Shellsport International Championship 1977

[allenbrown]

Thanks to Jeremy Jackson, the 1977 F5000/G8/F1 series results will be on OldRacingCars.com soon.

I have a few mystery cars that I hope you guys can help me with:

* Nick May - Graham Eden Racing Sana-BDG at R1 and R2
* Derek Cook - Chevron B27 (another one?!) at R1 and R2
* Rob Moffat - March 73B at R1 and R2
* Rob Moffat - #28 March 74B at R11 and R12
* Philip Guerola - #30 Wimhurst LP2-BDA at R4-R7 (entered as Wimhurst F2)
* John Bowtell - #76 March 74B at R9 and R12
* Howard Rose - #77/#42 March 753/76B at R10-R12 and R14
* John Ravenscroft - #43 Surtees TS15 at R11-R14
* Martin Birrane - #63 Chevron B29 at R11
* Terry Fisher - GRD 372-BDA at R12

Presumably Moffat's 73B and 74B are the same car but so we know which car? And is the Fisher car the ex-Russell one as has been suggested before? Were there really only two Sanas?

Any thoughts?

Allen

[Andrew Kitson]

I always thought there were only two Sanas built. Cyd Williams confirmed this to me a few years back. I have the 'Autosport' colour centrespread somewhere showing both of them.

[Chris Townsend]

Allen

Do you mean the 1977 G8 series? [78 was F1/F2 only and few if any of the above ran in it]

Birrane B29 [29.75.17] ex Williams
There were only two Sanas RD9 originally FAt and RD11 originally F3 though later ran as Atlantic.
Cook B27 [27.74.08] he'd owned this car since April 1975. In 1974 he owned a different one [chassis 14] which went to Hugh Munro in 1975 [though Cook drove it at 1975 British GP meeting] At one point in 1975 Cook owned March 75B-U1; this Chevron; the ex SDC/Crawford 74B built from spares, wrecked on debut; and Chevron B29-75-29. By early 1976 this and an F1 Williams were all he had.
Ravenscroft 15-006 I believe, ex Wardle-Carvill
Moffat's car a 73B [all 74Bs in UK accounted for and rest in USA/Spain] Don't know for sure, but my money on it being the ex Lucas/Bailey/Rouse car. Moffatt was Australian. Does anyone have anything on him there?
Bowtell, not a real 74B either. Remember the car as dark blue, with a 75 nose and side rads, and very slow.
Rose's car had a 753 plate [I noted the number but can't find my old note book!]
Was white, red and black I think [I have somewhere quite a lot of paddock photos of these cars]
Fisher's car is probably one of the Saunders or Russell GRDs from 1976. [both were originally 372s]

chris

[allenbrown]

Yes, 1977

That will teach me to try to 1977 Group 8 while also working on 1978 USAC. One's little brain gets confused.

Thanks for all this. So do you know if this Sana is the RD9 or the RD11? One of them (this one presumably) was destroyed in a fire wasn't it? And the other one became the Barton I think, but I don't know which way round they were.

Allen

[allenbrown]

I think I've answered my own question. Autocourse's results summary calls it a RD9 at Mallory and Snetterton.

[allenbrown]

Only one problem left: what on earth was the Musetti March that Divi drove once? It can't have been 742/U1 as that was already in New Zealand wasn't it?

Allen

[Dan Rear]

Allen, didn't Val hire out his F2 March (s) a few times in 76/77, after he'd got the ex Walkinshaw 752 GA. Why was Divi in the car anyway, was the Surtees being readied for the GP or something, rings a vague bell with me.

The Moffat car was a bit scruffy, I recall seeing it/him at R1. He ran it with just one helper I think, out of a well-used MRE Transit van. Even by the, pretty low, standards of G8 in early 77, the outfit looked well out of place ! As both he and Rose were Ozzies, it wasn't the same car was it ? And the Bowtell car, what was it originally. I agree it wasn't up to G8 level, but in clubbie Libre, it went quite well.

Finally, a teaser, who the heck was 'Rikky Pearce' ? He was entered in early 76 G8 with a Surtees TS16, and some 77 races in the Heavens 762 I think, did he ever start though, and where did he come from/go to ?

[allenbrown]

I've finally had a chance to get back to this.

The Divi March was bothering me still.

According to Autosport, Divi was driving the F2 March that had proved uncompetitive in Thruxton qualifying the previous Saturday. (This is the Easter weekend of 1977.) Turning to the Thruxton F2 report, it calls Musetti's car a March 762 but says it was "updated". The F1R black book calls it 742-U1. I don't have Motoring News for 1977.

As I understand it - mainly by reading through Chris's research - Musetti had three Marches:
* A 73B in 1974, updated to 74B in 1975 and to 752 in 1976 with a Swindon BDX.
* 742/U1 in 1975 and 1976, also with a Swindon BDX
* 752/15 in 1976 and 1977 with a GAA V6.

Presumably the Thruxton/Divi car is 742/U1 but we have that as the car that goes to Howard Wood at the beginning of 1977. So does that mean Divi was in the 73B/74B/752? Or could it be that the 73B/74B remained an Atlantic car throughout and that was the one that went to New Zealand?

Or isn't it as simple as that?

There's a photo of the Divi March in Autosport if that helps at all.

Allen

[allenbrown]

I found this here on the March 772-05 thread back in October 2003.

Originally Posted by Chris Townsend

Dan

Nothing yet on the Westwood/Hull/Templeton/Lawler cars.
Too busy working! I suspect that those might have to wait till after Christmas.

However, the Musetti cars are a bit of a specialist subject:
Going into the '76 season Val has two cars
One is the ex Stan Matthews March 73B rebuilt as a '75B' or '74B'
the other is a 742 [and interestingly in the light of the current e mails it is described as being built around a 732 tub]. This is 742-U1 in the F1R record. He does use both cars in early 76, but one is only raced at the Thruxton F2 meeting and in Libre races, and perhaps the Oulton Good Friday G8 race to bed it in for Thruxton, and the Snetterton round R8; the other gets outings in G8 Then he gets the 752 with the GAA engine from Walkinshaw. At that point he has three cars hanging round. I guess he then sells 742-U1 quite late in the season because this seems to have been the car entered for Walkinshaw at R9 Brands Hatch at end August and it may even appear in the last G8 race of the season.

Motoring News identifies the Wood car in NZ as ex Musetti, and the plate U1 suggests it is the 742 as the Matthews 73B was a regular series construction [I'm fairly sure]. However, don't know what happened to the Matthews car. Val Musetti is still around and I'm trying to get in touch through contacts in the film business.

Chris

Alternatively, could it be Val's Atlantic car that he sells late-ish 1976 after acquiring the 752/GAA? If it was 742/U1 that he sold to New Zealand, then his 1977 F2 car must have been the old 73B. That doesnt sound right, does it? Why sell a F2 car to an Atlantic competitor and then convert your older Atlantic car to F2?

I never did trust chassis plates

Allen

[tony griffiths]

Does Val's mum or sister still have the restauramt just off Picadilly ?

[Chris Townsend]

Val still works in the film business according to friends of mine in the industry.
Runs a stunt firm.

The 73B was more complicated - it's got a Stan Matthews 732 underneath it!
Also, there are more spare tubs involved. At the British GP support race of 1975
Musetti is described as having a new tub on the 73B. This is, I guess, 74B-U1,
but in a 1976 MN feature where he says he has two cars, one of them is
said to be basically a 732 tub. [Which also makes sense in terms of a prototype car
like U1]. I'm confused and I bet Val was/is too.

Chris

[allenbrown]

His telephone number is here.

Allen

[allenbrown]

I never thought to look him up on IMDB. What a career! From 1962 to 2004 (and presumably still more to come), he's been in a mass of Bond films, and other films from Superman II and Nuns on the Run to Aliens3 and An American Werewolf in London. On TV, he's appeared as an actor in Dr Who, The Avengers, Callan, The Professionals, Minder, Bergerac ... in fact just about anything where a character needed to throw himself down a flight of stairs or fight an alien.

So I guess the chances of him remembering which March was which in 1976 are pretty slim, aren't they. Failing to qualify at Thruxton can hardly rate as the highlight of his career!

Allen

[Andrew Kitson]

I'm in regular contact with Stan Matthews ( lives in Cape Town now ) but he admits he has forgotten an awful lot about his racing days, indeed he last raced in that '73 season, but I could ask if he remembers where the 73B went. Interestingly, he told me that by good fortune in having a supportive patron, he never ever spent a single penny of his own money on his racing career! How many drivers would give for that now!

[allenbrown]

Hi Andrew

We're also enormously keen to know whether that was a brand new 73B or whether he had an older car updated. Also, if he happens to have kept the chassis plate as a souvenir, or kept the March invoice in a scrap book ...

(I know, I know, but one has to ask!)

Allen

[Andrew Kitson]

Hi Allen

I'll ask but chances are he won't have invoices etc as everything was bought for him.

[allenbrown]

Absolutely right, a ten-to-1 chance at best but it's amazing what people have but don't think to mention until you ask them.

Om one occasion, the daughter of a well-known mechanic from the 1960s, now sadly deceased, said "I don't suppose his old notebooks with all the details of every car he worked on would be any help would it?"

Allen

[Chris Townsend]

Allen/Andrew

Stan Matthews' 73B was certainly built on his 723 - originally delivered March 1972.

[allenbrown]

Hi Chris

Do we already know the chassis number of the 723?

How on earth should we be describing this car through 1973 and 1974? At first a "723/73B" or is it "73B [723/x]"? And then "723/73B/74B"?! Any sort of "system" starts to really struggle with cars like this.

Allen

[Steve Wilkinson]

Originally Posted by allenbrown

Hi Chris

Do we already know the chassis number of the 723?

How on earth should we be describing this car through 1973 and 1974? At first a "723/73B" or is it "73B [723/x]"? And then "723/73B/74B"?! Any sort of "system" starts to really struggle with cars like this.

Allen

Allen, on the BMSA website we have adopted a 'simple'(?) strategy, if a car goes through a series of modifications then we (a) retain the original chassis type, then (b) add the latest modification level. Thus the Baker car would start as a 723, then become a 723/73B finally becoming a 723/74B. All the time the original chassis number would be associated with the car.

I have found it very difficult to get to the root of the changes and work out why there should be a change of 'type' - e.g. which of the following should require a type upgrade (a) a car running no chassis modifications but later bodywork or (b) a car that runs unaltered bodywork but has later rear suspension fitted?

It is a minefield!

[allenbrown]

Sounds like a solid strategy. One wrinkle worth mentioning. If, let's say, a 73B hadn't been modified with 74B parts but just renamed, there is a case for putting the driver's name for it in quotes. For example, Lawrence had a BT29 that he always entered as a BT30. So I called that Brabham 'BT30' [BT29/23]. So Musetti's "74B" could even be March '74B' [723/x].

However, I think it does work best to just go with March 74B [723/x].

It must seem pedantic to be worrying about such details but recording tens of thousands of results for thousands of cars is only possible if you have a detailed system to apply. It has to work for F1 Eifellands, 2-litre Chevron sports cars, Indy Gerhardts, Val Musetti's Atlantics, Moleba FCs and even Leda LT27s that become McRae GM1s mid-career.

Allen

[David McKinney]

Originally Posted by allenbrown

For example, Lawrence had a BT29 that he always entered as a BT30

Make that "occasionally" entered as a BT30

[allenbrown]

(sorry)

[Steve Wilkinson]

Originally Posted by allenbrown

Sounds like a solid strategy. One wrinkle worth mentioning. If, let's say, a 73B hadn't been modified with 74B parts but just renamed, there is a case for putting the driver's name for it in quotes. For example, Lawrence had a BT29 that he always entered as a BT30. So I called that Brabham 'BT30' [BT29/23]. Allen

In the above case I would be tempted to ignore the BT30 references and plump for JUST the BT29/23. After all the car is a BT29 and perpetuating the myth that it is anything else just confuses everyone.

As I said previously 'it's a minefield'!

[Chris Townsend]

We know the chassis nos of only a very few of the March 723s. Matthews' is not among them.

As far as 'evolution' of cars is concerned, I agree with Allen. Type number should be whatever it gets entered as and then in the chassis number you put the original type number as well. So Musetti's 1975 Atlantic car might be March 74B [723-5]-BDA
having been 73B [723-5] the previous year...

chris