70 Chaparral 2J - Motorsports Almanac

from Troutman and Barnes in California. One of those was at the BRIC, too.) So few, really? Well, Chaparral Cars was
small, efficient and unromantic, and kept turning one car into another. There were three fiberglass-chassied roadsters
originally called Chaparral 2s (only later dubbed 2A by outsiders, when subsequent models appeared). After three
highly successful SCCA seasons, 1963-65, two of those were given roofs and big-block Chevys to make them into 2D
coupes for FIA endurance racing in 1966; a D won the 1000-K at Germany’s old Nurburgring. Then one of those Ds and
the remaining 2(A) became 1967’s 2F coupes; one took victory at Brands Hatch in England. Three chassis, seven race cars.
Rogers has now turned one of those Fs back into the “A” Hall drove at the BRIC; it happens to be the one that took the
12 Hours of Sebring in that form in 1965. The remaining 2F, the Brands winner, was on display only. Similarly, a series
of aluminum-monocoque sports racers began with 1965’s 2C. That was modified into the first 2E, the winged car that
startled the world in the inaugural Can-Am season in 1966. The same chassis later became the big-block 2G for 1967
and ’68. It was this in which Hall suffered a career-ending accident at a Las Vegas track called Stardust. Heavily
damaged, that’s the one chassis that was finally scrapped, according to Rogers. “Jim couldn’t even look at a picture of it
without getting the shakes.” The second 2E, winner of Chaparral’s only Can-Am victory (Laguna Seca, 1966), was at
Road America and Hall briefly demonstrated that too. Totals: two more chassis, four more “cars.” Left home along with
the restored 2D was the unloved 2H, 1969’s infamous “white whale” quasi-coupe, known fairly or not as Hall’s only
failure. But present with honor was the 2J, the notorious, controversial Ground Effects Vehicle, or Sucker Car, of 1970.
That one worked so well it was promptly banned. The seventh Chaparral chassis, it was to be the last of the Chaparral
sports car line. Later there were some 2K single-seaters, which brought ground effects to Indianapolis and took the 500
in 1980. Wait a minute—haven’t we left out a Chaparral 2B? Yes, there’s a car in Hall’s collection called that, but it isn’t
really a Chaparral. It was built as a research project by Jim’s engineer friends in Chevy R&D. Tested extensively at
Rattlesnake, it taught both parties a lot, and led to Hall’s choice of aluminum for the 2C chassis. This was only one
example of the clandestine cooperation between Chaparral and Chevrolet. Another was the Sucker, which began life in
Detroit as another Chevy experiment. Rogers has to patiently explain all this over and over. He too must be incredulous
about the crowds clustering around the four plain white old cars he’s minding. For so long, they were so secret. For
decades, the public rarely saw them. Hasn’t everybody forgotten? Not likely. True significance has a way of living on,
and besides, this setting points out the magnitude of Chaparral’s accomplishments in its day. A featured race for vintage
Can-Am cars has brought together a good sampling of Road Runner rivals—would-be rivals. The most casual look at
them shows how conservative, how conventional, how pedestrian, were so many creative minds in the racing world
outside Jim Hall’s fence. Many are good race cars, arguably even better race cars, because they won more races. But...
But they don’t stand tall in the mind like the tall white Road Runners from the barren Texas plains.
JIM HALL
Born in Texas in 1935 and raised in Colorado and New Mexico, young Jim Hall was a student at the California Institute
of Technology in Pasadena, Calif., when he started driving his brother's Austin Healey sports car at weekend road races
in 1954. That led to the purchase of a state-of-the-art modified sports car from the best builders in the business in 1961,
but the results didn't satisfy him. Hall set up his own race car building operation. Thus was born Chaparral Cars of
Midland, Texas. During the years from 1963, when the first Chaparral 2 was built, to 1970, Hall's engineering genius
with enthusiastic help from General Motors technicians turned out a series of dramatic race car inventions that have left
a lasting impact on the sport of motor racing. First came the ultra-light chassis, which some called the all-plastic car, but
which was a chassis built completely of reinforced fiberglass. Then Hall staggered his competition with a high-mounted
wing that rode horizontal down the straightaways but was tilted down in the turns when the driver released a pedal,
giving him extra downforce in the corners. That innovation was banned when the competition cried, "Unfair." What
followed was the fixed wing, which became Hall's trademark. Today's winged race cars are the evolution of Hall's
design statement. Hall had already introduced a competitive advantage so subtle that drivers didn't know what it was
for half a season — an automatic transmission for road racing. With it, Hall and his team drivers could steer efficiently
through corners without taking either hand off the wheel to shift gears. The most radical was yet to come — the
"vacuum cleaner" Chaparral 2J, described by one writer as looking like it was still in its packing case. Boxy in
appearance, it sailed at incredible speeds through the corners, thanks to an auxiliary motor that created a vacuum under
the car to increase traction. While it never won a race, it too was banned in response to competitive outcry. Hall,
meanwhile, kept his best secrets to himself. He developed methods of testing at Rattlesnake Raceway that gave him data
about what the car was doing at various sections of the track. By contrast, his competitors were satisfied with the lap
times their stop watches were giving them. Working with Chevrolet engineers, Hall probably advanced the technology
of racing more than any race car designer in that period. That may have been what prepared him for one of the most
significant jumps in technology that Indy car developers have taken in the second half of this century —introduction of
the Pennzoil Chaparral, Indy car racing's first "ground effects" car, in 1979. A year later his driver Johnny Rutherford
won the Indy 500 and four other races, which combined with other top finishes gave him the first-ever combination of a
CART PPG Cup IndyCar World Series championship and a U. S. Auto Club title. It also made Rutherford the consensus
U. S. "driver of the year." Hall left Indy car racing in 1982 to concentrate on his other business interests but returned to
the sport in 1991 with another bright yellow Pennzoil-sponsored car. Pennzoil persuaded Hall to return to Indy car
racing after an absence of eight years. It began with a victory in the first race when John Andretti won for Jim Hall in
Australia.