!968 Tasman Series Sports cars

[bry3500]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arXdJ1b6Hbs&feature=related

[Steve Holmes]

Thats a great piece of footage. Too bad we don't get to see more of the race, although its a forgone conclusion given the dominance of Frank Matich and the SR3 at the time. What a beautiful car that is. Its amazing the Ferrari P4 is still carrying its spare wheel on the back. Was it still compulsory to carry a spare wheel in Aus sports car racing in 1968?

[pallmall]

Yes it was, pretty stupid. I think even the UK had lifted that stupid rule for Gp7 by then.
Seeing some cars with the spare wheel held on with bungy cord just to satisfy an ancient rule that really applied to cars from a past age makes one shudder to think what would have happened if the said wheel fell off.

[bigbanger]

Yes it was, pretty stupid. I think even the UK had lifted that stupid rule for Gp7 by then.
Seeing some cars with the spare wheel held on with bungy cord just to satisfy an ancient rule that really applied to cars from a past age makes one shudder to think what would have happened if the said wheel fell off.

CAMS = Confederation Against Motor Sport........ according to some!

[Steve Holmes]

Yes it was, pretty stupid. I think even the UK had lifted that stupid rule for Gp7 by then.
Seeing some cars with the spare wheel held on with bungy cord just to satisfy an ancient rule that really applied to cars from a past age makes one shudder to think what would have happened if the said wheel fell off.

So Gavin, the spare wheel on the Ferrari was put there just so the car could race in Australia? Most of the Aussie built sports cars were designed with the spare wheel rule in mind, creating a space for it beneath the windscreen as the very early Can-Am cars did. But obviously the Ferrari was built to a set of regulations that that had moved on from where Aus was at the time, hense the spare hanging off the back?

[pallmall]

Yes, the Ferrari had been rebodied for Can Am, originally a long distance car it would have carried a spare wheel, probably above the gearbox. When it was taken to Aussie they had to add a spare wheel and the only place it would fit was hung off the back. I don't now how it was attached, but I have seen cars in that period with a couple of bungy cords holding the wheel on at the back.
Rules that go back to the thirties sporting touring cars must be obeyed, safety is not an issue.

You never know, Chris may have got a flat and needed to change the wheel out on the course, I doubt he was carrying tools or a jack though. Crazy.

[Leo D]

This is Chris Amon at the 1968 Sandown Tasman Round.... the event following the Warwick Farm meeting in the video.

That meeting produced probably 2 of the best races that I ever saw..... Chris Amon in the P4 Vs Frank Matich in the SR3, and Chris Amon in the V6 Dino Vs Jim Clark in the Lotus 49 fighting it out to the finish for the Australian Grand Prix.

This picture shows Chris coming onto the back straight at Sandown in the P4... The spare wheel just visible on the rear of the car

http://img683.imageshack.us/img683/8764/cascy.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/683/cascy.jpg/)

When it first appeared, the Matich SR4 caried the spare wheel tucked up under the rear body work.
The spare wheel rule continued into 1969 here in Aus until it was abandoned. It can be seen here sticking out of the back of the car at one of its early runs at Calder.

http://img543.imageshack.us/img543/9462/sparewheel1.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/543/sparewheel1.jpg/)


This is a shot of the SR4 when the spare wheel rule was removed.

http://img834.imageshack.us/img834/8254/sr4c.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/834/sr4c.jpg/)

The SR4 was built for the Can Am series, which didn't require the spare wheel to be carried, however, whilst running in Aus early in its life the spare wheel was required.

[Leo D]

The Matich SR3 at the Repco 50th Anniversary meeting held at Calder Park in 1968...

http://img560.imageshack.us/img560/9271/sr31o.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/560/sr31o.jpg/)

[Steve Holmes]

Great work there Leo. Re the Amon Ferrari, was this the same car that raced in the Can-Am in 1967?

[pallmall]

Yes, P4 0858

[Leo D]

The Matich SR3 competed in a few Can Am rounds as well.... Frank Matich at 2:08 in the video


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRlcOnccfgg

[Steve Holmes]

Thanks Leo. Matich built the SR4 with the intention of running it in the Can-Am too didn't he?

[Leo D]

Thanks Leo. Matich built the SR4 with the intention of running it in the Can-Am too didn't he?

Correct Steve the theory was that the SR4 was built for a full on assult of the Can Am series. However, this never took place.

There was a documentary made on the project simply called "Matich"...... It goes into a reasonable amount pf depth on how the SR4 concept came into being whilst Frank was still campaining the SR3. Like all major projects things often don't always go to plan.... for example, the car was to have an all alloy body, but ended up with a glass fibre body. The engine was especially developed for the car.

The SR4 never competed in the Can Am series, and there are several theories as to why. In any case, Frank Matich had already made his move into F5000 trying his luck inthe USA running in the L&M series and doing quite well financially from the prize money on offer.

[Steve Holmes]

Thanks Leo, I think it was in AMC where i read the Can-Am rules were changed which prevented the SR4 from racing there. Just another of those what-could-have-been stories. Would have been interesting had he been able to race it there. The L&M F5000 series was lucrative by Australian standards, but the Can-Am was far more lucrative than F5000. The Can-Am was largely credited for establishing McLaren financially, from which it could quickly expand.

[bry3500]

reposting the link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K18gnn1nf7o

[Ray Bell]

I really don't believe Frank's story about a change in the rules...

I don't recall it being promulgated at the time, rather that it was a later addition to his repertoire. He said that pure race engines were banned, that all cars had to have stock-block engines.

The real reasons may well be buried forever. Perhaps it was Repco winding down their race-engine activities due to the F5000 engines coming on stream (and a 5-litre of that type would be no match for a Chev of over eight litres), perhaps it was that Repco (or other sponsors) wanted Frank to concentrate on the F5000. Maybe it was simply that the SR4 wasn't sufficiently quicker than the SR3 to promise to be competitive in the US.

[bill hollingsworth]

Re the spare wheel rule is probably a carry over from what a sports car is or was. When the World Sports Car Championship started in 1953 cars such as the production Austin Healey competed but pretty quickly factory "specials" appeared changing the character of the class. To maintain some semblance of a sports car rather than a factory prototype things such as a spare wheel, luggage capacity and windscreen height were enforced. Of course the entry of factory specials spelt the demise of production cars and the escalation of the sport from amateur to professional status. As a kid I saw the Ferrari P4 race at Longford where it was in a class of its own. It is ironic that sports car races at the time were often one horse races whereas the production sports car races were gladiatorial events.

[Ray Bell]

The good bit is that that P4 versus the SR3 were a long way from 'one-horse' races...

Matich was the victor in all three, but Amon was challenging him like nobody had ever challenged him before.

[bry3500]

Great article on P4 0858 here
https://primotipo.com/2015/04/02/ferrari-p4canam-350-0858/

[Howard Wood]

Re the spare wheel rule is probably a carry over from what a sports car is or was. When the World Sports Car Championship started in 1953 cars such as the production Austin Healey competed but pretty quickly factory "specials" appeared changing the character of the class. To maintain some semblance of a sports car rather than a factory prototype things such as a spare wheel, luggage capacity and windscreen height were enforced. Of course the entry of factory specials spelt the demise of production cars and the escalation of the sport from amateur to professional status. As a kid I saw the Ferrari P4 race at Longford where it was in a class of its own. It is ironic that sports car races at the time were often one horse races whereas the production sports car races were gladiatorial events.

Sports Car regulations the world over seem to be full of arcane and obscure rules, no doubt with some basis in long gone road car regulations. When I was at Le Mans in 1976 with Alain de Cadenet's Lola base prototype, we were horrified to discover during scrutineeering that there was a rule that required the car to perform a figure of eight within a certain boundary. This detail had escaped de Cad and there was no way the car came close to being able to comply.

Kiwi solution; crank about 4 inches of toe in on the front and while pushing the car, surreptitiously lift the inside front corner! With a French shrug, the scrutineer signed it off as passed.

It always seemed to me that most of the Le Mans regulations were there to advantage French entries and make it hard for anyone else. Shades of the Australian ADR regs?

[Oldfart]

AFAIK, Can Am didn't mandate the "stock block". Look at almost every car, Porsche, Ferrari McLaren Lola, ... None of the "factory" cars were stock block. All were race engines, OK some of the Chev based things were similar, but Reynolds, amongst others were making non stock blocks.
Never let the truth get in the way?

[Ray Bell]

That's the way it always was for Cranky Frankie...

By manipulating that story into every crevice over a decade or two, all many years after everyone's forgotten what really happened, he could make it look like the Yanks expected his SR4 to wipe the board over there.