11 replies to this topic

[island]

Hi!
Lawrence at Pukekohe in 1972, Brown at Surfers in 1973 and Bartlett at Pukekohe in
1974. The Lola T300-332 F5000 range was a
bit on the fragile side, I think.
What did the drivers of the time think of it,
Ray?
By the way, when will your Matich book be
published?

[Ray Bell]

When will it be started is a more important question... I really need to get on with it, but I know I'm going to exhaust a lot of things getting the right research done. At least I've spoken to Jacques Sapir...

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Life and love are mixed with pain...

[Ray Bell]

Other candidates for the Lola Limp were Gary Campbell, but only temporarily as he just twisted an ankle (Homestead Cnr, Warwick Farm) and Chas Talbot (big one at Adelaide International), but I think he recovered okay. One who didn't was Colin Trengove, son of Repco F5000 engine man, Doug. He finished himself off not long after a bunch of his friends hired a bus to go to Sandown to "watch him carsh." They would have been very red faced later.

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Life and love are mixed with pain...

[Vicuna]

Now that Mozart is on board, I wondered if he might like to add to this old thread.

[neville mackay]

Was there some inherent weakness in the design of the T300's that caused them to fold up around the drivers feet, or was the Lola limp simply a phrase dreamt up by journalists looking for a snappy headline? Is their reputation for fragility fair? Graeme Lawrence did after all come into contact with a train during his accident - he would presumably have hurt himself even if he had been racing a Sherman tank.

[Ray Bell]

They were very light... remember, they were based on an F2 tub or something.

It was fair, certainly in the case of the T300.

[David M. Kane]

The story I have heard repeatly is that if you had a shunt at a 100mph or more you would get at least a broken lower leg, thus "the Lola limp". I saw
Johnny Ruterford have a "minor" off at Watkins Glen in the day during a F5000 and he broke his leg.

Lastly, I have a twisted T-332 tub in our race shop as a piece of wall art.
It is very clear that whoever crashed it got a limp out of it. Basically,
it a very scary tub from a structural strength point of view.

[neville mackay]

This discussion has got me thinking about other designs that were, shall we say, over optimistic in the driver protection department. I can immediately think of the Porshe 965 (Palmer, Baldi and Nissen were the lucky ones, Winkelhock and Bellof less so); the Lola T85/50 (Trolle, Giroux); and the Maki (Ganley), all of which afforded less protection than their drivers might reasonably expect. Not to mention almost any Lotus of the Chapman era. Any other contributions to this hall of infamy?

[Ray Bell]

I'd hardly think the 25/33 or other Lotus monocoques up to the 72 were light on in strength required for driver protection... in fact, I'd have to say they were pretty good.

Bits falling off... that's another issue altogether, though the 25/33 again wasn't prone to much of this problem and the 49 was good once that rear suspension bracketing was brought up to spec.

[Allen Brown]

Originally posted by David M. Kane
The story I have heard repeatly is that if you had a shunt at a 100mph or more you would get at least a broken lower leg, thus "the Lola limp". I saw
Johnny Ruterford have a "minor" off at Watkins Glen in the day during a F5000 and he broke his leg.

He wrote off a T332 in that accident. How "minor" was it?

Originally posted by David M. Kane
Lastly, I have a twisted T-332 tub in our race shop as a piece of wall art.
It is very clear that whoever crashed it got a limp out of it. Basically,
it a very scary tub from a structural strength point of view.

Any idea of its origins?

Allen

[David M. Kane]

No I don't know who wrecked that tub, I will try to reach Marc Bahner to see if he knows. He did most of the restoration for this particular guy
which included this F5000 tub and a Shadow DN-5.

I saw Johnny Ruterford last week at the speedway, the next time I see him
I will ask about the specifics of that Watkins Glen F5000 race. It was great race, by the way, as the guy who gave Mario the hardest time was in
fact Al Unser. I wish I knew how to post photos, I will work on that.

[Allen Brown]

David

To post pictures, you need some sort of web site space to put them in.

I have such space by the acre so I'd be happy to do what I used to do for Doug Nye and put the pictures on one of my sites and let you know the URLs so you can post them on TNF. If you email me a test photo, I'll take you through the process step-by-step.

Allen