The Roaring Season

Ray Bell wrote:My error with the BT7/BT11 question I have explained. I have previously always relied on the AGP book when there was a question and it's wrong...

Funnily enough, the BT16 was in Mike Ryves' hands at one time too.

Yes, that is Bruce Burr with the rag on his head. He had been a sweets salesman in Tasmania until he became a voluntary 'gofer' on the Aussie Miller LSR project, then he disappeared from Tasmania. His rep's car was found at Launceston airport three months later, Bruce was by then firmly ensconced in the employ of the Geoghegans.

With regard to Niel Allen and the BT16...

I'm fairly sure I saw him practise in this car at the May Warwick Farm. But I don't have anything to confirm that, though this might come to hand in the near future. That was the day Niel got pole ahead of Matich, so maybe he had problems with the Brabham, maybe he simply decided to concentrate on trying to beat Frank in the RAC Trophy.

A week later they were at Surfers, it was the ATT meeting. Neither the Elfin or the Brabham were there, but Des did record in the report that 'Allen and Bolten (sic) failed to front'. To me this shows that the car was entered, as was the Elfin.

Three weeks further on, June 11, Catalina Park was on. It rained that meeting, the report reads, "It rained again quite heavily not long before the first of the events for Racing Cars. Leo Geoghegan and Niel Allen were both non-starters..." They would therefore have been there for practice.

Finally, a further fortnight on, the Lakeside round of the Gold Star saw Niel record a lap of 59.1 before withdrawing from the meeting. This was slower than Mel McEwin's time and 3.3 seconds off pole.

The next outing was at the Farm and Fred Gibson was in the car.

Mark Bisset wrote:Guys,

Thanks for the interest in my articles;

1. Of course Leo had been around a while by '66, but he was stepping up to ANF1, which meant something at the time

2. The article was about the 39, it wasn't intended as a Leo career summary, how much context one includes is a judgement call

3.'Loti', 'twas , Wots , babes etc are bits a slang I use and will continue to

4. Sheppo told me the Youl story, he was the guy I spoke to 'who was there' , you couldn't get any more there than the guy who fettled the car

In other stories sometimes I have specific help, like Derek Kneller in the Matich F5000 story sometimes you can get valuable consensus on topics on forums like TNF, when I have referenced that I have attributed

5. Bartlett didn't ever race a Brabham BT7A to my knowledge, the Mildren Intercontinental Brabham KB raced was BT11A 'IC-3-64'

6. Omissions; about 40% of my content is Australiasian, 85% of the readership is global, so I a biasing the minutae around that! an exception was the Matich article I mention above when I 'really went to town' on minutae only really of interest to those of us in this part of the world

7. People gently correct errors in the articles, just drop me a note on the site or email mailto:?subject=&body= , phone 0419 332342

Mark Bisset wrote:Guys,

Thanks for the interest in my articles;

1. Of course Leo had been around a while by '66, but he was stepping up to ANF1, which meant something at the time

2. The article was about the 39, it wasn't intended as a Leo career summary, how much context one includes is a judgement call

3.'Loti', 'twas , Wots , babes etc are bits a slang I use and will continue to

4. Sheppo told me the Youl story, he was the guy I spoke to 'who was there' , you couldn't get any more there than the guy who fettled the car

In other stories sometimes I have specific help, like Derek Kneller in the Matich F5000 story sometimes you can get valuable consensus on topics on forums like TNF, when I have referenced that I have attributed

5. Bartlett didn't ever race a Brabham BT7A to my knowledge, the Mildren Intercontinental Brabham KB raced was BT11A 'IC-3-64'

6. Omissions; about 40% of my content is Australiasian, 85% of the readership is global, so I a biasing the minutae around that! an exception was the Matich article I mention above when I 'really went to town' on minutae only really of interest to those of us in this part of the world

7. People gently correct errors in the articles, just drop me a note on the site or email mailto:?subject=&body= , phone 0419 332342

Ray Bell wrote:By all means, Terry, quoting the article would bring those who didn't follow the sport as we did at the time up to date...

However, your next line brings the first contradiction with the page quoted. You were a fan of Leo from the time of the 22, Mark writes that Leo 'made his name' in the 39. But the fact is that he was already a bit of a crowd hero before he stepped into open-wheelers, having gained a lot of followers with his Holden in the closing years of the fifties.

In fact, Leo had a lot of success in the 20s, the 22 (including his first Australian Championship), the 27 and even a Gold Star round win in the 32.

I was present at Longford when Leo and Greg were finalising the purchases of their respective ex-Clark Lotuses. These moves were simply seen as logical progression for these already-successful drivers.

Did I write 'Lotuses'? Yes, I did. I believe the use of 'Loti' is a gaff. The story also says that Leo was a 'front runner' from the time of his purchase, however the car had so many reliability problems that he often missed meetings altogether in 1966.

A fairly serious problem is the reference to John Sheppard, in particular Tom Geoghegan taking a liking 'to his work preparing the Youl brothers Cooper.'

The part of this section that is correct is that the car was housed at the Geoghegans' when racing in Sydney. But the preparation of the John Youl (not Youl brothers) Cooper was in the hands of Geoff Smedley, who moved on to work for Frank Matich after John's retirement. One of his 'offsiders' from his time tooling the Aussie Miller Cooper (installing the Chev V8 etc) was Bruce Burr, who did indeed work his way into the Geoghegan employ. I frankly don't know if Sheppo ever did anything for the Youls, but I suspect Geoff would have mentioned it at some time in one of our many conversations had he done so.

I mentioned above that Leo won a Gold Star event in the Lotus 32. Mark, though, states that Leo had his first Gold Star win at Sandown in the 39. Sure, it was his first Gold Star win in the 39, and also Repco's first V8 Gold Star win, but the broad brush approach makes the statement wrong.

In the same section he mentions Spencer Martin and Kevin Bartlett in BT11a Brabhams, but KB was driving a BT7a, he never raced a BT11a.

Things not mentioned of significance: The major crash at Bathurst in 1968... and taking the outright lap record at Catalina, which I think he did twice.

And, finally, with regard to the 49s and wings collapsing, he fails to note that both cars had this problem at Lakeside.

Some of this could be seen as nit-picking, I would agree. But there are significant errors and that is why I have said I think he should let someone 'who was there' look at his articles before he uploads them.

Ray Bell wrote:

with regard to the primotopo page, unfortunately there are a number of gaffs in that story. He does a good job of presenting the stuff but misses out on some important detail. I guess he gets information from the worldwide web and there are some fairly fundamental errors.

Each one I've seen has been the same. It would be nice if he showed them to someone who was there before putting them up on the web to perpetuate errors.

Ray Bell wrote:

with regard to the primotopo page, unfortunately there are a number of gaffs in that story. He does a good job of presenting the stuff but misses out on some important detail. I guess he gets information from the worldwide web and there are some fairly fundamental errors.

Each one I've seen has been the same. It would be nice if he showed them to someone who was there before putting them up on the web to perpetuate errors.

T332 wrote:Gentlemen, you omitted the fact that John McCormack also used the 2.5 Repco V8 in a Tasman race in 1971. It was shoehorned into an Elfin 600C chassis number 7011, where he finished in 10th place in the Warwick Farm 100 in 1969. Garrie Cooper himself (Mr Elfin)also used the engine once in an Elfin 600D chassis 7012 in the non championship 1971 Australian Grand Prix in November where he was a retirement. John McCormack was a non starter in 7011 in the same race. Then we move on to the 5 litre Repco V8 that started life in Frank Matich's McLaren M10 in practice only for an Australian Gold Star race at Oran Park in June 1971 , debuting in the Tasman series in January 1972, but that is they say another story for another day.

Originally posted by Terry S
.....Col Green never had a Repco V8. His car was Brabham BT16 chassis F2.8.65 went from Gardner to Allen (for Gibson) then Green. It was always Climax powered.

Originally posted by Terry S
It was interesting to read in the article how Lotus had trouble finding suitable Climax FPF 2.5L engines for this car.

Remember that the F1 for which this engine was designed finished at the end of 1960. So many of the remaining engines had cracked blocks.

In any case other engines such as FVA were being used in the Tasman Series and the development of the Repco 2.5L V8 meant most Aussies switched to that. Also in sports cars such as Lotus 19 and Cooper Monaco the Americans stared replacing this engine with small V8's.

So the engine died out of use. Then Historic Racing came along and quickly there was a new demand for the engine. So various firms in UK started making parts and complete engines.....

Originally posted by Terry S
.....Col Green never had a Repco V8. His car was Brabham BT16 chassis F2.8.65 went from Gardner to Allen (for Gibson) then Green. It was always Climax powered.

Originally posted by Terry S
It was interesting to read in the article how Lotus had trouble finding suitable Climax FPF 2.5L engines for this car.

Remember that the F1 for which this engine was designed finished at the end of 1960. So many of the remaining engines had cracked blocks.

In any case other engines such as FVA were being used in the Tasman Series and the development of the Repco 2.5L V8 meant most Aussies switched to that. Also in sports cars such as Lotus 19 and Cooper Monaco the Americans stared replacing this engine with small V8's.

So the engine died out of use. Then Historic Racing came along and quickly there was a new demand for the engine. So various firms in UK started making parts and complete engines.....

Terry S wrote:The Lotus 39, along with many other Lotus, was sold in November 2008 to finalise the estate of John Dawson-Damer.

The buyer was Chas Talbot of Tasmania, who I understand still has. He paid USD 233K, plus auction premium (probably 10%)

For a couple of great photos of the car with Geoghegan refer page 1 of this TNF thread:

http://forums.autosport.com/topic/103034-dawson-damer-collection-sale/

GD66 wrote:Sergent strikes again