Formula 5000

[HDonaldCapps]

I am surprised to an extent that no one has mentioned Allen Brown's excellent site -- OldRacingCars.Com -- during what little discussion there has been on this thread. Lots and lots of "Eye Candy" but little substance for the most part.

Thought it interesting that a discussion of F5000 began with a few photographs of a USAC Championship car, an Eagle, rather than a pukka F5000 machine.

Liked the notion of F/A or F5000 from the beginning, but its last season or so in the US was a bit painful to watch at times. The US series was as much of a victim of the declining fortunes of the SCCA as the original Can-Am and Trans-Am were, the club's governors wanting to return to the nostalgic past when it was an amateur organization and run like a gent's club. Its attempt to revive "Can-Am" by putting bodies on the F5000 cars was an interesting one, but missed the mark by a wide margin. The IMSA Camel GT series was now the game in town and the SCCA simply could not find a means to truly compete with it. The departure of USAC from F5000 after the 1976 season was another factor, with USAC having its own problems to deal with at the moment.

Just an observation.

[Eagle512]

There are several web-sites about James Garners racing involvement. http://www.airl88.com/ details the Gulstrand Corvettes. Also, after his partnership in AIR Garner ran Scooter Patrick in Formula/A - 5000. He made a movie about their season The Racing Scene, youtub short http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtOgml5O5SM I believe he also ran a T70 for Dave Jordan (Eagle 512 driver),Lothar Motschenbacher, Ed Leslie, and Scooter Patrick at Daytona. As for the AMC motor, I have the build sheet for the original that went into the AIR Eagle. It was an AMC block with Chevy internals.

[Steve Holmes]

There are several web-sites about James Garners racing involvement. http://www.airl88.com/ details the Gulstrand Corvettes. Also, after his partnership in AIR Garner ran Scooter Patrick in Formula/A - 5000. He made a movie about their season The Racing Scene, youtub short http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtOgml5O5SM I believe he also ran a T70 for Dave Jordan (Eagle 512 driver),Lothar Motschenbacher, Ed Leslie, and Scooter Patrick at Daytona. As for the AMC motor, I have the build sheet for the original that went into the AIR Eagle. It was an AMC block with Chevy internals.

Thanks for that, some great links and excellent reading material there.

Here is that Youtube link you supplied:

[Howard Wood]

[QUOTE=HDonaldCapps;6345]I am surprised to an extent that no one has mentioned Allen Brown's excellent site --

Thought it interesting that a discussion of F5000 began with a few photographs of a USAC Championship car, an Eagle, rather than a pukka F5000 machine.

Liked the notion of F/A or F5000 from the beginning, but its last season or so in the US was a bit painful to watch at times. "

Donald,

In answer to your pertinent questions:

Allen Brown's oldracingcars.com has certainly been mentioned in the Formula Pacific thread and is an amazing resource.

In NZ, Formula A/ 5000 began as a one off promotion by the somewhat anti establishment promoters of Bay Park and the earliest cobbled together fields here (and thus photographs) were an oddball mix of machines and it was only when F5000 became the official premier single seater class here that the field consisted of pukka F5000 cars, albeit with the occasional F2 car thrown in.

I suspect the demise of F5000 here and elsewhere had much to do with a fundamental flaw in the "stock block" concept, as used at the time in both F5000 and F2. Introduced to keep costs under control, as engine builders found ways to extract more and more power from the stock block, perversely, costs spiraled out of control as engine reliabilty declined. In European F2, the rules were changed to allow pure race engines, thus as an example, Brian Hart could build the Hart 420R using all the leasons learnt from the ubiquitous Ford block with none of its limitations.

In NZ a combination of reduced fields due to rising engine costs with even more depleted numbers of finishers due to unreliability lead to the final series being farcical.

[Steve Holmes]

I am surprised to an extent that no one has mentioned Allen Brown's excellent site -- OldRacingCars.Com -- during what little discussion there has been on this thread. Lots and lots of "Eye Candy" but little substance for the most part.

Thought it interesting that a discussion of F5000 began with a few photographs of a USAC Championship car, an Eagle, rather than a pukka F5000 machine.

Liked the notion of F/A or F5000 from the beginning, but its last season or so in the US was a bit painful to watch at times. The US series was as much of a victim of the declining fortunes of the SCCA as the original Can-Am and Trans-Am were, the club's governors wanting to return to the nostalgic past when it was an amateur organization and run like a gent's club. Its attempt to revive "Can-Am" by putting bodies on the F5000 cars was an interesting one, but missed the mark by a wide margin. The IMSA Camel GT series was now the game in town and the SCCA simply could not find a means to truly compete with it. The departure of USAC from F5000 after the 1976 season was another factor, with USAC having its own problems to deal with at the moment.

Just an observation.

Further to Howards excellent post above, I wrote a very brief history on the class back when this forum was still new, in May, although that thread dried up pretty quickly: http://www.theroaringseason.com/show...mula-5000-Cars

There seem to be quite a few theories as to why the formula failed, cost being the most obvious which was probably more the case in NZ. But I wonder also if the SCCA switching to the centre-seat Can-Am formula also had a negative flow-on effect to other countries as it dried up the chassis supply. Afterall, this formula was almost exclusively based on teams being able to purchase an engine and chassis and go racing, as most didn't have the capacity to build their own chassis'. It survived on the ability to assemble a field made up of customer cars.

[David McKinney]

There seem to be quite a few theories as to why the formula failed, cost being the most obvious which was probably more the case in NZ. But I wonder also if the SCCA switching to the centre-seat Can-Am formula also had a negative flow-on effect to other countries as it dried up the chassis supply

Didn't the Can-Am switch come after F5000 died in NZ? In any case, it was English builders who supplied most of the F5000 chassis

I think the formula died in NZ largely because its lifespan coincided with enormous growth in saloon racing, and new saloon categories, which appealed to spectators more. Any available sponsorship money went increasingly to saloon operations, thus depriving the once-drawcard single-seater series of funding. And, of course, the promotional establishment was insufficiently far-sighted to do anything about promoting 5000 racing as much as it could have