Antipodean Season Ends

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30093, 29 March 1963, Page 9

Antipodean Season Ends

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BRUCE McLAREN

IWAS sitting back relaxing in a jet flying out from Sydney and wondering what the Cunningham E Type Jaguar would be like at Sebring when I realised that the Australian and New Zealand season had' come to an end. I’m sure my team felt as I did—sorry to leave the new friendships we had made and the friendships we had renewed. There was qlso a tinge of regret at leaving our “old faithful” intercontinental Cooper. To us it was a rather special car. We had built it pretty much ourselves and in nine races it had let us down only once. However, it is now in the hands of one of the most genuine enthusiasts of the sport—Australia’s Lex Davison —and I know he will give it the sort of home that all good racing cars should have. Sandown The Sandown International was a happy climax to the season (although Jack’s “Climax” wasn’t so happy afterwards). Like Rheims there was 100 bottles of champagne for fastest practice lap. Brabham and I turned laps that were so close that it was going to be a matter of who was lucky with the timekeepers’ results, and luck was our way—and so was all that champagne. There seemed to be gallons of it, and it was put aside for a cracker farewell party. Sandown arranged a considerable amount of pageantry, although it was slightly tainted by commercialism as the marching girls carried advertising banners, and the pipe band played commercial jingles. I’m glad Jimmy Clark wasn’t there. Masten Gregory was making his first appearance in Australia to drive one of the Bowmaker Lolas, and he made a good impression, although it was Tony Maggs who won the first heat of the international trophy. But our single-seat races on the first day were tame compared with the tremendous duel in the saloon car races.

Saloons

Saloon races at Sandown have been thrilling the crowds for some time, billing a “little” Jaguar against a big, big Chev Impala. This little Jaguar was stroked and bored to 4.1 litres, and the Chev. was a 6.7-litre full Daytonatrim fire-breathing Impala. Lex Davison was also racing a potent big Ford Galaxie,

and Era Abbott had an equally fast Chrysler Valiant. It was a 10-lap race. Beechey’s Impala snatched the lead, and Bob Jane had the Jaguar breathing on the Impala boot lid. For nine laps the crowd was on its feet as the announcer worked himself into a frenzy and these two tore away from the field. On the last lap on the uphill straight, Jane used a few more revs and got alongside the Impala, outbraked him into the Esses, and the result seemed assured—another win for Jane.

Nudged

But as he set the Jaguar up into the slight left-hander, Beechey gave him a nudge that would have done credit to Salvador!. Bob had a few

hectic moments sorting things out, and the Impala slipped through to take the flag. How- ‘ ever, Bob protested and won, ’ and the arguments still haven’t died down. On the Monday Jack and I turned on a race that I think must have been even better than the boisterous saloon battle, though not quite as rough. It started by not being too serious at first, and Jack and I swapped places just for the fun of it to see who could run away from whom. And we were rapidly convinced that we were stuck with each other. Jack was fairly keen on winning and so was I. In practice we hadn’t been lapping at much under lmiin llsec, but in the last third of the race we didn't get above Imin 9sec. The heat was really on. During the race we passed and repassed each other for the lead 12 times.

Pushing

Normally you look after your own engines pretty carefully, but Jack was using as many revs as I was—l knew because we were changing gear at the same time—and I had an overdraft of 500 revs. But what the hell, it was the last race. Poor Jack, I really felt sorry for him (it seems I wrote this after the last race). With a lap and a half to go I was in behind Jack, and I don’t really think I could have got past him, but a bigend bolt broke in Jack’s engine and solved my problem. The engine blew up in a most spectacular manner with a huge billow of smoke, and spectators were still returning pieces of engine hours after the race. Well, that’s it. Next year in Australia and New Zealand we will run to a new formula with a capacity limit of 2.5 litres and, at present anyway, on 93 octane petrol in New Zealand and 95 octane in Australia. This may pose a few problems with compression ratios

for us, but whatever the formula I want to come back again and I think I would use the same combination: the Cooper chassis, as rugged and dependable as can be; a Colotti gearbox which never gave a moment’s bother. And where would we be without the Coventry Climax engine?