Can-Am History and Tidbits

I took these pictures of Revson's McLaren M8F in 2009   Meadowbrook Concours d'Elegance.

That's the girl!

But, in the first pic, note the '73-spec splitter.

Good stuff.

Scott Urick wrote:

That's the girl!

But, in the first pic, note the '73-spec splitter.

Good stuff.

True, this car may have been sold to someone else for subsequent seasons after McLaren introduced the M20.
Then someone may have restored the original livery after the fact, but the mechanical updates remained. All speculation.

Jason White wrote:

Scott Urick wrote:

That's the girl!

But, in the first pic, note the '73-spec splitter.

Good stuff.

True, this car may have been sold to someone else for subsequent seasons after McLaren introduced the M20.
Then someone may have restored the original livery after the fact, but the mechanical updates remained. All speculation.

Seems a common practice, especially if the car is still used in historic racing. Sometimes you see a pretty wild part mix that hasn't much to do with the original livery or the car at all...

Race cars usually see through several seasons o life, especially when passed to lesser teams after their debut year with the factory one. That means many upgrade parts are built on them and by the time they are retired, they only vaguely resemble the original one.

The restorer faces both the problem of getting original parts and deciding what specific season the car has to reflect - often at the expense of very necessary improvements the car got later. The temptation of keeping parts that really make the car much better but are not part of its original appearence is always there

Lemme find my McLaren pics and I'll post them, All were taken at the Brickyard Vintage Invitational over the last few years.

And restorers/owners often go for the livery that is most popular or known on the type or individual car. If you hand the car to the original manufacturer, they may restore it to the condition it left the factory, even though it might never have raced that way. Also a way of stripping cars of their individual history.

And then there's a way of making cars work that once didn't really. I remember walking around David Piper's Ford P68 in 2005 and taking 3 dozens of photos, and it looked like a... Ford P68. And then, I saw another P68 in 2016 in the Spa paddock and couldn't believe that this is actually the same car (I don't know about the chassis, though), having grown ridiculously large dive planes with fences and rear end also got aerodynamically updated in a big way. I know, the P68 had aerodynamic issues, but dear Lord!

If you build models (scale or 3D), its sometimes a real pain to get behind certain details.

This is my personal favorite Can-Am car, the McLaren M20. Raced by the factory team in 1972; just wasn't a match for the turbocharged Porsches, but a gorgeous car.  Also photographed at the Concours in 2009.

Jason White wrote:

This is my personal favorite Can-Am car, the McLaren M20. Raced by the factory team in 1972; just wasn't a match for the turbocharged Porsches, but a gorgeous car.  Also photographed at the Concours in 2009.

The M20 is when they stretched the big Chevy out to 572ci! (Correct me, if I'm wrong, Jason.) And many of the earlier McLarens have been restored with that engine on board. Believe it or not, if you watch some of the hot rod shows on cable TV, you can still order the same engine from GM Performance as a crate engine!

If memory serves, in '73 they slapped turbocharging on that engine trying to match the 917/30, to no avail. I always had the impression it was like marrying a gorgeous, yet very irritable woman with military demolitions experience.

But I stand with Jason. While all the McLarens had great visual appeal, the M20 was the most beguiling of all, especially along the Teutonic Porsches.

It's hard to believe that beyond 700 HP there could be any difference at all at the average US road course. Generally bumpy and not too fast (Except Elkhart Lake), those tracks should cause enough wheelspin to make huge horsepower unusable, and yet the superiority of the Porsche was just that. Carroll Smith took some segment times between corner entry and exit for several CanAm cars and concluded that Donohue was slower at turn entry and apex, taking more elapsed time to get around the turns - however he more than made up for it in the straights later. How the Porsche had enough traction to put the 1200+ HP on the ground in a vaguely controllable manner is entirely beyond me, at least when considering what happens in rFactor with cars that have such figures.

Mark had said that when they took the 917/30 to Talladega to see just how fast it would go, when he first went out and was getting up to speed. He had wheelspin through the full range of the gearbox, to the point they had to make adjustments so he could make his record run.

It's interesting that Smith said the 917/30 was slower, I've heard an account and read accounts that there were several corners where the 917/30 was almost 2 seconds quicker through the turns than the 917/10. Most all guys who drove both 917's have all said the same 2 things. The /30 had stupid amounts of power and the /10 was faster in a straight line than the /30.

The more power you have, the more downforce you can apply to the car (and thus drag) without compromising to much on top speed.

The n/a 917/10 still largely followed Piechs maxime of reducing drag to gain straight line speed and thus laptime, and when Team Penske asked them to add a wing, they bluntly said no, arguing that wings are for aircraft. Don Cox, who worked on Penske's side of development of the turbo /10 said about the Porsche engineers involved that 'they still haven't gotten on to the idea that if go through a corner 5mhp faster, you carry most of that 5mph most of the way down the straightaway'.

Quote :

I've heard an account and read accounts that there were several corners where the 917/30 was almost 2 seconds quicker through the turns than the 917/10

Smith was comparing with the McLarens IIRC.

Denny Hulme and Peter Revson pose with members of the McLaren Can-Am team in 1971.

Rare pics of the Watkins Glen race here:

http://photobucket.com/gallery/user/felixdk/media/bWVkaWFJZDo1NzM2MDQ3Nw==/?ref=1

Jason White wrote:

Denny Hulme and Peter Revson pose with members of the McLaren Can-Am team in 1971.

A-HA! I might still be as crazy as an outhouse rat, but I kept telling Professor Ibanez that, if the new Lola had a high-downforce option for the nose, the M8F would certainly have followed suit. But he wanted photographic proof and I couldn't find any.

But Jason did! Thank you!

And I'm not picking on Alberto. It was just driving me nuts not finding a pic to back up my assertion.

Jason White wrote:

Rare pics of the Watkins Glen race here:

http://photobucket.com/gallery/user/felixdk/media/bWVkaWFJZDo1NzM2MDQ3Nw==/?ref=1

These are really great!! Thanks!

Racing Sportscars 1971 Watkin Glen
http://www.racingsportscars.com/photo/Watkins_Glen-1971-07-25c.html?sort=Results

Those of you who are driving the M8C or M8E, the Manta Mirage kit car is based on that body design. 
Some photos below from mantacars.com

http://www.mantacars.com/Literatureindextext.html











Here is a Manta Mirage done up to essentially look like a road legal McLaren Can-Am car.
Seems a bit silly when out of the context of a Can-Am race...

Yesterdaysneuz 1971 Can-Am photos

http://www.yesterdaysneuz.com/1971%20CanAm/index.htm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrfD2ffW1hs

David Sabre wrote:

You have been warned these cars can flip over.

Luckily the car not burst into flame

Jason White wrote:

David Sabre wrote:

You have been warned these cars can flip over.

I'm praying we don't have an incident like the one in Jim Garner's racing documentary (go to 8:16).
Likely the biggest demo derby ever at Mont-Tremblant. 

The crash is hilarious but no more hilarious rather than seeing a child with his head bloody.So,the story is when I and my sibling go to my sibling exam score.So,when all busy with score,suddenly in front of my sibling class,a child with his head bloody appear and causing panic.I didn't know why it happen.Maybe he fell from ladder or his head stumbled against the edge of ditch paved with concrete.The first thing popped into my mind is How danger is Motorsport was