28 replies to this topic

[island]

Hi!
Initially Leffler (Bowin P8) and Davison
(Matich A51) struggled with uncompetitive
cars in their F5000 careers. But when they
got a Lola T400 and a T332 respectively,
they looked good altough Davison had quite
a few crashes in the ex-Jones machine.
Which of them was the better driver?
And how do you rate their capabilities in
comparison with other Australian F5000
racers of the time, Ray?

[Ray Bell]

Undoubtedly Leffler was better. But he probably lacked the experience of Stewart, Bartlett and some of the others. Previous cars he raced included lightweight Minis and Formula Ford, then he did one year in ANF2... The Bowin probably wasn't that bad, you know... I might post my story about it.

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Life and love are mixed with pain...

[Bowinracer]

Undoubtedly Leffler was better. But he probably lacked the experience of Stewart, Bartlett and some of the others. Previous cars he raced included lightweight Minis and Formula Ford, then he did one year in ANF2... The Bowin probably wasn't that bad, you know... I might post my story about it.

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Life and love are mixed with pain...

Please post your story about it....

[Ray Bell]

You promise to read it all?

BOWIN P8

Popularly known as ‘The Dragster’ among its opponents in F5000 guise, the Bowin P8 was the unfulfilled dream of its creator, John Joyce. Just two cars were built, the first for Bob Jane with a Repco Holden V8, the second as a Formula 2 (1600 twin cam) contender for John Leffler.

Joyce had made a hit with his P4a Formula Ford, and connections with his old employers at Lotus had him pursuing the latest technology of rising rate springing when he released his P6 models in 1972. Most were Formula Ford, but two were F2 cars, one for Bruce Allison and the other for Bob Skelton. Leffler ran a P6 Formula Ford that year and in 1974 won the TAA Driver to Europe Series with it.

Soon after this it was time for the P8 to roll out. “You have to think in terms of circles instead of straight lines,” Joyce said to me as I tried to fathom out the intricacies of the rising rate linkages. Bob Jane’s acquisition for John Harvey’s attack on the Gold Star looked great, but there was no backup for a car that was as complicated as anything we’d ever seen.

“Bob had been given the word by Castrol to push the Touring Cars, so the project was neglected,” says Harvey. “I think he was going through a difficult time in his business, and that needed more of his attention,” was Joyce’s comment as he reflected on opportunities lost.

Nevertheless, the Jane P8, as it was named in a co-operative deal that was to see Jane and Harvey feeding development information back to Joyce for further buyers, appeared at the Surfers Gold Star event on August 27. Loose fibre in the fuel system caused so much trouble they took it home, returning to Warwick Farm for a special 2-heat race a week later.

“I was quite impressed in our brief test outing,” Harvey remembers, “and the car was fantastic off the line. At Warwick Farm it was so quick we hit KB and bent the suspension.”

So the sum total of racing in Jane colours amounted to a ten lapper in which it came fifth, followed by a start and a first corner incident that put Walker out of the race as well as damaging the front end. The car then sat in a workshop for over eighteen months.

With no development or feedback, no racing, no results, John Joyce was hardly going to get any takers for further P8s. But Leffler won the 1973 FF series, starting out with the P4a, then conquering the P6’s Rising Rate technology to go on a winning streak that finished with him clear of David Mingay in the other P6 that made progress that year. The 1974 series then started with a P6 win for Geoff Brabham, but two seconds was the best he could muster in the balance of the points chase and the P6 had to wait another ten years to win again.

Leffler, though, was on a roll and saw Bowin as his means of achieving success in F2. He had previously raced a couple of Max Stewart cars – the Elfin F5000 and the March F2 – and he went to Joyce to order a P8 for the Van Heusen F2 series his sponsors at Grace Bros had helped attract. He had seen the P6 F2 cars steadily fall behind the Birranas in ’73 and reckoned he had to come up with one better.

The monocoque of the P8 was light. In F5000 form it was one of the few cars right down near the 562.5kg minimum weight. It had the suspension innovations he’d tried and proved on the P6, used the engine as a stressed member, incorporated first class proprietary parts like alloy Koni dampers, fuel fillers from jet fighters, the latest Hewland gearbox, Hewland roller-spline drive shafts and Girlock brakes, the rear ones being mounted inboard. Basic suspension setup was aided by having parallel links on the rear and accessability was aided by incorporating the oil and catch tanks into the rear of the tub.

Bodywork was simplified by making the tub fairly high in the sides, leaving the cockpit surround as virtually only a windscreen, the side panels as simply covers for the radiators and the nose just that. At the time of the design, F1 people were having trouble with vibrations caused by the width of the slicks they were running. Joyce addressed this by separating the spring and damper at the rear, mounting a slim guiding device within the spring to prevent distortion of the spring.

Everything was beautifully fabricated, there was nickel plating everywhere. The rear of the tub had a 5/16” alloy plate attached to which the engine bolted, with tubular subframes between the tub and the bellhousing to give rigidity.

Wheels were four-stud castings designed by Bowins. Totally conventional in F2 guise, they were 13” diameter with widths ranging from 10” to 16,” so in F5000 form they were a part of a move to 13” rears that was later reversed.

Prior to the first round of the Van Heusen, Leffler entered for the June 2 Amaroo Park, almost matching the Geoghegan Birrana’s lap times as he finished second in this car’s only F2 start. He then crashed it on the warm up lap for the second event, twisting the tub of the “$22,000 Grace Bros Bowin.” It was two weeks to the start of the series.

Bob Jane’s car was acquired less engine, and the car was ready for the Hume Weir beginning of the series. Unsorted, it was equal fastest in the first practice and sat on pole after the second, but a few laps into the race John felt uneasy. Feeling it out, he regained confidence and started to charge again – until a through-bolt in the rear upright came out.

It was a tough series, and John made it tougher by starting a number of Gold Star events as well. Oran Park saw another failure while in second when a crossmember bolt came loose and slowed his last three laps. To this point he’d been aided by being one of very few to have an alloy block engine, but that was blown up and the iron block was in for Amaroo, where the extra weight upset the balance. Third place was the result, repeated at Calder after a tangle with Chas Talbot, then a wet Symmons showed up the peril of the understeer the car was suffering and put it into the fence.

This was when the one and only true sorting session for the P8 took place. “We lined things up with Joycey, I told him we had to sort this out before it kills me,” says Leffler. “Out at Oran Park with the car ready, he drives in. I expected him to bring springs and bars and things, but he walks over carrying a pyrometer! I was so disappointed.”

By the end of the day, continually adjusting cambers, casters, rate-rises and ride heights Leffler had the car he wanted. “It was, dead set, so beautiful to drive. Up until then I had been driving it to its limit, now I was reaching into myself to keep pace with its limit. The guy’s a genius!”

Leffler won at Phillip Island, but it was a lucky win after Bobby Muir dropped out. In the second heat the gap was over a minute. Three Gold Star events in a row followed this, with a tremendous dice with Garry Cooper in the AGP at Oran Park before bending a valve being the highlight.

Two rounds remained in the Van Heusen, Adelaide bringing a second place in one of the rare races on the short circuit, with Lakeside a disaster. “I came in and said I had done a perfect lap. No way could I go quicker, and I was fastest. Then somebody else beat me,” he recalls. “Several times after that I went faster again, and I still I hadn’t found the car’s limit. It was beautiful.”

Two Birranas were ahead of him, but he jetted into the lead and set a lap record of 52.5 before Muir touched his exhaust pipe coming out of the Karussell. This put him off, Muir tangling with his front wheel, and Leo Geoghegan won his final title.

The F2 tub had been repaired and was to have the F5000 bits installed. There was a lot of work to do, as they were using Chev power rather than the original Holden. Seven weeks later it was an unshaven Leffler that appeared early on Sunday morning at Oran Park to shake it down. Later in the day he ran with Cooper in the Tasman race before low water and oil levels put him out. A fortnight later it was the same at Adelaide. He also had his final F2 outing that day, starting from the rear of the grid and winning easily.

Making progress the following week, from tenth on the grid they were fifth ahead of Lawrence, Bartlett, Amon and Smith before brake problems set in and a suspension part broke.

1975 was a big year for F5000. The Toby Lee Series at Oran Park was where the ‘dragster’ title came from, but placings higher than third were not forthcoming. The P8s sole day of glory was to come at a very wet Surfers Paradise.

The 1975 AGP saw Leffler third on the grid, but overnight rain continued into race day and the 1:04s turned into 1:21s for the race. After another great start, the Bowin was five seconds in front at the end of the first lap, and this steadily increased as one after another dropped out. Twenty seconds to McCormack looked comfortable, and not too worrying as the Elfin started to close, but at 30 laps the electrics started to get wet, first losing three seconds a lap, then five seconds a lap as Max Stewart closed, ultimately winning by eight seconds. Second place was still the best placing the P8 achieved in F5000 form. “That it went so well in the wet might indicate it was too softly sprung,” says John.

But Steve Knott, who spannered the car and was the man Leffler relied on technically, might think differently. “The chassis was twisting, we know that. The oil pump was mounted on the plate at the back of the tub and driven by a toothed belt from the engine. When it flicked the belts off, we knew that the plate was bending,” he says.

And it was too much of a problem to tackle in the middle of a busy season. Through the rest of the Gold Star it failed to do much, except when it led at Phillip after another great start before having to bow to pressure from McCormack, Bartlett and Walker before dropping the oil pump belt.

That was the end of Leffler’s Bowin involvement, the F5000 (originally the F2 tub) being sold to Alan Nolan to provide parts for his Nola Chev. Joyce heard of this and repurchased the tub, which he still has in his loft. As for the F2 car (originally the Jane tub), it was leased to Sue Ransom for a one-off race at Wanneroo. In May, 1975, Leffler flew to Perth and lapped in 59s, declaring 57s were possible. Sue did 62s and won one race, but failed to attract the sponsorship to run the rest of the year in F2.

Just where the F2 car went from there is unclear. It must remain in a shed somewhere, a dusty reminder that John Joyce built a couple of very advanced cars that might have been real fliers. As John Harvey says, “It’s sad in a way that we never got to fully develop it.” As Leffler went on to race the Lola, he felt that he would have . . “dearly loved to make the car work.”

RAY BELL

[Bowinracer]

You promise to read it all?

I promise i just read it and thank you very much Ray. you dont have any info on the P6 cars like that do you?

[eldougo]

Leffler (Bowin P8) and Davison (Matich A51)
Well as F5000 driver they where the same in any car?( both of they filled the grid), Both Johns try their best and thats all they could no more on less.

[Ray Bell]

Originally posted by Bowinracer
I promise I just read it and thank you very much Ray. you dont have any info on the P6 cars like that do you?

No, nor will I likely ever do one...

John having died it means that the source of much information is gone. Then again, I do have the original story I did for RCN here and I could photograph that and post it some time.

What you really need to do if you want more on the P6 is talk to former Reynard designer Malcolm Oastler. I see he's now running a car that looks like an Auto Union with a Jag V12 in it in hillclimbs.

[Bowinracer]

No, nor will I likely ever do one...

John having died it means that the source of much information is gone. Then again, I do have the original story I did for RCN here and I could photograph that and post it some time.

What you really need to do if you want more on the P6 is talk to former Reynard designer Malcolm Oastler. I see he's now running a car that looks like an Auto Union with a Jag V12 in it in hillclimbs.

Ok thanks very much.

[Jacer]

Ok thanks very much.

funny story. I did some work on a guy's vee a couple of years back. It was mainly engine, gearbox or a few mods here and there. He used to ocassionally mention an 'old mechanic down the road 'who used to help out with the occasional wheel alignment.
We got talking one day about this and the guy with the vee mentioned who the 'old mechanic down the road' liked to work on the Vee and that he used to race and apparently was successful. He said "you might have heard of him, his name was John Leffler"!. I said "yeah " was my stunned reply. Funny how one of the 'names' of open wheeler racing in the 70's can become just 'the old mechanic down the road'
DC

[Ray Bell]

Oh... John Leffler?

Gold Star Champion 1976, almost won the Australian Grand Prix of 1975. Who'd know him?

[fredeuce]

Ray do you have any pictures of the Leffler P8 Bowin F5000 car?

[Ray Bell]

Not that I took...

Thought that's not strictly true. I took one of John Harvey at Warwick Farm when it was the Jane P8, so that would be the F2 chassis in F5000 guise.

There are pics about. On pages 390 and 394 of the AGP book, for instance, there's one black and white, one colour pic in the rain heading Max Stewart.

Naturally there were photos published with the article reproduced above, that was some time about eight to ten years ago in Motor Racing Australia.

[Ray Bell]

Here's the P6 article, by the way...



Let me know if it's too hard to read.

[ellrosso]

WE have pics on the oldracephotos.com website of the F5000 car - type Bowin into Advanced Search - Search phrase. Cheers, ellrosso

[Lee Nicolle]

Here's the P6 article, by the way...



Let me know if it's too hard to read.

I cannot read it and it looks an interesting article.

Edited by Lee Nicolle, 21 January 2010 - 22:36.

[fredeuce]

Thanks for that Ray and ellrosso

[fredeuce]

Here's the P6 article, by the way...



Let me know if it's too hard to read.

Ray,
Is that the August 1972 edition of RCN?

[Falcadore]

The Jane P8 was a different car then to the Jane-Repco I've seen attributed to John Harvey in 1970?

[ellrosso]

Yes, 2 totally different cars. Cheers, ellrosso

[Ray Bell]

Originally posted by fredeuce
Ray,
Is that the August 1972 edition of RCN?

Yes, that's the one...

I'll see if I can post it in a slightly larger form.

Lee, did you click on it after you opened it in Imageshack? It does enlarge from that form, though I'm not sure it's as big as it was when I uploaded it.

[Ray Bell]

Here you go:

[Wirra]

... do you have any pictures of the Leffler P8 Bowin F5000 car?

[fredeuce]

Thanks Wirra.

[Falcadore]

The Jane P8 was a different car then to the Jane-Repco I've seen attributed to John Harvey in 1970?

What was the other - a modified BT23?

[Ray Bell]

There's a whole thread about that, Mark...

It was a car built around a Brabham-copy chassis by Rennmax builder Bob Britton.

[gouldo]

I thought the Bowins - all models, were the nicest open wheelers of there day. Barrie Garner had the immaculate Bowin Holden running in hillclimbs, and still the prettiest hillclimb car ever, the P4 F/Fords were clean, and the F2's run by Ian Fergusson of Leadville and others were simply great looking cars. The P8 is as nice as any F5000 built.

And the two drivers, Leffler by half a lap. Davison had the ability, but not the consistancy lap after lap.

Edited by gouldo, 25 January 2010 - 17:03.

[Bowinracer]

I thought the Bowins - all models, were the nicest open wheelers of there day. Barrie Garner had the immaculate Bowin Holden running in hillclimbs, and still the prettiest hillclimb car ever, the P4 F/Fords were clean, and the F2's run by Ian Fergusson of Leadville and others were simply great looking cars. The P8 is as nice as any F5000 built.

And the two drivers, Leffler by half a lap. Davison had the ability, but not the consistancy lap after lap.

I agree totally. But i am biased

[Monaro]

[quote name='Wirra' date='Jan 23 2010, 01:21' post='4090464']

[/quoteThe Bob Jane Bowin P8 is currently sitting in a shed.At this stage it is a complete tub with Grace Bros signage has a DG300 gearbox rear suspension and a Repco Holden engine has just been purchased.From the rollbar forward the car is complete as in the above photo.

[Ray Bell]

Now to find someone to bend up the exhaust pipes!

That was a problem when the car was first built, believe it or not. At least it was as Leffler had it, which was with a Chevy installed.