44 replies to this topic

[Doug Nye]

From the 'things one never noticed at the time' department -

September 1979, I read, Brian Redman versus former motor-cycle World Champion Phil Read - Brian in the former John Cussins Waring & Gillow one-off Chevron-Chevrolet B32 hillclimb car (derived from Formula 5000 practise) - and Phil astride a 750cc Yamaha? The venue the Isle of Man. The event a match race.

Who remembers it????? Who won it???? Brian????? Anybody????

Oh yes, and since this is TNF, do any other match races occur, worthy of recollection - investigation - debate????

DCN

[Roger Clark]

http://www.atlasf1.c...&threadid=49776

See post 10 and following

[Doug Nye]

Ooh-errr - how disappointing....

DCN

[Gary C]

try & keep up, Doug!!

[Vitesse2]

Originally posted by Gary C
try & keep up, Doug!!

Be fair Gary, he was in heathen lands at the time .....

/ducks to avoid incoming ......

[Stefan Ornerdal]

Phil Read / Brian Redman was easy solved, but the next question:

Oh yes, and since this is TNF, do any other match races occur, worthy of recollection - investigation - debate????

should make this this thread go on for a long time and it is interesting.

Didn't Riccardo Patrese had a match race against an aeroplane from the Italian Air Force? Well, until the fighter took off the ground...

Stefan

[David Beard]

Mansell raced a power boat with his F1 Lotus once...but that Blue Train saga must be the classic
(beyond the reaches of my memory bank, unfortunately)

[Gary C]

Dave, we covered this Mansell/boat topic on here earlier thi syear (I think), go here for that : http://www.atlasf1.c...&threadid=29301

[Ralliart]

Gilles Villeneuve raced his Ferrari F1 car against an Italian Air Force jet and won...repeating a feat Nuvolari had pulled off decades earlier (not my memory but it's in "Piloti che Gente")... Rosberg and Eddie Lawson, I believe, put on a demo lap or two at a circuit in Finland - Rosberg on a Williams F1 car (and comfortably quicker, he added afterwards)...I think Jesse Owens raced a car once.

[MWiklund]

There was a match race at Road Atlanta many years ago Between Bobby Allison in a short-track stock car (Camaro,Chevelle?) and I believe Greg Pickett in the baby-blue Vette. Bobby flew in for the race ,landed on the back straight and taxied under the bridge to the pit area. Much to the dismay of the sports car crowd, Allison won. It certainly changed my opinion of stock car racers.

[Lotus23]

This is a story I've related once before on another forum a couple of years ago. Not exactly a match race, but I think it fits the spirit of this thread:

The place: Chimney Rock hillclimb in the mountains of North Carolina: 1.7 miles of uphill squiggles

The time: mid-sixties

Years and years of running @ "the Rock" with MGs, Sprites, Triumphs, big Healeys, Porsches, Loti, Corvettes, Cobras and the like had the All-Time Hill Record down to a point we all thought was darned near unbeatable.

On this occasion, the organizers thought it would be fun to invite a local fellow to make an exhibition run in his "go-kart". We purists scoffed at the idea of letting some kid with a Briggs & Stratton sidewalk toy go up our sacrosanct course, but it was done over our protests.

I don't need t tell you the rest of the story. Turns out this guy was no "kid", and he wasn't powered by B&S. It was one of the first full-bore racing karts any of us had ever encountered, and by the time he'd made a couple of "exhibition" runs, our ATHR was in shambles!

Not surprisingly, he wasn't invited back. However, his performance didn't go unnoticed: in subsequent years, the record was lowered significantly by machines which bore a much closer resemblance to his kart than they did to our sportycars.

I guess the moral of the story is not to scoff too quickly at something you haven't seen before.

[Doug Nye]

Originally posted by Gary C
try & keep up, Doug!!

Quite right!

[bobbo]

Lotus23:

This reminded me of when, "long time ago, in a galaxy far far away" (Actually the mid - 60s), the Pennsylvania Hillclimb Association had a few SAAB powered modifieds that weren't much bigger than Karts and really flew, at least in a straight line. With my (faulty) memory, though, I don't think they ever were up near FTD in any of the events. One did run at Hershey (PA), and I remember it now as it was the same chartreuse my friend's TR4 was. And about 1/2 the size. And it was LOUD!

Bobbo

[Ian McKean]

I am not quite sure what you mean by SAAB powered modifieds. In my ignorance i thought that 'modifieds' were modified production saloon or sports cars, but if they weren't much bigger than karts I guess these cars were something else, i.e. 'specials'. Have you got a picture? What was the SAAB engine used and the general layout and construction?

[Ian McKean]

Thinking of the IOM, Tony Pond's lap at 99 point something mph in a stock apart from stiffer dampers Rover 827 was quite something. Can't remember exactly when...

I am sure that the Chevron would have slaughtered the bike had both been au point.

[HappyDace]

Anyone remember a challenge between a Morgan - Jap 3 wheeler and a BTC Sierra Cosworth at Mallory. I guess it would have been mid to late 70's.

As I remember it Jenks challenged Andy Rouse ( I could well be wrong though!) and beat him over something like a five lap race. The Sierra ran away down the straights and the Mog drove around the outside in the corners..

Of course advancing age could mean I'm imagining the whole episode!

HD.

[David Beard]

Originally posted by HappyDace
Anyone remember a challenge between a Morgan - Jap 3 wheeler and a BTC Sierra Cosworth at Mallory. I guess it would have been mid to late 70's.

As I remember it Jenks challenged Andy Rouse ( I could well be wrong though!) and beat him over something like a five lap race. The Sierra ran away down the straights and the Mog drove around the outside in the corners..

Of course advancing age could mean I'm imagining the whole episode!

HD.

Hey, welcome...It's Tony isn't it? When are the rest of RASF1 arriving?

[bobbo]

Originally posted by Ian McKean
I am not quite sure what you mean by SAAB powered modifieds. In my ignorance i thought that 'modifieds' were modified production saloon or sports cars, but if they weren't much bigger than karts I guess these cars were something else, i.e. 'specials'. Have you got a picture? What was the SAAB engine used and the general layout and construction?

Ian:

These "specials" were usually one-off home built sports racer specials using SAAB 95 3 cyl. 2 stroke engines and gearboxes (front-engined or rear-engined, RWD or FWD) and they were used (at least in my area) primarily in hill climbs. This was back @ 1964 - 67. Sorry I don't have any photos, but I sort of remember that they weren't very pretty.

Sorry I can't give you more info!

Bobbo

[David McKinney]

Originally posted by Ian McKean
Thinking of the IOM, Tony Pond's lap at 99 point something mph in a stock apart from stiffer dampers Rover 827 was quite something. Can't remember exactly when...

6th June 1990
I've got the video

[Lotus23]

Bobbo, your remarks on "specials" brought back decades-old memories of various home-built efforts which made up in passion what they lacked in sophistication.

I recall one in particular -- it was sheathed in bodywork which was startling in its simplicity: unencumbered by a single compound curve, it resembled origami on wheels!

[2F-001]

re. Pond's lap of the IOM in a big Rover...
I believe he attempted this again, with better tyres (slicks, maybe) and topped the 100mph average.
I think this may be the lap that is on the video?

[dmj]

Originally posted by HappyDace
Anyone remember a challenge between a Morgan - Jap 3 wheeler and a BTC Sierra Cosworth at Mallory. I guess it would have been mid to late 70's.

As I remember it Jenks challenged Andy Rouse ( I could well be wrong though!) and beat him over something like a five lap race. The Sierra ran away down the straights and the Mog drove around the outside in the corners..

Of course advancing age could mean I'm imagining the whole episode!

HD.

A little bit too early for Sierra, isn't it? I presume you meant mid to late 80's?

[2F-001]

A match race of a sort...
Sometime in the '70s I witnessed a running race down the Silverstone pitlane, between Gerry Marshall and Derek McMahon (Alec Poole's entrant at the time) - both very large men, and neither with what might normally be described as an athletic figure... Gerry won.

[nick stone]

At a recent Australian GP they staged a race between a bog standard road car - a BMW 318 if I remember correctly - a Holden (GM) V8 racing saloon from the local Supercar series and one of the F1 cars there for the GP. A Williams-BMW I think.

The road car was flagged away first and charged off around the track with tyres screeching and sparks flying from the doorhandles in the twisty bits and the V8 joined the chase all noise and attitude when the BMW was about halfway round the circuit. But what amazed specators was sight of the driver of the Williams standing beside his car as the saloon mumbled away and still doing his belts up when the V8 smoked off the line. The little BMW had less than a quarter lap to go when the F1 was released. Impossible task? Well, no - it was carefully planned of course. The F1 crossed the line about 50 metres in front of the V8 and the 318 trailed by 100 metres or more.

I know this has been done elsewhere and is mainly a photo opportunity for the marque involved nevertheless, it is a stark demonstration of the unbelievable difference between a full on racer, and the cars we mere mortals drive.

[Ian McKean]

Originally posted by 2F-001
A match race of a sort...
Sometime in the '70s I witnessed a running race down the Silverstone pitlane, between Gerry Marshall and Derek McMahon (Alec Poole's entrant at the time) - both very large men, and neither with what might normally be described as an athletic figure... Gerry won.

Shades of Nuvolari versus Campari on bicycles over three laps of Monza in 1933. The Mantuan won.

[Doug Nye]

Match races at Brooklands and Montlhery as well as Monza pre-war...there were several upon which TNFers could expound...

DCN

[robert dick]

In October 1910 Barney Oldfield wanted to race against heavy weight boxer Jack Johnson, on the Sheepshead Bay horsetrack. Johnson had only a falsified licence. Oldfield was suspended by the AAA.

[2F-001]

Not quite a match race in that sense, but their was the Shadow 'one-make' race staged in America (with F1s and CanAm cars, or is my memory flawed?).
Did anyone witness this? I remember reading about it Autosport - wasn't it quite intensely fought but without much overtaking? - which might suggest it wasn't as stage-managed as one suppose.
How was this viewed at the time? A stagey gimmick, or a genuine attempt to give something back to the race-goers?

[Vitesse2]

Originally posted by Ian McKean


Shades of Nuvolari versus Campari on bicycles over three laps of Monza in 1933. The Mantuan won.

I'm surprised they could find a bike that would take Campari's weight! He was in the Marshall/Gonzalez class - typical Italian tenor, which was his other occupation of course!

[Ian McKean]

Nuvolari borrowed a state of the art racing cycle but Campari had to use a bike without drop down handlebars because of his girth!

[Ian McKean]

Originally posted by robert dick
In October 1910 Barney Oldfield wanted to race against heavy weight boxer Jack Johnson, on the Sheepshead Bay horsetrack. Johnson had only a falsified licence. Oldfield was suspended by the AAA.

Did he want to race on foot, horse, or ...?

Jack Johnson was not very popular, I believe, considered by white Anglo-Saxon contemporaries to be a flash ****** with a penchant for white women. It would therefore seem probable that Oldfield's objective was to embarrass Johnson, rather than have a bit of fun. Or at least, to have a bit of fun at Johnson's expense.

Can anyone provide more information on this matter?

[dmj]

Did you try this?
http://www.attic.uto...bo/preface.html
I didn't check if it is mentioned but there is a lot of info on good old Barney, so it could be...

[robert dick]

Oldfield was “entered” with the Lightning (or Blitzen) Benz, Johnson with a 1908 GP-Austin (I am not sure whether it was an Austin – don’t have my old magazine copies here in the office). Both cars were owned by the Moross Amusement Co.

[biercemountain]

Originally posted by 2F-001
Not quite a match race in that sense, but their was the Shadow 'one-make' race staged in America (with F1s and CanAm cars, or is my memory flawed?).
Did anyone witness this? I remember reading about it Autosport - wasn't it quite intensely fought but without much overtaking? - which might suggest it wasn't as stage-managed as one suppose.
How was this viewed at the time? A stagey gimmick, or a genuine attempt to give something back to the race-goers?

The match race you mention is covered in Peter Lyons book "Can-Am"

"To keep faith with Shadow's sponsors - and their public - after the premature termination of the Can-Am season, Don Nichols staged two intra-squad match races later in the year. The first, a quick fifteen-lapper squeezed in ahead of a Saturday morning F1 practice session at the Watkins Glen U.S. Grand Prix, pitted Oliver, Follmer and Jean-Pierre Jarier in a trio of DN4s. Oliver qualified fastest, matching the 1:39.9 pole time that Follmer had done earlier in the year, but valve and clutch trouble left him unable to prevent his aggressive teammate scoring his first win of the season. Jarier was a cautious third, but a week later at Laguna Seca, where the original Can-Am date had been given to F5000, the Frenchman seized his honor back. This time he was driving an F1 Shadow DN3 (#17) and easily outqualified the two big black bangers. So did teammate James Hunt, who took pole at 58.731. At the start of the twenty-seven lap race the pair of nimble single seaters simply drove away from the heavier iron, both of which compounded their ignominy by spinning. Oliver finally stopped - more clutch trouble - but Follmer stayed out and soon saw the F1s looming in his mirrors. Trying to prevent their lapping him he succeeded in blocking Hunt, but Jarier slipped by them both to win by 6sec.

[Mozart]

Actually, Brian won - the car was a Formula 2 Chevron fitted with 5,000 cc
F5000 motor, for hill-climbing, as noted.

Brian Redman

[Doug Nye]

According to contemporary reports the car used a 5.7-litre Chevvy V8 in its hill-climbing guise. The car's now been restored and rebuilt, is running with a 5-litre engine and apparently finished 6th or 7th in a FORCE race at Silverstone last year. It's coming up for sale at Olympia, London, shortly in a Bonhams auction. Do tell more about the Manx appearance - how did that come about Brian - how did you get involved - was it, dare one ask, fun???

DCN

[jmp85]

Originally posted by nick stone
At a recent Australian GP they staged a race between a bog standard road car - a BMW 318 if I remember correctly - a Holden (GM) V8 racing saloon from the local Supercar series and one of the F1 cars there for the GP. A Williams-BMW I think.

I know this has been done elsewhere and is mainly a photo opportunity for the marque involved nevertheless, it is a stark demonstration of the unbelievable difference between a full on racer, and the cars we mere mortals drive.

mclaren has done this in the 80 with niki lauda and captured it on film.... i believe that the other cars involved were a ford sierra and a porsche 928. niki was still talking with engineers as the sierra left the line, then sat in his car as the 928 pulled off. of course he "won". mclaren repeated the trick recently with DC driving. he sipped his tea as the mercedes A-class chirped its tyres, then the E55AMG tried its hand at catching the mini-mercedes... and in the time it takes the A-class to go round silverstone once, the F1 could have done it twice.

i think you can find that videoclip on the mclaren website... or search google. another interesting clip on that page, for those with a capable connection, is that of murray walker being whisked around good ole silverstone aboard the mclaren 2-seater, mit martin brundle as the chauffeur... (the mclaren.net website is down for now, but the murrey walker video can be downloaded here: http://www.farzadsf1....com/movies.php scroll down almost to the end, you'll see it)

apart from that, it's just pretty cool that brian redman is answering doug nye's question, and we can all read it... damn!

[robert dick]

Oldfield/Johnson – Sheepshead Bay - 1910:
I could not find any explicit confirmation that Johnson was entered in a 1908 GP-Austin. Sorry.
A photo of Johnson at the wheel of the Austin exists, dated 1910, so that the Austin was the probable entry.
Since the match did not happen, this doubt is not too tragic. The important point is that Oldfield was suspended with the consequence that Bob Burman drove the Blitzen Benz in 1911.

= = = =

Another Oldfield match:

“In 1911 Lincoln Beachey and his Curtis Biplane, famous for executing the first succesful loop-the-loop, defeated the renowned cigar-chomping Barney Oldfield behind the wheel of a racing car in a half mile contest around a track in San Bernadino, California.”
(quotation from a book published in the US in the forties)

A poor quality photo of this match shows Oldfield behind the wheel of the 21 litre-Benz. Since Oldfield was suspended in 1911 and Burman normally drove the Benz, the date could also be 1910.

= = = =

Another interesting match:

On November 28, 1920 the famous French aviator Sadi Lecointe (“le champion de l’air”) and his Rolland-Pilain sprinted against the horse “Abbayi” (jockey unknown) :
distance = one kilometer – the horse with flying/the Rolland-Pilain with standing start;
location = an alley in the Bois de Boulogne/Paris;
result = Lecointe won.

[HappyDace]

Originally posted by David Beard


Hey, welcome...It's Tony isn't it? When are the rest of RASF1 arriving?

Hi David !

Pete F keeps raving about it so I came to take a look... Doc may pop over too..

How's life among the Lotus eaters ?


T.

[Don Capps]

Originally posted by robert dick
Both cars were owned by the Moross Amusement Co.

And Mr. Moross was also tossed out of the AAA on his ear for his actions -- on more than a few occasions.... While Barney was let back in by the AAA, as far as I know Moross was not invited back by the Contest Board....

In the early days of American racing there were no end of Match Races at a large variety of venues. In the 1960's, there were a number of Match Races between NASCAR 'stars' against each other or other notables -- as drag races and many were on the back stretch of the Charlotte Speedway; I recall attending a few in the mid-60's, they were usually held in the middle of the week if I recall.... Plus, there were a few Match Races as late as this same period on the bullrings over a handful of laps with a Local Star going up against a NASCAR Star....

[Ralliart]

The tape is "Nike Lauda Explains Formula One", I believe the title was, and the year, I think, was 1983. Very entertaining tape and still available I would think.

[D-Type]

Tonight on BBC2 there was a documentary on Jack Johnston and Joe Louis. It included two flashes of racing cars saying that Johnson raced. so the implication is that the either the race with Oldfield or another one did take place

[robert dick]

Oldfield vs. Johnson :

The New York Times - 12 October 1910 :
"The proposed automobile race between Barney Oldfield and Jack Johnson, the champion heavyweight prizefighter, which is scheduled to be held on Sheepshead Bay race track on Oct. 20, has caused a big stir in the American Automobile Association, and last night the Contest Board of that body met and disqualified Oldfield and his manager, W.H. Pickens, from competition in sanctioned automobile meets."

13 October 1910 :
"It was announced last night by the promoters of the automobile race between Barnel Oldfield and Jack Johnson, the champion heavyweight prize fighter, that the competition would be held at Sheepshead Bay ract track on Oct. 20 as scheduled, in spite of the action of the American Automobile Association in disqualifying Oldfield and winerawing Johnson's license as a driver."

15 October 1910 :
"READVILLE, Mass., Oct. 14 -- Despite his recent disqualification by the American Automobile Association because of his proposed race with Jack Johnson, the pugilist, Barney Oldfield raced against time to-day at a regularly sanctioned meet at the Readville track, breaking the track record for one mile."

16 October 1910 :
"The Barney Oldfield-Jack Johnson automobile race at the Sheepshead Bay race track next Thursday afternoon is developing more interest among automobile enthusiasts than was anticipated. At the outset the race was regarded as little more than a farce, and was considered in many quarters merely as an advertising affair for both Oldfield and Johnson."

17 October 1910 :
"Jack Johnson, heavyweight champion of the world, arrived in New York last night from Scranton Pa., in his automobile. Fifteen automobiles filled with colored sports met Johnson at Jersey City."

20 October 1910 :
"The much talked of automobile race between Barney Oldfield and Jack Johnson, the heavyweight chapion fighter, will be held at 2:30 this afternoon on the Sheepshead Bay race track, when the contestants will meet in three five-mile heats."

22 October 1910 :
"Barney Oldfield and Jack Johnson, heavyweight pugilist, will meet this afternoon at the Sheepshead Bay race track in their match race postponed from Thursday on account of rain. The track was benefited by the downpour. The surface is much harder and firmer, and neither the spectators nor the drivers will be troubled with dust."

25 October 1910 :
"Oldfield and Johnson to run off their match this afternoon."

26 October 1910 :
"Barney Oldfield, driving a 60 horse power Knox car, defeated the champion heavyweight pugilist, Jack Johnson, who drove a 90 horse power Thomas Flier, with ridiculous case at Sheepshead Bay track yesterday afternoon before a crowd of 5,000 people. Oldfield, skilled and experienced at track racing, left the big negro far behind in the first two five-mile heats."

3 November 1910 :
"OLDFIELD LOSES FIGHT IN COURT; Suspended Auto Driver Cannot Enter Atlanta Races -- Sues for $25,000 - ATLANTA, Ga., Nov. 2. -- For three hours to-day Barney Oldfield participated in the most irksome contest of his automobile career, a legal race for the right to enter to-morrow's meet here. He lost."

[ggnagy]

At least some of the "SAAB modifieds" mentioned above would have been specials built to the SCCAs H Modified classification. Joe Christ was a successful PHA driver and built himself a Elva copy with a SAAB 750 GT engine and Begra bodywork. This car may be one of the cars bobbo remembers. Joe's son, Charles has bought back and restored the car for vintage events. He also is one of the principals of the h-mod yahoo group.



As far as other match races go. Wasn't there a match race between the group 44 and huffaker B Prod Jaguars at one of the earlier Historics? IIRC, the two cars had never both shown up at the same time for the SCCA Runoffs.

[Alan Lewis]

In the Achille Varzi chapter of Grand Prix Greats , Nigel Roebuck mentions a match race being proposed between Varzi and Tazio Nuvolari, but says that it never happened because Nuvolari went to see Varzi to discuss the matter and they decided that it wasn't worth it ("If I [Nuvolari] win, our friendship will be tainted, and if you win, I shall never find peace.")

Where did Mr. Roebuck dig this up from? Who proposed the match? Is it even true?

APL