70 Chaparral 2J - Motorsports Almanac

They managed neither a pole position (fastest qualifier) nor any wins. Their best finishes were a pair of seconds. Hall
had planned on running his new, 2H in 1968, but development bugs kept it from debuting until 1969. He would be
forced to race the 2G in 1968. The result was one pole but no wins. Las Vegas, the sixth and final race of the season, was
also the last race as a driver for Jim Hall. Late in the race, his Chaparral collided with a backmarker, was launched into
the air, and landed upside down. Hall was rescued from the ensuing fire, but his severely broken legs lead to his
retirement from driving. Although introduced by Jim Hall in 1966, not many cars besides the Chaparrals used high
wings for extra downforce. Several cars carried them in 1969, but Hall himself introduced another radical car, the
previously mentioned Chaparral 2H. Dubbed "The Great White Whale", because it looked like one, it would not be one
of Hall's better efforts. It was originally designed as a narrow coupe with windows in the doors because the driver sat so
low in the body. Driver John Surtees felt that visibility was poor and had Hall take the car's canopy off and raise the
driver's seat. The vestigial passenger seat remained under the bodywork. There was a low wing at the back of the body.
This Chaparral didn't cut it. The team bought a McLaren M12 to use while they continued to sort the 2H out. At one
point in the season, the 2H wore a huge wing in the center of the car with the struts mounted to the sides of the car.
Quite possibly, the most bizarre looking racer ever built. Although Hall and Surtees never got along well, Hall took full
responsibility for the failure. He felt that had he not broken his legs, which kept him from test driving, he could have
sorted the car out. At any rate, the team's direction changed for 1970. The FIA, auto racing's world ruling body,
outlawed tall wings (from now on they would have to be near the bodywork) after 1969 because of some spectacular
accidents that had occurred to F1 racers. Also, "movable" aerodynamic devices such as Chaparral's flipper wings were
outlawed. Jim Hall's answer to this, the Chaparral 2J, did not debut until the third race of the 1970 Can-Am season in
July at Watkins Glen, New York. The 2J was as radical as the 2E and 2H had been. Maybe more so. The car looked like a
white brick. A very fast white brick. The car carried two motors. A 465 cubic inch Chevy V8 powered the rear wheels
and a 274 cc Rockwell snowmobile engine powered a pair of "sucker" fans in the rear bodywork. The fans sucked air out
from under the car, creating a vacuum that held the 2J on the track. Sliding Lexan skirts were placed around the bottom
edge of the body to seal the "plenum" area under the car. Enough suction could be generated to hold the car upside
down on the ceiling of a room! Where a wing generates downforce (good) it also generates drag (bad). The suction
device generated downforce with no drag loss. Reigning F1 World Driving Champion Jackie Stewart qualified the 2J
third at Watkins Glen and drove the race's fastest lap, but his race was cut short by brake problems. The Chaparral team
missed the next three races but returned to competition in September at Road Atlanta. They also brought a new driver
with them, Vic Elford. Elford drove the 2J in three of the remaining four races. (The team would miss one more race.)
Elford was fastest qualifier in all three of those races but he only finished one (sixth at Road Atlanta). Something always
broke. But the competition felt that, with a year of experience under their belt, the Chaparral team would bury them in
1971. Competitors were always lobbying the SCCA to ban the 2J. At the end of the season it was. The sliding Lexan
skirts were said to have violated the "moveable aerodynamic device" ban. With that, Jim Hall closed up shop. An era in
international autoracing had come to a close. Hall did return to autoracing in 1980 with the Chaparral 2K Indycar.
Johnny Rutherford won the Indy 500 that year in the car. Hall owned a CART Indycar team into the 1990s, but bought
his team's chassis from other companies.
HALL’S CHAPARRALS
In 1961, race car builders Tom Barnes and Dick Troutman approached Texas-born race driver Jim Hall about a sports
racer they had designed. Although initially called the "Riverside," that was the beginning of the Chaparral legacy. The
Chaparral 1 was a Chevy-powered, front-engined car that had a common heritage with the Scarab rear-engined racer
that was previously designed by Barnes and Troutman. Its first race was at a Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) race at
Laguna Seca, California in June 1961. Jim Hall brought his new Chaparral 1 to a 2nd place finish. Hall raced the
Chaparral three more times in 1961, with a 3rd place at the October Riverside L.A. Time Grand Prix and DNFs at
another Laguna Seca race and at the Nassau Speed Week main event. Jim Hall drove the Chaparral 1 to victories at the
Road America Sprints in June 1962 and the Road America 500 in September 1962. The next incarnation of the Chaparral
was originally intended to be a coupe-bodied sports racer patterned after Chevrolet's Corvair Monza GT concept car of
1962. The eventual open cockpit Chaparral 2A, however, maintained the pointed nose and other design elements of the
Monza GT. The Chaparral's first race, at the 1963 Riverside L.A. Times Grand Prix, ended in a DNF for Jim Hall. but this
was to be the beginning of one of the most successful, if short-lived, runs in American unlimited sports car history.
Running in the U.S. Road Racing Championship and a series of Pacific fall races (which included races at Riverside and
Laguna Seca), Jim Hall and Hap Sharp took their Chaparral 2s to an incredible 7 1sts and 7 2nds in 16 races in 1964, and
16 1sts and 9 2nds in 21 races in 1965! Among the 1965 victories was the 12 Hours of Sebring, a race that saw Jim Hall's
open cockpit racer beat Carroll Shelby's coupe-bodied Cobras and GT-40s, although the skies open to flood the race
track during the early evening hours. Jim Hall was known for innovation, and that innovation started to show itself in
the Chaparral 2C, an upgraded version of the Chaparral 2A that included a hydraulic rear spoiler that the driver could
raise in the turns and lower for less drag in the straightaways. The next evolution of Hall's racer, the Chaparral 2E made
it's debut at the Can-Am race at Bridgehampton, New York in September 1966. This unique racer had a huge, highmounted
wing that, like the 2C's spoiler, was hydraulically operated to shift its angle depending on the track conditions.
The Chaparral 2E and a later development versionn called the 2G had short racing careers, competing in 17 Can-Am
races during 1966 through 1969. Although the car was unbeatable, it had reliability problems that resulted in many
DNFs. The Chaparral 2Es and 2Gs actually only scored 2 Can-Am victories and 6 2nd place finishes. Jim Hall's driving
career came to an unfortunate and almost fatal end in November 1967, when his Chaparral 2G struck the back of Lothar
Motschenbacher's McLaren and was catapulted into the air. The car landed on its tail and flipped over on its back,
resulting in Hall suffering two badly broken legs and a dislocated jaw. Despite the end of his driving career, Jim Hall