Phillip Island Historics

[Jim Cowden]

PHILLIP ISLAND HISTORICS

2 mates and I did the road trip to Phillip Island from Sydney.
Its approx 1050km each way give or take,and here are afew shots of a few of the cars running.

They had over 500 entries.

The Kiwis were out in force, 19 f5000 's made the trip and they put on a fantastic show.
25 f5000 's in all ,with the odd f1 car thrown in there.

We spent a day just in the pits and crawled all over these cars, the owners were fantastic and more than happy to share.
Well worth the drive.

Photos are
matich
matich
matich
917-30 canam
917
917
mclaren
yardley mclaren
brabham
race f5000

Jim

 

[Russ Noble]

That would have been a great weekend Jim.

We're lucky to have that many F5000's in NZ and the guys actually get stuck in and race them. epper: Non of these 'demonstration' races. It's great to see, and hear, and the spectators love it! I have heard of guys who bring cars (not F5000's) over to SFOS who complain that we race too hard.....WTF.....Apparently things are a bit more genteel in some other parts of the world!

Being an engineering type, did you happen to notice which way the centrelocks tightened on the F5000s and CanAms? A topical and controversial subject last year.

Thanks for posting the pics.

 

[Jim Cowden]

No Russ I didn't look at the centre locks,Didnt think off that.
I looked at a lot of suspension setups ,uprights arm configurations ect very interesting.
The Betrice ex Allan Jones f1 car was interesting as it was running a fabricated front and rear uprights, nearly every other car was cast alloy or mag.
They were beautifully made,in fact all off the cars were beautiful and in top condition.

Yes the Kiwis drove hard and it was worth driving the distance just to see them run.
You can see that some of the guy's were out there for the fun and others are there to win.
I do think that a big part off these cars is about being race fit to keep the pace up, and it shows up in some of the drivers as they go out hard and get slower and slower as the race progresses, especially the boys in the F1 cars ,to much car I think.
But it is nice of them to bring them out for all to enjoy.
Money doesnt buy tallent but it can buy you fun.

The cars ranged from 30's to about the 80's

Jim

 

[Mesa]

What is the green car and what engine does it have? That engine set-up looks the business!

 

[Ross Nicol]

Here are the pics I took,not very many as the memory was full.
Ross

 

[Russ Noble]

What is the green car and what engine does it have? That engine set-up looks the business!

Mesa,

Since no one else has taken the plunge..... I'm not that well up on this stuff..... but it's definitely a Repco Brabham, maybe a BT24. The motor is most likely a 3 litre Repco V8.

Maybe somone else can fill in the gaps.....

 

[Jim Cowden]

It is a repco brabham engine.

Dont qoute me as I saw so many cars that week end but I think it was claiming in the low to mid 400hp , no wonder Jack won.

 

[Bernie Knight]

Jim c

Thanks for the photos. I really enjoyed Phillip Island - for the fourth year now.

What a great weekend and event.

The interesting comparison was with the F1 Grand prix yesterday where the car numbers were few and access to the driver/owners and cars was very limited.

Having an overseas visitor with me it was interesting to hear his comments on the two events. The Phillip island Classic is certainly a must do event.

Thanks again for the photos.

Bernie

 

[Ross Nicol]

Yeah I agree Bernie. I was at the GP on friday and I particularly dislike the way that if you are a tight arse pleb (like me) and only go for one day at $55 entry, instead of a 4 day grandstand ticket, they only allow you access to a tiny portion of the Park. I had a beer (ok more than 1) with Pete,Di, Bill H and friend Max at Pete's bar ( no not really Pete's bar, he doesn't own it, you know what I mean). Anyway to get into the area where the bar is I had to borrow a ticket from bill to wear around my neck. This is in contrast to the relaxed aptmosphere at Phillip Island where all areas were open access. I even got a free ticket by displaying my Europa with the Lotus club. I'll be watching the GP on tele tomorrow in air conditioned comfort with much cheeper beer in hand.
Ross:

 

Nice to see a couple of McRae cars there. I was a fabricator/pit crew for Grahm McRae in the 1973 USA 5000 series. He was the 1972 series champ and sponsored by STP in '73. Anyone know where Grahm is these days?

 

[Ross Nicol]

There were 3 Mcrae GM1 cars racing and quite a few Begg cars as well. Not a bad effort from the Kiwi builders. The silver #5 GM1 driven by Chris Hyde was very fast and ran away from the others.
Ross

 

Thanks Ross! I wish some organizer would put together a vintage series for the F5000 cars in the US. They are truly fun to see! I remember seeing Jody S. do some amazing sideways driving back in '73.

 

[Jac Mac]

Nice to see a couple of McRae cars there. I was a fabricator/pit crew for Grahm McRae in the 1973 USA 5000 series. He was the 1972 series champ and sponsored by STP in '73. Anyone know where Grahm is these days?

Bill, PM sent.

 

[Russ Noble]

Anyone know where Grahm is these days?

Living in Auckland as far as I know. He did have a business there building Porsche 550 Spyder replicas, but no longer. He has had some health problems and other strife, but last year at one of the F5000 meetings at Ruapuna he was in the commentary box being interviewed and giving his insights into the F5000 scene.

At the last F5000 race at Ruapuna January this year there were 20 cars, all except one NZ based. 3 McRaes, 3 Beggs, 10 Lolas, 1Talon, 1 McLaren and a couple of others. Not a bad effort for a country with a population of only 4 million! F5000 has a big following here.

 

[Jac Mac]

Was also down for the 'Begg' reunion at Teretonga 2007 SFOS when I think about it!

 

[Leon]

Hi,it looks like you may get you wish as apparently that quite a few of the Kiwi F5000 boys are heading to England with there cars but some (including the Silver No:5 GM1 McRae that just wrapped up the Revial series at Philip Island)are going to the east coast of the states to run at Road America(expecting 42 F5000s I'm told) and another track over that side a couple weeks later.If it can be organized the ones going to England may join them,so you may want to start inquiring over there.
Cheers Leon

 

Leon, Jac Mac and Russ, thanks for the info on Grahm McRae. '72, 73, & '74 was a great time working in F5000. I met a lot of talented people. Peter Gethin, David Hobbs, Jim Hall, Terry Agapiou, Vern Shupan, Jody Sheckter, Brian Redman, Warick Brown to name a few. The other two mecanics on Graham's team were, Dennis MacCormack and a Brit named Roger. I can't remember his last name, but he worked for Jim Clark at one time. Dennis went on to become an Indy Car Team owner. Lost track of Roger. The team's base of operation back then was at Harley Clutuxton shop in Chicago. Harley gave me a ride in a MKIV, the one driven by Mario Andretti & Bruce McLaren. I have a friend with a Lola T332 sitting in his barn for sale. If I only had the money! Only $120,000.00 the last I heard.

 

[Jim Cowden]

FRPGUY

You worked in an era that I could only dream off.
Good memorys.

I would like to correct a statment I made earlier about the output of the repco brabham engine.
I did some research as it sounded to high.
The 3lt eng made 330hp.
OK got that off my chest.


Jim

 

[Jac Mac]

Jim C & others, When did the Repco engine change to center exit exhausts, only pics & info I have show exhausts outboard- I have a gut feeling they did change, but when? When I first saw the pic I thought DOHC ex Indy Ford which I believe McLaren used in a Cooper chassis for a while prior to forming his own team.

Colour scheme doesnt add up either-- not a lotus with very late version of Coventry Climax V8 or BRM engine ( BRM ran both center & outboard exhausts in two seperate cars in one year of the Tasman Series ) .

Jac Mac

 

[Jim Cowden]

It is definetly a Brabham,It was still early in the day I was still sober.
I looked at the engine and it was a repco.

1967 looking at what I have is showing centre exhausts (1 cam per bank type 740 engine).
It was a formula 2 based bt24's running if F1.
they started out with 290hp and ended up with 330hp.

The 2 cam per bank side exhaust was the type 860 in 1968 fitted to the bt26.
They enlarged this engine from 3lt to 4.2 for indy and 5.1 for sports cars.
Aparrently they were better in the larger form as they did not rev as hard.
The 3lt version had lots off vibration(higher rpm) and the rear cam followers fell apart.

Jim