The Roaring Season

This is the final photo in this chapter of Can-Am photos by Jerry Bendl.

This is a great shot, showing the two variations on a single theme. The car in front is the Vasek Polak Porsche 917/10, driven by Milt Minter. The car at the rear is the Penske Porsche 917/10K, driven by George Follmer. The car at the front is what the car at the rear more or less started out as, before Penske became involved, and Mark Donohue spent a lot of time in Germany with the Porsche engineers, completely re-engineering the car. The 917/10K is the twin-turbo model, the 917/10 is normally aspirated. Getting the turbos to deliver smooth power was a huge challenge.

But it wasn't only underneath the skin that changes were made, note the much longer rear wing on the 917/10K, and the drastically different profile to the nose. Testing, chopping, changing, found that a very blunt nose that curved out aggressively into a sharp tip provided the best downforce. At the time, everyone, including McLaren, had a very long gradual nose angle to cut through the air better. But the 917/10K nose proved to be the most effective.

According to Mark Donohue's book [i]The Unfair Advantage[/i], Vasek Polak, a very successful US Porsche dealer, put a lot of pressure on Porsche in Germany to be supplied the same equipment as the Penske team, but Roger Penske had made sure it was written into their contract nobody else in the Can-Am would be able to get their hands on a 917/10K until the following year. Of course, by the time everyone else could buy a 917/10K, the Penske team and Porsche had created the 917/30.

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My thanks again to Jerry Bendl and Bryan Colechin for making these stunning photos to be posted here.

[quote="Steve Holmes"]Denny chats with his mechanics.

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That is a photo!

Denny chats with his mechanics.

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Mark Donohue eases himself into his Porsche. He would have still been in a lot of discomfort here. This was only his second race back after his horrific shunt while testing his Porsche at Road Atlanta where the car went up and over. But he was addicted to racing, I guess it took the pain away. Or at least, took his mind off it for a while.

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The Vasek Polak Porsche 917/10, driven by Milt Minter, which started 6th, but retired on the opening lap. That's Milt facing the camera, with his signature rectangular glasses and goatee. He was typical of many race drivers in the US at the time, extremely versatile, and could jump from racing a Can-Am Porsche one weekend, to a Firebird in the Trans-Am the next, or whatever else was available.

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And here is the Carlos Pace sister car.

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One of my absolute favourite Can-Am cars, the 1972 Shadow MkIII. What a beauty! If you think this car looks a lot like the 1971 Shadow MkII, its because it [i]is[/i] the same car. It was essentially modified to fit conventional 15" diameter wheels, after the struggles the team had the previous two years with their tiny wheel route. The MkIII did feature a lot of upgrades over the MkII, including a much-revised nose, with radiator moved to the rear. With the extra space now available in the nose, a separate adjustable wing sat in the area where once the radiator was. However, this concept never did work very well, and by Edmonton, as can be seen here, the wing was removed.

But the Shadow team hadn't given up just yet on being unconventional. The most ambitious part of the 1972 Shadow program was in a new twin-turbocharged big block Chevy motor, developed by Lee Muir. This highly anticipated monster was expected to produce 1,200hp. It was said that on the dyno, the motor was never taken above 5,000rpm, which gave 800hp. However, it also gave 985 lb-ft torque!!! To develop it, a second MkIII was built, and which made its race debut at Round 6, at Donnebrook, in the hands of Carlos Pace. Pace also drove the second car here, at Edmonton.

Unfortunately, the turbo motor never did work properly in 1972, and the team persevered into 1973 with it. After huge effort all year, it finally made its first appearance at a race event at the final round at Riverside in 1972. Oliver was due to drive the turbo car, while stock car racer Bobby Allison would drive the normally aspirated version. But after a failure in the Sunday morning warm-up of the turbo motor, Oliver jumped in to the normally aspirated car for the race.

Unfortunately also, the beautiful Shadow MkIII never did live up to expectations; along with the issues of the much anticipated turbo motor, the failure of the adjustable front wing, and time consuming problems such as several Weisman transmission failures (requiring a switch to Hewland) and overheating issues, that required some redesigning, the team spent the season playing catch-up.

This is Jackie Oliver's Shadow.

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Follmer, from pole, readies himself for battle, while Roger Penske goes through the game-plan.

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Cevert had the engine the car had run the year before. When the Young's bought the Team cars they were sold as they were run.

Thats a great point about the Team McLaren engines Jerry, as Cevert was a little slower at most tracks in Revson's old car than Revvie had been the year before. Horsepower must have been one of the contributing factors.

Steve: You are right of course. McLaren was the car to beat. They didn't sell customers the cars they were using until the next year. They also had engines way better then what the competition had avaliable to them. They also were Formula One drivers, racing what amounted to weekend warriors. The only way to beat them was if they dropped out or had mechanical troubles.

This said the Bruce and Denny show were very nice to all the competitors. They needed the field to have a race. They would help everyone and were liked and respected by all.

Thanks Jerry, I was really referring to Cevert's performance at Edmonton, as pictured, that behind the two factory Porsche, and factory McLaren's, 5th fastest was the best he could hope for. And while his win at Donnebrook was hugely popular, he won after the two McLaren's had engine failure, Donohue popped a tyre, and Follmer ran out of fuel. He did have to overcome Minter, who'd qualified ahead of him in 5th, but he wasn't in the running for the win at any time until the others struck trouble. Which really underlined how fast paced the development was in the Can-Am, that someone with the skills of Cevert, driving the championship winning car from the previous year, ultimately had to hope the factory teams ran into trouble.

Steve: You are slightly wrong on Cevert's performance. He won the CanAm in 1972 at Donneybrooke, Minnesota and his team mate Greg Young finished 2nd that year at Road Atlanta. The team was called young American Racing and was owned by Greg Young's mother. The mechanics were Skinner and Jobe and the team manager was Lew Spencer.

Finally, I've not been around much lately so several of these photo collections cut put on pause, halfway through. Continuing on from the image posted above of the two Penske Porsche's on the front row in the Edmonton 1972 Can-Am race, here was the slightly unfamiliar sight of the two team McLaren cars on the second row, and here purely because they didn't quite posses the speed of the Porsche's. Hulme is nearest camera, Revson alongside.

In behind Hulme is French F1 racing star Francois Cevert, driving the ex-Revson factory M8F from 1971 which won the championship. Cevert ran a limited campaign, but was a welcome addition to the series. He even managed to qualify and finish an impressive 2nd earlier in the year at Elkhart Lake. But the huge performance leaps taken each year in the Can-Am by the top teams showed here at Edmonton that even with having Cevert in last years championship winning car, 5th was the best that could be hoped for.

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Thanks Jerry, great info!

Thanks, Jerry. Now that I look again, and visualise a cigar in his mouth, it's quite obvious.... ;)

The guy in the hat and Red Poncho is Carl Haas. He was the US Distributor for Lola Cars and Hewland Gearboxes and the owner of the car Jackie Stewart was driving.

The guy with the glasses on the side of the picture of Jackie in the Lola is Ike Smith a crew member.

The beginning of the end. I always find images from the Can-Am Championship from 1973 and 1974 just don't look right, because there are no factory McLaren's on the grid. From 1967, right through until the end of 1971, there were always two orange factory McLaren's at or near the front of the grid, in every race, and to see a Can-Am field without them just doesn't look right. They were part of the Can-Am scenery.

But by the same token, many Can-Am photos from 1972 also looked wrong, in that on only one occasion, at Watkins Glen, was the front row locked out by both McLaren's. In previous years, it was rare for pole position not to have been taken by a McLaren, but in 1972, the incredible Porsche 917/10K arrived, and the Can-Am would never be the same again.

The 917/10K was a combined effort between Porsche and Penske Racing, and Penske driver/developer/engineer Mark Donohue spent months and months in Germany, developing and fine-tuning the package, and commuting back home for his racing commitments.

The Porsche was the best car in the 1972 Can-Am. Mark Donohue should have been the 1972 Can-Am Champion. He stuck the car on pole at the opening round at Mosport, but finished second to Hulme after pitting with a sticking linkage that operated a valve in the inlet manifold. However, following Mosport, the team took the car testing at Road Atlanta, and during a high speed run, the entire rear body section lifted off the Porsche, which launched it into a series of cart-wheels, destroying the car and badly smashing Donohue's leg.

Donohue was out of action for several weeks while he recovered, so the team called on the services of George Follmer, who drove the spare car from Round 2, and winning the race. He also won Rounds 4 and 5, and was well on the way to winning the title. Donohue finally returned for Round 6 at Donnybrook, the team building another car, and he and Follmer locked out the front row, as they also did here at Edmonton, Round 7 of the '72 Championship. Donohue went on to win this race, and actually finished 3rd in the championship, behind Follmer and Hulme, despite missing four races.

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Last one from 1971, Stewart gets set to hit the track in the Lola.

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Siffert readies himself for battle. Looks like he is inserting his ear plugs.

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