Rothmans 50,000 Brands Hatch 1972

Puzzling this! Ray Allen started the main race in the #11 McLaren and have him as qualifying 21st (17th places above Santo). Schuppan started the main race in the #42 Malaysia Singapore Airlines March 722 so was #43 a duplicate entry? I have Daghorn down as a reserve entry in Westbury's Brabham and I have got him down as "Did not Practice" rather than DNS.

I can't explain Ray Allen other than to say that he does indeed appear twice in the "stick in" 23rd in the main race and 8th in the 100k, both with identical car descriptions, but only once in the entry list. T-car seems the most likely explanation - or just a plain old fashion c*ck-up. Remember that the stick in must have been produced very hastily after practice.

Schuppan - yes TWO entries 42 & 43

Daghorn - in the entry list 36 is shown as Westbury and he drove in the main race. I assume Daghorn practised and qualified for the 100k but did not start so as to preserve the car?

The #72 car is in there somewhere - Jones finished 20th.

I thought I was probably cross-eyed by then ! !

The report in the Swedish magazine 'Bilsport' has the total prize sum as £50.000, with £10.000 to the winner. The preceding 'Consolation' race had a first prize of £500.

This is correct,

David - £500,000 in 1972 would be equivalent to £4.3 million today !

RAP

Yes, too many noughts
Should of course have been £50,000 with £20,000 for the winner

Went to the 50,000- was a hugely hyped event and rather a dull race. My only memories are of the lovely yellow Lola sportscar- Casoni ?- and Brian Redman in the big engined M19 McLaren.He showed why he was a better sportscar driver than F1 pilot- smooth, quick , precise and unspectacular.I still have a rather grubby programme somewhere.

Brian Redman in the big engined M19 McLaren

Does this mean that Redman's car had an oversized engine?

Yes - it was running a 3.9ltr DFV - or was it 3.3?I think the former.Team obviously thought that as was Formula Libre they might as well get some more bangs per buck and better reliability.I don't remember the DFV being used that much in sports cars as early as 72 - weren't the DFL s and so on a bit later ?

Originally posted by RAP
2 To be nominated Yardley McLaren M19A 2993cc
37 Jean Pierre Jaussaud ASCA Brabham BT38 Ford 1980cc
38 Adam Potocki ASCA Brabham BT38 Ford 1980cc
50 Bob Evans A McKechnie Rcg Puma HM22A Ford 1598
57 Gerard Larrousse Ec Bonnier Lla T290 Ford 1790cc
58 John Coulter B Howlings Lola T212 Ford 1800cc
59 Ian Richardson McLaren Ford Special 6500
60 John Jordan McLaren M6B Chev 6991
67 Carlos Gaspar Bank Int Portugal Lola T280 ford 2998

Hello again

I've added these nine now but I've never come across Evans' or Richardson's cars before. Can anyone tell me more about them? Evans' Puma was a F/Atlantic wasn't it? Or was it a F3? And Richardson's some sort of modified McLaren M8?

Thanks

Allen

Originally posted by Allen Brown
Hello again

I've added these nine now but I've never come across Evans' or Richardson's cars before. Can anyone tell me more about them? Evans' Puma was a F/Atlantic wasn't it? Or was it a F3? And Richardson's some sort of modified McLaren M8?

Thanks

Allen

I have never seen the point of recording DNAs. It was not unknown in the past for people to enter imaginary cars just to see their name in a programme. I recall the suggestion when the 50000 was anounced of putting a CanAm engine in a F1 McLaren,but I dont think it was ever built.

Originally posted by john aston
My only memories are of the lovely yellow Lola sportscar- Casoni ?

Yes, Mario Casoni in the Ecurie Bonnier Lola T280.

Originally posted by Rob29
I have never seen the point of recording DNAs. It was not unknown in the past for people to enter imaginary cars just to see their name in a programme. I recall the suggestion when the 50000 was anounced of putting a CanAm engine in a F1 McLaren,but I dont think it was ever built.

And nor was it entered. I record a DNA if someone has gone to the trouble of paying an entry fee. You are right that some of them were imaginary - especially at Indy in the 1970s - but the vast majority were real cars and they can often help to flesh out a story.

Allen

Originally posted by Allen Brown
Evans' Puma was a F/Atlantic wasn't it? Or was it a F3?

Suspect it was the rather "unique" FAtlantic version raced spasmodically (in Duckhams colours) by Roger Keele...but beyond that...

 

Edited by MCS, 23 October 2019 - 20:06.

Originally posted by Allen Brown
... And Richardson's some sort of modified McLaren M8?

Thanks

Allen

Ian Richardson's McLaren Special was a bitza based on largely M1C bits. Bodywork was modifed M1C in lovely dark blue with gold pinstripes.

I took lots of pics of it in 1971/72, but I STILL don't have a scanner to capture slide /transparencies!!

Originally posted by Jeremy Jackson
... but I STILL don't have a scanner to capture slide /transparencies!!

http://www.amazon.co...ASIN/B00008LPVK

http://www.amazon.co...ASIN/B00005RJ6K

Go on, you know you want to...

Be quick - you've got 12 seconds:

http://cgi.ebay.co.u...5165402525&rd=1

But just not quick enough...

Whilst looking for something else, I came across this - a Rothmans 50,000 cloth badge...

Can't remember how I got it, but whatever. Happily found a load of other badges too...

That's a great find, Mark!

A short Movietone piece on the 50,000. The race may not have lived up to the earlier hype, but I enjoyed it. And what a great idea it was.

 

The man waving start flag was brave!

 

Edited by john winfield, 30 September 2016 - 18:37.

Cool, Thanks!

You've been a busy man John tracking down these film snips.

 

You are right, it was a great and idea to come up with something different. It was a shame that more F1 teams didn't support it, nor the World Championship Sports Car and Can Am fraternity.

You've been a busy man John tracking down these film snips.

 

Not really Pete! I'm easily distracted from work........There are plenty of good little Movietone clips on Youtube, often with bizarre titles, so I've just been second guessing what might be there. 

I marshalled at the 50,000. Hawthorn's Bend if my memory isn't playing tricks. BRSCC organised the event. I remember a huge variety of cars, especially a blue clubmans (U2?) which I secretly hoped would trounce all the fancy machinery. All the marshals were given a very smart blue windcheater with Rothams on the back, I had mine hanging in my wardobe for years then it just disappeared

Edited by DouglasM, 01 October 2016 - 08:15.

Sorry to resurrect a very old thread, but stumbling across this brought back some memories. I attended the Saturday practice as well as the race and remember being very disappointed by the entry - like everyone else, I'd hoped for 917s and suchlike....

 

However, I do remember the Lola T280 and for some reason I sought out David Prophet's old M10B in a corner of the paddock to see the oversized rear aerofoil.

 

But the big memory remains that of walking into the paddock on the Saturday morning and seeing Emerson Fittipaldi and Ronnie Peterson ( who didn't drive that weekend ) chatting to each other, looking very relaxed . I took a quick snapshot with my black-and-white box camera and I'm glad to say that I still have that photo...

 

No 'security', locked gates, 'minders' or PR people in sight. Happy days !

^ We might have stood next to each other on race day. As you say, the entry wasn't brilliant, but the whole thing was enjoyable as a bit of a novelty.

 

The following week's Catchpole cartoon strip (by clubman's racer Barry Foley in Autosport) said Catchpole had previously been unconvinced by Emerson Fittipaldi, but now that he'd beaten Brian Husbands in a straight fight...

On checking the history of the event, I had forgotten that  no fewer than 58 cars tried to qualify True to form Tony Dean had a go in two cars - a BT30 and his 908 ,but still didn't get in . But only 30 started and the top ten was separated by ten laps , confirming my recollection of a very dull afternoon . Ever been had ?

I was there too and can't even remember who won and still can't even after reading some of this thread...

 Ever been had ?

 

Yes and by the same crew. In 1985 Brands Hatch promised a Norisring style "Money Race". It must have been August Bank Holiday as we drove back overnight after watching Niki Lauda win the Dutch Grand Prix. We needn't have bothered. Far from the Group C cars we were led to expect the "Money Race" turned out feature the regular Thundersports entry and one of the 2 potential winners retired after a few laps leaving Foulston's Can Am (2nd edition) Lola to win by a country mile. 

The Rothmans 50,000 turned out to be just another of the major disappointments of my teenage years…

I remember being gripped by thrilled anticipation from the moment this event was announced - until it happened… It was shown, in part at least, on TV, but it was a very dull race, with the commentator (Murray?) repeatedly doing his best to heighten the possibility of excitement by suggesting that Brian Redman’s endurance experience might be a factor.

It clearly did not prove attractive to all of the Grand Prix circus - though had it done so, it would have really been just another F1/F5000 (plus maybe a few F2s) non-champ race (however welcome that might have been). But as for attracting entries from other high profile series…

The World Sportscar series was over for the year, so one might have hoped that more of those cars would appear - but why would they bother? The cream of the crop that year, Ferrari 312P, had won at Brands earlier in the season, but if my arithmetic is correct, such a machine would have had to lap constantly at BOAC fastest-lap-pace for near-on three hours (without stopping) in order to finish a lap or more down on Fittipaldi (who really wasn’t pushed very much) - so in reality I reckon they’d have finished down among the F2s.

Race day was Bank Holiday Monday, wasn’t it? The day after Elkhart Lake Can Am… But I’m not sure why those guys would have bothered anyway. Can Am was paying well for winning; even if you were one of the very, very few competitors capable of getting close to F1 pace (and just occasionally bettering it in practice) why would you haul your machines across the Atlantic only to get beaten? And McLaren were under pressure in the US, with the Porsche threat already being realised.

It also clashed with an Interserie round at Keimola - a series that had three adequately funded and driven 917-10s (plus various older McLarens and the Alcan BRM), but the only rough comparisons I can make (based on the faster Osterreichring) put the Interserie cars a touch slower than the G6 machines.

Early hype around the event must have fed to some extent on thoughts of the speed of the big sportscars at Spa and the notion that Can Am cars were the ‘fastest cars in the World’, which is demonstrably nonsense. It is not easy to compare as there are so few times that F1 and Can Am raced on the same circuits, in similar conditions, in the same season. There are, however, a handful of occasions on which just the very, very sharp end of a Can Am grid had practice times a touch above F1 pace (the bulk of the field being nowhere near), but I don’t think there was ever a Can Am race won at a race average speed to match that of a Grand Prix.

I don’t think even Donohue (one of my few heroes) in the 917-10 would have matched Emerson’s 72.
Sadly, the race was only ever going to be a benefit for whichever was the best F1 entry.

Having said all that, the spread of practice times (by percentage) from pole to 20th (a 2-litre F2 car) appears to be only fractionally greater the spread from front to back at this year’s British Grand Prix.

Obviously Fittipaldi won the race but it got me thinking, was 312 miles a bit marginal for a DFV back then?

Obviously Fittipaldi won the race but it got me thinking, was 312 miles a bit marginal for a DFV back then?

50 gallons of fuel apparently -- how you squeeze that into a Lotus 72 is the next question.

According to Robert Fearnall’s race report in Autosport Fittipaldi’s Lotus had an extra three-gallon tank fitted behind the roll-over bar. He eased his pace significantly in the later stages of the race to make sure of lasting the distance.

Nearly all the other leading F1 cars had additional tankage fitted. Apparently the F1 Constructors Association was keen that none of its members made fuel stops in case the CSI used this race as a lever for pit stops in Grands Prix.

Redman’s McLaren had 52 gallons on board, while the BRMs carried a whopping 62 gallons. This extra weight necessitated jacking the suspension up to avoid bottoming over the Brands bumps. The Williams March 711 had no extra tankage fitted, but Pescarolo was restricted to 10,000 rpm to make the fuel last.

Apparently the F1 Constructors Association was keen that none of its members made fuel stops in case the CSI used this race as a lever for pit stops in Grands Prix.

Never one to stick to convictions, was Bernie?

Perhaps I was easy to please back then but I enjoyed the 50,000! I think by the time the race came round most of us knew that the entry was not what we'd hoped for. I'd been reading Motoring News every week and we were kept updated.

 

Even without much drama at the front there was plenty going on just behind...the quick F2 cars, James Hunt, Gerry Birrell etc.  Slightly disappointing maybe but I'd never seen a libre race quite like that. Just a shame that Chris Summers wasn't still with us!

 

I'm sure Tony's right about the sports cars. I'd been hoping that Ferrari would enter some 312PBs, but lap time stats suggest they would have been outpaced. Admittedly, I was becoming fed up with Emerson and the JPS winning every race I attended, but I cheered up in October when JPB won the entertainingly unpredictable Victory Race in his BRM P180.

Edited by john winfield, 22 October 2019 - 12:06.

while the BRMs carried a whopping 62 gallons.

I believe the extra wide BRM's were designated as P160P's. 'P' standing for 'pig' from one side of the garage and 'pregnant' from the other.

Martin Krejci's site has some interesting pictures. Including some race shots right at the bottom, after the DNAs. David Prophet's rear wing gets bigger each time I see it!

 

https://www.racingsp...1972-08-28.html

The Kitchmac looks er, different, as well . . .

The Kitchmac looks er, different, as well . . .

As does the non-finishing Rondel-run BT38 with the 'side pods' (with pannier tanks perhaps?) and the front wheel fairings.