33 replies to this topic

[brickyard]

Hello,

looking at my indycar records, I've stumbled again on this LOLA, used by simon in the early 70's.
I have some notes writen stated that it might be a F5000 car built in the USA in 1968, not a real Lola.
Does any of you knows the real story of this car? Was it real a F5000 car or a 1968 T150?

You can see the car here .

Thanks
Luis

[Duncan Fox]

This looks very much like the car I bought to N.Z. some time back. Built by an ex pat Englishman in the U.S. his name escapes me but I did give all that info to Allen Brown.,It is a copy of an T150 I think.It had all Lola castings axles etc , if you didnt know it you would think it was one! I was originally told it was a Johnny Lightning Special ,but that was not to be. It did a couple of years in the North West as a F.5000 car and then became a sprint car, based out of Salt Lake City I believe. This was the format I purchased it in complete with cage and nerf bars. I have never seen a picture of it as an Indy car. It has a different nose ( better looking) to the one in the speedway picture

[brickyard]

Thank you Duncan!

So, there's no chance at all the car being rebuilt from a wrecked T150 frame, instead of a copy started from scratch!
If it's a copy so well done, I wonder how have they got the plans from?

[brickyard]

Any new informations on this one?

[Allen Brown]

Hi Luis

Sorry for the slow response.

Yes, Duncan did send me material on this car in March 2005 which has slipped down to position #173 on my to-do list. Really, I need a staff! Duncan had a note from Michael Huntley dates 6 Jul 1971 which described the car as follows:

I know the car you have quite well. I worked for Vel's Parnelli Jones racing in '71-'72 and then left the team as did George Bignotti. George eventually ended up at STP-Patrick racing as did I. However as I waited for George to create a space for me I did a short stint with my old pal Dick Simon. The car, I beieve but need to see a photo, you have is a late '68 Lola "copy" built here in the USA by Englishmen Jim Chapman and Mike Underwood.

Lots of Brits came over with the various Lotus efforts and stayed. American car owners were mesmerized by rear engine technology and monocoque construction. The Brits also liked the money and American babes! Dick was a small budget operation and this was his only car in "72. He ran this car on the entire USAC trail. However, we missed the show at the California 500, because we were not fast enough. The car was painted Travelodge orange #44 and had a Turbo Ford. A couple distinct things about the car was an extra long nose and long pointed intake log tubes on the engine. At the end of the '72 season Dick had Dan Gurney build him one of the hot new generation Eagles. His was the first to employ a turbo Foyt/Ford. This car was white #44 with Travelodge sponsorship.

Dick sold your car to some young guy with visions of winning the Indy 500. The guy was really dialed out and showed up at the Speedway in '73 with the car on an open tailer with a small box of Craftsman tools! USAC didn't even let him in the back gate!

I never saw the guy or car again. Dick was and still is a real hustler!

Several questions remain. Was it new at the start of 1971 (when Simon started racing it) or had it existed earlier? Who drove it as a F5000? Where is it now? And what to call it? Lola '68? Chapman-Underwood '71? Lola-by-Chapman-and-Underwood?

And I should know who Jim Chapman and Mike Underwood are shouldn't I? Can anyone jog my memory?

Allen

[jkracing]

Poor picture from Pocono 500 in 1972 (old Kodak Instamatic) listed in 16th. with a DNF.

[Allen Brown]

Good to have you here jkracing. Your pictures on flickr are fantastic.

Allen

[brickyard]

Thank you Allen.

Here are two more photos from the car at Indy 1972: this one and this one this time with the "other" nose.

Regards
Luis

[jkracing]

Thanks Allen, I could not have posted half the information about the pictures without your site.

Jim

[brickyard]

Hi Jim, I make Allen's words mine too. I visit your flickr pages very often to see what new photos you have there. Great job...

Regards
Luis

[brickyard]

Originally posted by Allen Brown
And I should know who Jim Chapman and Mike Underwood are shouldn't I? Can anyone jog my memory?

Allen

Wasn't Jim Chapman the manager of Vel's Parnelli Jones Racing Team in the early 70's?

[WALDO]

Originally posted by brickyard
Thank you Allen.

Here are two more photos from the car at Indy 1972: this one and this one this time with the "other" nose.

Regards
Luis

First one is the Antares Nose on a 1970 Brabham that Rutherford put in the 1972 500 and the bailed on Patrick right after......

Second car was a 1972 Atlanta-Foyt with Lloyd Ruby..... Gene White got the guys who designed the McLaren to come Atlanta and build cars with the Foyt engine as the pwer plant.....
Three were built with Cale Yarborough driving the other to 10th behind Lloyd's 6th.....
Foyt got one as payment for the engines......

White had a Lola with Sam Sessions finishing 4th and STP had the Pollard qualified and Dallenbach "driven" Lola as both held Foyt engines.......

Simon's I believe was a spare Penske piece from 1970........

[Allen Brown]

Originally posted by WALDO
Simon's I believe was a spare Penske piece from 1970........

You are right of course about Luis's pictures - I can only assume he gave us the wrong links. He's far too good to have mistaken those cars.

Did you mean that the Dick Simon's Lola had been previously owned by the Penske team in 1970? They did have T150-series Lolas in 1969 and 1970 but I was always puzzled by their "1968" backup car at the 1969 Indy 500 as I couldn't tell where it came from.

Thanks
Allen

[brickyard]

Originally posted by Allen Brown
You are right of course about Luis's pictures - I can only assume he gave us the wrong links. He's far too good to have mistaken those cars.

Thanks
Allen

I don't understand how it happened but yes the links are wrong. I mean this and this ones.

Thank you Allen for the compliments, but I'm far no better than many of you here at TNF

Regards
Luis

[gbl]

Well here is Donohue at RIR 68 and it does look like his 68 Eagle to me, nothing Lola like at all:

[Tom Glowacki]

Donohue's autobiography, "The Unfair Advantage" is very clear that the 1968 USAC car was an Eagle. Zimmerman's book, "Dan Gurney's Eagle Racing Cars" says the same thing. The Penske Lola did not appear before 1969. No room for argument on those points.

[brickyard]

Originally posted by Tom Glowacki
Donohue's autobiography, "The Unfair Advantage" is very clear that the 1968 USAC car was an Eagle. Zimmerman's book, "Dan Gurney's Eagle Racing Cars" says the same thing. The Penske Lola did not appear before 1969. No room for argument on those points.

Dito

Regards
Luis

[gbl]

Donohue at Mosport:



Eagle 406 today:

http://www.conceptca...Indy-Eagle.aspx

We are not only talking about the nose, but also rear suspension, apart from the enlarged rollbar I cannot see any differences but I can compared to any other 67/68/69 Lola photo I have. Also hard to believe that they would run a Lola and write "Sunoco EAGLE" on it...

Also I have the entry lists of Mosport and Riverside, both times listed as Eagle-Chevy. So if there is any article calling this car a Lola feel free to scan and post it.

[Allen Brown]

Waldo, after you've led us off on a complete wild goose chase on Penske's Eagle, I'm not sure why we should follow you on a chase after Dick Simon's car being an ex-Penske Lola.

We have an account above of it being built by Jim Chapman and Mike Underwood. Do you have anything to contradict that account?

[Stephen Miller]

Originally posted by gbl
Donohue at Mosport:



Eagle 406 today:

http://www.conceptca...Indy-Eagle.aspx

We are not only talking about the nose, but also rear suspension, apart from the enlarged rollbar I cannot see any differences but I can compared to any other 67/68/69 Lola photo I have. Also hard to believe that they would run a Lola and write "Sunoco EAGLE" on it...

Also I have the entry lists of Mosport and Riverside, both times listed as Eagle-Chevy. So if there is any article calling this car a Lola feel free to scan and post it.

I agree, this eagle is an eagle. Interestingly at Mosport it had weber downdraft carbs. At Riverside it may have had the fuel injection as shown in the concept cars restoration. I am wondering if the restoration was in fact the actual style of injection used at Riverside?

Stephen

[Stephen Miller]

1968 - 1970 Lola T150, 152, 153, 154 7 built in total according to Lola the Illustrated History 1957-1977

T150 option of 2 or 4WD One car(1) for Al Unser 4WD

This site provides some history for the T150

http://www.can-am-ca...y=2&idproduct=5

T152 - 1969 model 2 cars(2),(3) for Penske Racing Also one car(4) for Bobby Unser, one for Al Unser, but driven by Tinglestad in the end. All apparantly 4WD(Lola the Illustrated History 1957-1977)

T153

This site says that Penske had a Lola T153 in 1970 & 1971 and a T152 in 1969

http://www.driverdb....rs/2978/career/

T154 2WD for 1970 Mark Donahue, the only apparent pukka Lola for 1970(Lola the Illustrated History 1957-1977)


This site suggests that Simon raced a Lola from February 1971 to September 1972
http://www.ultimater....php?uniqid=324

Stephen

[brickyard]

Originally posted by Allen Brown
Waldo, after you've led us off on a complete wild goose chase on Penske's Eagle, I'm not sure why we should follow you on a chase after Dick Simon's car being an ex-Penske Lola.

We have an account above of it being built by Jim Chapman and Mike Underwood. Do you have anything to contradict that account?

You're absolutely right Allen. I think it's time to use the same method I've used to discover the true story of the Hoffman Spyder: I will contact the man himself. Stay tuned!

Regards
Luis

[rateus]

Originally posted by Allen Brown
And I should know who Jim Chapman and Mike Underwood are shouldn't I? Can anyone jog my memory?

Mike Underwood certainly crossed the Atlantic with Lotus - the '67 Indy Trackside Report lists him as the Chief Mechanic on both Jim Clark's #31 and Graham Hill's #81. No sign of him in '68 though.

Given how many of the others on that '67 list tried their hands at building their own cars, it would almost be more surprising if there wasn't an Underwood-built chassis at some point...

Re Jim Chapman - is this the same person referenced here?
http://www.aarwba.org/aarwbapr.htm

[RA Historian]

Originally posted by rateus
Re Jim Chapman - is this the same person referenced here?
http://www.aarwba.org/aarwbapr.htm

No, that Jim Chapman is a fellow who spent a lifetime in public relations. He is best know to the racing world as the fellow behind the PPG involvement with CART in the 80s and 90s. He was a big mover and shaker in racing because of his control of the PPG racing dollars. He passed away in the mid nineties, and I cannot help but think that if he had not gotten ill and left us that the split may never have happened. He did have influence.

Incidentally, believe it or not, but his bio lists his activity in the late 1940s as being the PR guy handling Babe Ruth!

Tom

[Tom Glowacki]

Originally posted by WALDO


You can believe what a book says and I can believe what I saw, twice.........

Silly Mr. Donohue's chapter on the 1968 Penske USAC campaign is entitled "EAGLE- CHEVROLET Trying USAC (and getting humbled)" and as gbl points out, silly Mr. Penske's painters painted ""Sunoco Eagle" on the car. What you thought it looked like is between you and your opthamologist.

[rateus]

Thanks RA

Armed with this info, a little creative googling turned up a better candidate - Karl Ludvigsen's 'Porsche: Excellence Was Expected' refers to "Interscope"s crew chief...Jim Chapman, a Brit who had found a home in America after his visits as nursemaid to Can-Am Lolas". This was in 1978, the year Interscope's car led every race it started in the hands of Danny Ongais.

[RA Historian]

Originally posted by rateus
Jim Chapman, a Brit who had found a home in America after his visits as nursemaid to Can-Am Lolas".

Sounds like you got it!
Tom

[brickyard]

And before that Interscope adventure, Jim was the manager of Vel's Parnelli Jones Racing Team in the early 70's.

Regards
Luis

[rateus]

Sadly this week's Autosport reports that Mike Underwood has died "after a long illness"

[Gary C]

wasn't Mike Underwood ex-Lotus, or am I mixing him up with someone else??

[rateus]

Indeed he was - Chief Mechanic for their Indy entries in 1967.

[Tom Smith]

And before that Interscope adventure, Jim was the manager of Vel's Parnelli Jones Racing Team in the early 70's.

Regards
Luis

Jim Chapman was Lola's chief Mechanic. Before he moved to Vel's Parnelli Jones he was Brian Redmond's chief mechanic when they raced the Haas/Hall Chaparral Lola F-5000 car.
I can imagine Hall may have had something to do with the engineering since Brian says he decided to race the Chaparral Lola over the Lola he, Eric Broadley, and Jim Chapman had set up.

[RA Historian]

REDMOND ???

[JacnGille]

REDMOND ???

Isn't cause to be banned for a week?????????????????????????