8 replies to this topic

[URY914]

I was on another forum today and someone said how the original Can-Am "had no rules". Well I've heard this statement many times before and have always wondered if it was true. I realize there must have been safety rules and I know there needed to be two seats in the cars but what else were the rules?

Open top?
Four wheels?
No moving wings?
No jet engines?

[Vitesse2]

Can-Am wasn't an official FIA Championship until 1971, but presumably before that date all cars had to conform to SCCA and/or CASC regulations. The 1971 regs specify cars conforming to Appendix J Group 7 and/or SCCA Sports Racing Category, minimum 2500cc, no turbines and with approved safety tanks.

[buckaluck]

At first the wings were movable later it was ruled to be fixed after Jim Hall had a mishap in hi Chaparral.
Other rules were present i'm sure you can find Appendix J rules for that era on line somewhere. I think the mystic was
what the rules didn't say you couldn't do it left a lot to the imagination knowing they hadn't said you couldn't do this or that
so it left a lot to your own creativity and so we had much creativity in the Can Am. 4 motor 4 wheel drive to the Chaparral Sucker car the 2J
on to the lets just see how much horsepower we can make of the 1200+ horsepower of the 917/30. This series more then any applied Aerodynamics
to race cars.

Buck

Edited by buckaluck, 03 February 2011 - 00:59.

[URY914]

This sums it up best...


The Group 7 category was essentially a formule libre for sports cars; the regulations were minimal and permitted unlimited engine sizes (and allowed turbocharging and supercharging), virtually unrestricted aerodynamics, and were as close as any major international racing series ever got to anything goes. As long as the car had two seats and bodywork enclosing the wheels, and met basic safety standards, it was legal. Group 7 had arisen as a category for non-homologated sports car 'specials' in Europe and for a while in the 1960s Group 7 racing was popular in the United Kingdom as well as a class in hillclimb racing in Europe. Group 7 cars were designed more for short-distance sprints than for endurance racing. Some Group 7 cars were also built in Japan by Nissan and Toyota, but these did not compete outside their homeland (though some of the Can-Am competitors went over to race against them occasionally).

[Ray Bell]

If I've got it right, they didn't even need to have headlights...

Is that correct? Which means they weren't, strictly speaking, sports cars.

[RA Historian]

Originally, they not only had headlights, but carried spare tires. Viz: McLaren M1A with its very visible spare under the windscreen. By 1967 those regs had fallen by the wayside, as the Chaparral 2G had headlight covers, but no headlights. At the same time, the McLaren M6A did not even have the pretense of headlight covers, nor did the Lola T-75 (sometimes called the T-701 Mk III-B, but numbered T-75 in the Lola production run).
Tom

[Vitesse2]

If I've got it right, they didn't even need to have headlights...

Is that correct? Which means they weren't, strictly speaking, sports cars.

Entirely correct, Ray. Groups 7, 8 and 9 came under Category C (Racing Cars) in Appendix J: Group 7 is defined as "two-seater racing cars".

Edited by Vitesse2, 03 February 2011 - 01:58.

[PCC]

You may find this thread useful.

[IanRobinson]

Re the F5000's - a few of these ran in South Africa in the national championship alongside F1's. This was all happening around the seventies and it was interesting to see people like Booby Olthoff and Paddy Driver in Lolas (if my memory hasnt bent a valve) giving Lotus 72's and March 70's (?) driven by Dave Charlton and I think Ian Scheckter a go at the old Kyalami (before they ruined it totally) where the straight allowed the horses full rein (reign?).