though he did make a return in 2004 entering Al Unser Jnr in a hand full of races in the IRL until Al announced his retirement leaving Pat to sell his team.

My thanks to Steve Arnaudin for the scan of his Dad’s photo.

Slightly off topic, spare a thought for a brave woman Manal Al Sherif who has been arrested for committing the heinous crime of driving a car and encouraging other women to do the same, which under ‘religious’ laws is apparently illegal for all women in Saudi Arabia.

It is surely a bizarre circumstance when a country that produces so much oil, for the rest of the world to be driving around, should also be the ONLY country in the world which forbids women from driving ?

Please join me in showing your support for Manal Al Sherif on this facebook link.

Thanks for clicking on to today’s Wildcat edition of ‘Gettin’ a lil’ psycho on tyres’, I hope you will join me again tomorrow. Don’t forget to come back now !

Triple 500 Crown – Lola T500

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During a run of success that included winning the US Formula 5000 championships from 1974 – ’76 with Brian Redman and Can Am 2 Championships with Patrick Tambay ’77 and ’80, Alan Jones ’78 and Jacky Ickx ’79, Jim Hall turned his attentions to the USAC champ car series in 1977. Hall and partner Carl Hass commisioned Lola to build the T500 a fresh design that was to be driven by Al Unser Snr in 1978.

The design was an instant success at Indianapolis Al qualified 2nd and led 121 laps to go to Victory Lane for the third time. Despite Al bending a front wing in the pit lane 20 laps from home pole sitter Tom Sneva in a Penske ran out of laps to catch the Lola which finished just 8 seconds ahead of Tom.

The ’78 Indy 500 was the first of ten that was won by a car powered by a turbocharged development of the 3 litre / 183 cui Cosworth DFV that dominated in Formula One from it’s introduction in 1966 to 1981. To meet the USAC regulations the DFV was downsized to 2650 cc / 161 cui and fitted with a Garrett turbo charger.

Engine designer Keith Duckworth described these motors as being like ‘hand grenades with the in pulled’. By the end of the DFX development programme the motors were producing 840 hp. Al Unser was also at the wheel of the last DFX powered car, a Penske, to enter victory lane at Indianapolis in 1987.

Having won the 1978 Indy 500 Al Unser also won the two other 500 mile races in the USAC series at Pocono and Ontario becoming the first winner of the ‘Triple 500 Crown’. Al is seen driving the car above in the Daily Express 200 at Silverstone, England battling for the lead with Danny Ongias.

Unfortunately the battle only lasted 4 laps, Ongias broke a drive shaft, Al led a good deal of the race but ran out of fuel right in front of me.

The T500 was used in Penzoil colours in early 1979 before Jim Halls Chaparral 2K was ready. In 1980 Jerry Sneva, seen in this photo by Ed Arnaudin, qualified 5th in this T500 and finished 17th in the Indy 500 two further T500’s were raced in this event driven by Tom Bigelow Q 31st F 8th and Gregg Leffler Q 23rd and F 10th.

My thanks to Steve Arnaudin for the scan of his Dad’s photo.

Hope you have enjoyed Triple 500 Crown edition of ‘Gettin’ a lil’ psycho on tyres’ and that you will join me again tomorrow. Don’t forget to come back now !

Myth & Skullduggery- 16b Marquette Buick

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Today ‘Gettin’ a lil’ psycho on tyres’ will be starting a month long celebration of the 100th Anniversary of the first running of the Indianapolis 500.

Apart from tomorrow’s post, and the four Ferrari Friday posts, all blogs up until and including May the 29th will be about the Indy 500.

Combining Ed Arnaudin‘s and my own collection of photographs I hope to take you through a marginally less than random history of this extraordinary event.

When I started reading up on this car a few hours ago all I knew about it was that according to the 2009 Goodwood Festival of Speed Guide was that it was a 4.8 litre 4 cylinder 293 cui Buick “thought to be the actual Buick that won the first race at Indy, driven by Louis Chevrolet on the four lap, 10 mile race”.

However I only had to check with the Wheels, Winter / Spring 1998 Journal of the National Automotive History Collection published by the Detroit Public Library to find that the winner of the first race at Indianapolis on Aug 19th was now well known automotive engineer Louis Schwitzer driving a four cylinder 212 cui Stoddard Dayton in a two lap 5 mile race.

Louis Schwitzer would become famous for designing the 1911 inaugural Indy 500 race winning engine for Marmon and later still for designing a variety of automotive pumps used in a wide variety of civil and military applications along with superchargers and latterly turbochargers as used by the, subject of a future blog in this series, 1952 Cummins Diesel.

Thanks to Gerry Godin’s ‘Buick City‘ blog I found the 16b Marquette Buick model name for today’s featured vehicle a wonderful photo of this vehicle on the Indy start line dated 1910 can also be seen on the blog.

Once armed with the model name I found out something about the myth of Buick winning the first automobile race at Indy dating back to at least the September – October 2002 Vol. 66, NO. 5 edition of Antique Automobile (Official Publication of the Antique Automobile Club of America, INC.) and the truth about some of the history of the #34 16b. Marquette Buick in an article by Terry B. Dunham which starts on page 29.

Terry asserts in paragraph 2 on page 43 of his article entitled ‘Something Wicked This Way Comes’ “The first races run at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway were held August 19th, 20th and 21st 1909, some two years before the first 500. Buick entered and won two of the three events, including the first race ever held at the track.”

Why Terry’s account in his otherwise excellent article should be at variance with the Journal of the National Automotive History Collection I cannot imagine but I believe the Journal of the National Automotive History Collection has got the story correct about Schweitzer winning the first automobile race at Indianapolis in 1909. May be someday Mr Dunham will chime in below. [EDIT See Post Script below]

So having cleared up a few myths here is what I do know about the 16b Marquette Buick seen here driven by 4 time Indianapolis 500 winner Al Unser Snr.

The origins of the 16b Marquette Buick can be traced to an accident in the 1908 Savannah Grand Prix which befell Fritz Erle after a tire on his, otherwise superior, overhead valve 11.7 litre 716 cui Benz threw a thread which knocked the unfortunate Erle unconscious causing him to loose control of the car which ended upside down on the side of the track.

This misfortune was all the opportunity Buick designer Walter Marr, who’s Buick stood no chance against the superior handling and power of the FIAT’s and Benz vehicles in Savanah that day, needed to inspect the superior suspension design of the Benz while it was upturned and commit the detail to memory.

Later Marr directed a Buick photographer to take photographs of the dismantled overhead valve Benz engine that was stripped down inside the Benz camp while it was left unattended. You can see photographs of this skullduggery on page 37 of Mr Dunham’s article.

Marr used this information to build three hot rods one of them, the one in the photograph, with a 5.2 litre / 318 cui 4 cylinder overhead valve racing engine and all three with chassis built by the Marquette Motor Company, part of the General Motors conglomerate.

These three hot rods were variously called regular model Buick 30 and then regular Buick 16 Roadster while they were actually ‘illegal’ racing specials with non production engines and chassis taking part in races designed for ‘stock’ vehicles.

The vehicle in the photograph above, entered as a Buick 30, is credited as the one driven by Louis Chevrolet to the most important of Buicks 166 (one hundred and sixty six) race victories during the 1909 season in The Cobe Trophy.

The race of attrition, held at Crown Point over 395 miles was won when Chevrolet running on only three cylinders thanks to a broken valve snatched a 65 second victory from a Locomobile which had been delayed by half an hour by magneto problems and beat an otherwise apparently healthy Knox.

By May 1910 the AAA got wise to the loose ways of Buick model naming policy and excluded the three Buick specials for not being ‘stock’ production vehicles.

An interesting foot note to the question of who won the first auto race at Indianapolis in 1909 is that in 1911 Louis Chevrolet turned up with a Marquette Buick for the first Indy 500 without a proper entry, despite being told to ‘sandbag’ go only as fast as necessary to qualify (around 75 mph) Louis foolishly went round at 93 mph.

The organisers of the race agreed to let Louis start on condition the owners of the other teams unanimously agreed to sign a waiver. Having blown every one into the weeds in qualifying three teams declined to sign one of them was Marmon who’s engine designer was Louis Schwitzer and who’s car went on to win the very first Indy 500, I wonder if there is some inter state rivalry between Indiana and Michigan afoot to explain the discrepancy in the answer as to who won the very first auto race at Indianapolis? [EDIT Turns out there is not see postscript]

My thanks to everyone mentioned in this blog for their contributions.

Hope you have enjoyed today’s extended history lesson edition of ‘Gettin’ a lil’ psycho on tyres’ and that you’ll join me and a very smart young lady tomorrow for a Birthday celebration. Don’t for get to come back now !

01 05 11 PS the mystery over who won the first race on the opening day at Indianapolis has been resolved thanks to Tim Murray at The Nostalgia Forum :-

Louis Schwitzer won the very first five mile race at Indianapolis aboard his Stoddart-Dayton.
A Buick was driven to victory in the 3rd 5 mile race.
Bob Burnham won the very first 250 mile ‘FEATURE’ race aboard his Buick !

Fit for a Sheikh – Bristol 405 Drophead

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The Bristol 405 introduced in 1953 was the first Bristol to dispense with the BMW inspired grill and is unusual for having a single fog light placed in the middle.

There were two versions of the 405 this Drophead of which 43 were built and an imposing 4 door saloon of which 308 were built until production ended in 1958.

A 1971 cc / 120 cui straight six motor was exclusively tuned to produce 125 hp for the Drophead, the Saloon was given a 105 hp version of this engine. One blogger described the sound of this motor as being like ‘a squadron of Lancasters‘.

The first two 405 D’s were strictly two seaters with fully retracting roofs, however all bar one of the remaining Dropheads had roofs that rested on the rear body work making space for rear seats. A one off 405 D was produced for Sheikh Yusuf Mohammed Al Tawil and shipped to Jeddah in 1955 painted gold with silver wheels, white wall tyres and an electro-hydraulic operated roof.

The slick action four speed gearbox of all 405’s were fitted with a Laycock overdrive for high speed cruising operated by the large toggle switch to the right of the steering wheel.

The first 18 to 20 Bristol 405 Drophead chassis were sent to Abbots of Farnham where the bodywork was crafted. Abbots landed a large contract to build estate / station wagon version of the Ford Zephyr and Zodiac models and the remaining 405 D’s were sent to Tickford, in Newport Pagnell, for body work to be built according to the Abbots of Farnham drawings. I am not sufficiently drenched in Bristol Cars lore to tell you where this particular body was crafted… yet.

I suspect I could get used to fresh air motoring in a vehicle fit for a Sheik that sounds like a ‘squadron of Lancasters‘ how about you ?

Thanks to the owner of this fabulous vehicle for bringing it to the Sunday Service at the BMW Plant a couple of weeks ago.

Hope you have enjoyed today’s fit for a Sheikh edition of ‘Gettin’ a lil’ psycho on tyres and that you will join me again tomorrow for a Swedish tease. Don’t forget to come back now !

Gettin' A Li'l Psycho On Tyres

Art Tidesco blogs on all things motoring