Need ID on weird US open wheeler

In L'automobile magazine of december 1969, in the pages with small messages (like pit&paddock in Autosport) the following pictures appeared.



Together with this text:


Does anyone has more info about this one? It had around 200 hp, but I wonder if it has been further developped? And does someone have a picture of the original car of 1962, which finished 4th in the Indy 500?

I think this was a car built for the steam powered land speed record rather than a racecar if I recall correctly. Can't find any further details at the moment as to if it succeeded.
I guess the original chassis upon which it's based must have run at Indy.According to the result Don Davis with a Lesowsky chassis was 4th in 62.


Simon Lewis
Transport Books
www.simonlewis.com

If it is actually the same car, the fourth place Indianapolis finisher in 1962 was a 1959 lay-down design by Lujie Lesovsky. The Offy engine was on the right side, laying flat to the left. It started from the pole in 1959 with Johnny Thomson, leading the race for 40 laps and finishing third.

Thomson drove it again in 1960, led 10 laps and was running third with 30 laps to go when a sick engine forced him to slow down. He finished fifth.

In 1961 Paul Goldsmith drove it, finishing 14th after retiring with an oil leak. In 1962 the car was sponsored by Ebb Rose of Houston-based J.H. Rose Trucking. Don Davis qualified 12th and finished fourth, on the same lap as winner Rodger Ward.

WINO

Skip Hedrick was a sprint and champ car driver in the 60s - I'm away from my records, but i believe he was also from the Arizona/Texas region, like Ebb Rose. The 1959 "Lesovsky" was actually a "Racing Associates", as Lujie Lesovsky was only the fabricator. The design was by Roy Sherman, RA's chief mechanic, and a second chassis was built by Frank Kurtis for 1960 and a third by the team for '61. The most interesting thing I recall about the car is that its engine was angled to fit the driveline past the driver who could sit very low as a consequence.

Thanks for the additions, Fines. The distinction between designer and builder was always a bit murky in those days. The car is listed in Clymer's 1959 yearbook with Lesovski as its builder and Bob Philipps as chief mechanic. Why not Sherman as mechanic on this Racing Associates entry, I wonder?

Incidentally, Thomson nickname was "The Flying Scot" although he was born in Massachusetts.

The car did not reappear at the Brickyard in 1963 and may well have been sold to Hedrick by then.


WINO

Well, it may have been Rocky Philipp who designed the car - as I said, this comes purely from (fallible) memory. Actually, thinking about it again I now think it was probably Herb Porter! Fact is, one negative facet of these originally very helpful columns "chassis" in Fox and Harms is that now people talk about "car makes" Wetteroth, Stevens, Lesovsky etc. These guys were the equivalent of, say, specialist component manufacturers like Thompson or Arch Motors in Britain in the seventies, or BS Fabrications.

About Skip Hedrick, I recall he ran a roadster around 1966 in a few Indycar races, or at least tried to qualify one. Don't recall any specifics, but this is a good pointer to what it actually was, probably the same car.

In the meantime I had a chance to look things up: it was Rocky Philipp who built the original car, and in my records Hedrick has the 1961 chassis.