Founded in the year nineteen twenty-four February 1980

More documents

Recommendations

Info

“Even as a coupe the car was fast — 10 seconds a lap faster than the BMWs at Brno — and I think the XJ-S version would have taken advantage of all the lessons we had learned in a short time and brought BL the European Championship in 1978. The problem was that the Leyland people in charge of the Jaguar project could sec a change in top management coming and were frightened of their jobs. “The Jag was nice to drive normally, especially at the ‘Ring, funnily enough. The regulations meant that the brakes were not big enough, so it just took a long time to stop — and the tyre size regulations also meant that we got quite a bit of oversteer and heat.” Turning to the biggest “moment” of his driving life brought little change in subject, for it was in the Jaguar at Brno. “I ran over some debris at what Ralph said was 175 m.p.h. and a back tyre blew. It took me about a mile to gather it up as it shot sideways and everyway.” Biggest and best victories? As Mario Andretti once said to a colleague in a slow drawl. “Friend, every race you win is a good race.” and John obviously feels the same. “Bathurst in 1976 with the Australian Hodgson team was super. The lead was changing all the time and things were happening to change the course of the race. “Then there was that six hours with the Schnitzer BMW, that was nice and so was Watkins Glen in 1978. There I had a terrific dice with Stommelen and got by him fair and square. I was very pleased about that because I also had the door missing, which may not sound much, just a bit of glassfibre, but it really is disconcerting seeing bits of wheels and stuff coming at you in a touring car. I caught 20 seconds up on Rolf to do that, so it was really satisfying,” concluded this Briton who has exported his talents so effectively in a rather neglected avenue of modern racing. March 1980 will sec the Fitzpatricks move from Henley-in-Arden to San Diego. John’s 11-year-old daughter having finished her school term and his wife Barbara looking forward to the change. Dick Barbour and his Porsche service and repair shop at San Jose with four full lime racing mechanics will be the base for John’s racing activities. The affable Barbour has invested a probable quarter million sterling-plus in equipment for the two car team that will contest some of the long distance races outside America as well. Le Mans looks like a potential certainty: having led in 1979 Fitzpatrick is really hoping for that victory to set a seal on his new life. — J.W. LOLA’S BID FOR CANAM DOMINATION THE Canadian-American Challenge Series, CanAm for short, has never enjoyed much of a reputation outside North America, especially since it was relaunched in 1977 to a slightly emasculated formula after a three year gap. Yet the huge CanAm cars are exciting in the extreme, attract top-rate drivers (Jacky Ickx won the 1979 Championship) and traditionally the Scries has been almost totally dominated by British-built cars. McLaren were overwhelming in the old formula, while Lola’s T333 model has won all three of the new formula Championships. Lola’s Eric Broadley, who has found big business in CanAm since it began in 1966, believes that the sometimes lack-lustre Championship is improving in interest and status and that 1980 could be a classic season. Many well-known drivers arc seeking rides, new cars from Chevron and Penske should add some spice, and ground effects will come into full play after a flirtation by some teams last year. To meet the challenge, Lola, Britain’s most prolific racing car manufacturers, have invested £60,000 in the development of a brand-new ground effects car, the T530. . . . This Broadley designed-car is Lola’s first completely new design tor the current CanAm regulations, which allow fully-enveloping bodywork on a single-seater chassis, a choice of normally-aspirated, stock-blocs engines of up to 5-litres, or 3-litre racing engines, and a minimum weight limit of 1,635 lb. The T333 was little more than a full-enveloped T332 Formula 5000 car. dating back to 1972. Broadley showed us the prototype T530 at Lola’s Huntingdon factory just before it left for testing at Jim Hall’s Rattlesnake circuit in mid-Texas. It had already impressed Tambay and Redman in shakedown tests at Snetterton and Silverstone. Development work began at the end of 1978 and included considerable wind-tunnel work in the SERA facilities in Paris. According to SERA’s figures the new Lola has more down force and less drag than the Formula One Ligier, developed in the same wind tunnel. “With a ground effects car it’s really a matter of designing the underneath of the car and building the rest around it, though the top surface is part of the aerodynamic circulation,” said Broadley. The fully-enclosed CanAm car’s vast body area — it is 7 ft. wide and a giant of a motor car to a European unfamiliar with CanAm machinery — uses the top surface of the bodywork more than an F1 car, but uses the actual ground effects slightly less,”at least, at the moment,” Broadley smiled. The T530 uses a very wide monocoque — full width between the skirt boxes — to avoid the torsional rigidity problems suffered by the very narrow monocoques currently used tor ground effects cars. Monocoque structures are incorporated in the side pods and carry the fuel cells, as well as giving increased strength to the overall chassis tub. “We did start off by hanging bodywork on a Formula One layout, but it didn’t work. 27
We got totally confused and found lots more problems than expected.” says Broadley. Enhanced driver safety is a major benefit of the wide monocoque and was a high priority in Broadley’s design philosophy. Additional safety points are roll over hoops incorporated in the full monocoque sections behind the seat and from the dash panel forward. The main ground effects area is directly under the driver, between the skirt boxes hung on each extremity of the monocoque side structures. Very light body side panels incorporating a foam sandwich for strength and resistance against delamination are hung on sub-frames from the outside of the skirt boxes. Secondary ground effects areas are formed between the side panels and the skirt boxes. The carbon fibre and ceramic skirls are spring loaded to keep them on the ground. The main bodywork is of colour-impregnated moulded, ultra-lightweight Polyester and Nomex “Sandwich” construction — a new technique — made by Specialised Mouldings, just round the corner from Lola on the industrial estate. Upward pilch characteristics over brows are a major problem to big-bodied CanAm cars. Lola themselves have “upended a few T333s”. Redman having a particularly nasty backward somersault accident at St. Jovite in the first T333. The T530’s massive nose shape with adjustable splitter and radiator flaps, results from Broadley’s attempts to eradicate this dangerous pitch and the inboard front suspension and brake cooling ducts 3re all designed to assist. Quarter-scale wind tunnel tests suggest satisfactory results. Brake cooling has been another big area of development on the T530. “CanAm cars can never be driven really hard because the brakes fade,” Broadley commented, “but we hope we’ve cracked that problem.” For the first time ever Lola have done a full series of flow tests on brake cooling, using SERA’s facilities. The massive air-flowed front trunking arrangement, leading to shrouds over the outboard, 10.9 in. x 1.1 in., grooved and ventilated discs, with twin, four-piston calipers per upright, is shown clearly in the photograph. There is provision for water cooling if required. Air-flowed ducts in the rear tail section feed shrouds over the inboard, grooved and ventilated 11.97 in. x 1.1 in. discs, which each have single, four-piston calipers, their effect adjustable via a cockpit balance bar. The master cylinders, calipers and discs are from Lockheed, the large capacity, remote reservoirs from Girling. The fully-adjustable suspension follows conventional racing car practice: the front employs wide-based, fabricated lower wishbones and upper rocking arms operating inboard, co-axial dampers/ coil springs, and an inboard anti-roll bar: the rear has lower parallel links, fabricated upper links, twin radius rods, co-axial outboard damper coil springs and an inboard anti-roll bar. Aluminium-bodied Koni dampers are fitted and the magnesium hub-carriers are of Lola manufacture. Twin radiators are mounted in the nose and big NACA ducts feed an oil cooler in each side pod, The two bag tanks in the monocoque sides hold the regulation 26 gall, of petrol and haw quick-fill, dry seal fuel fillers to allow the maximum 11 gall. top-up to be taken on in just 6 sec. during the mandatory refuelling stops. A steel-tube, argon-arc welded engine frame is designed to mount a fuel-injected, dry-sump, 5-litre Chevrolet Z28 engine as a semi-stressed member. The 5-speed and reverse transaxle is a Hewland DG 300 on which the full width, adjustable rear wing is mounted. The push-rod V8s give 560 to 570 b.h.p., which makes the choice of a 3-litre racing engine in the same minimum weight chassis a non-viable proposition. Penske apparently toyed with the idea of running a DFV for the 1980 season, but fell back on the faithful Chevrolet when he failed in an attempt to have the minimum weight reduced for 3-litre cars. CanAm is all about big, brutepower engines, the SCCA decided, and opening the door any wider to Grand Prix engines would ruin the formula’s unique flavour. The T530’s vital statistics are: overall length, 182 in; overall width, 83 in; wheelbase, 106.5 in.; front track, 70 in.; rear track 64 in.; weight, 1,650 lb. The Lola cast magnesium alloy wheels are 13 in. x 11 in. and of threepiece assembly at the front and one-piece, 15 in. x 18 in. at the rear. Broadley has high hopes of a fourth Championship win with the T530, which he anticipates will be at least 2 sec. a lap quicker on most circuits than the T333, Lola’s US agent Carl Haas has already ordered a batch and Broadley anticipates making eight or 10 cars for this season. “Hopefully the design will develop over a number of years and we’ll probably make 30 or 40 in. total.” Haas and Jim Hall will run a factory T530 for a “name” driver yet to be announced (Tambay is a likely contender). As this was written, testing at Rattlesnake had been delayed by the hopefully temporary loss of the prototype somewhere in the US railroad system! Broadley expressed high hopes for the future of CanAm. “It’s growing into a more sophisticated form of racing and the cars and drivers are being sorted out, with much better quality.” But a further comment revealed that there is still some way to go in development of the formula: “We’ve had to make the car easy to work on because the teams generally are not up to the standard of Formula One teams.” Other Lola Developments Sports 2000 racing grew up around the Lola T490 in 1977. Now this popular formula has become internationally accepted and offers good business to the manufacturer of a competitive car, so Lola have designed a brand-new model, the T590. to replace the now outclassed T492. Unlike the T490 series, the T590 is purpose built for the formula. Compared to the T492 it is narrower, lower and much lighter. By reducing the overall height, laying the driver down more and positioning all components as low as possible, the centre of gravity has been reduced. Together with substantially revised suspension geometry, this has enabled the car to accept considerably greater lateral cornering forces; the lengthened wheelbase has altered the weight distribution and consequently improved handling and stability. “The big difference is in ‘turn-in’.” Bob Marsden, the car’s designer, told us. “It has a much better front end: the old car had an understeer problem.” 28
Page 1 and 2: February 1980 Motor Sport Founded i
Page 3 and 4: is more than twice as dangerous as
Page 5 and 6: and Swedish F3 driver Stefan Johans
Page 7 and 8: During the warm-up Andretti’s Lot
Page 9 and 10: go that there was no need for major
Page 11 and 12: acing a white, low-chassis. 100 m.p
Page 13 and 14: time, there comes the temptation to
Page 15 and 16: in a taxi, on a day of visits to hi
Page 17 and 18: layer of leather. The lid was then
Page 19 and 20: THE BANDAMA RALLY A TITLE collected
Page 21 and 22: FORD’S SABBATICAL IT is just over
Page 23 and 24: Apart from having to provide an ope
Page 25 and 26: ack. “At least we had our back se
Page 27: Fitzpatrick’s opinions of the mac
Page 31: the International Sporting Code and

Founded in the year nineteen twenty-four February 1980

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?