Chevron B26

[John Burton]

Hi Murray,

Sorry it has taken so long to reply, but I rather thought this thread was getting sleepy and hadn't bothered to check until this evening .

Had a great weekend at Spa two weeks ago in the last round of the Orwell Supersportscup series . Very cold ( 3 degrees C !! ) weather on the Sunday meant two laps behind the pace car to get the tyres warm. Since we were leading the championship, i just needed a steady drive to retain our lead to win the championship, which we did. Although nearly 1 sec quicker in practice than Silvio Kalb in a 1976 March BMW M12, I finished just behind him after enjoying a really good battle ( side by side into Eau Rouge ! ), but beat him in the second race. The M12 seems a bit quicker on torque and top end than a BDG . Both times we were beaten by two Mclaren M8's with 8.4litre big blocks. However, we were quicker than all the other Can - Am's . I usually enjoy qualifying and managed to set a new 2litre sports car record of 2mins 22.4sec, which was quicker than the GP Masters cars a few weeks previously.

If you can stand being a bit bored, their is some film of our car on the orwell-supersportscup.com web site where you will also see that we run hte B26 very low.

I take your point about the monocoque, but if the chassis is good then try stiffer springs at the front than the rear. We usually run around 550lbs to 500lbs rear. Sounds illogical, but works. I assume you have good shocks.

Hope you had an enjoyable race at Lime Rock

[John Turner]

John, many congrats on the championship. One taken of you at Brands Superprix in July (pinched from the thread covering it!). Wet, wet, wet!:-

[John Burton]

Many thanks John.

It was certainly a very wet start to our race at Brands this year, with the start being delayed for 30mins due to torrential rain. I was frankly surprised to see Silvio Kalb's March BMW M12 in my mirrors since I usually like the wet and felt the car was handling well. The track was drying out during the race and Silvio drove a superbly to win overall. I was very impressed at how easily he seemed to get the power down out of the corners
despite the conditions. However, when I had a look at his wet tyres afterwards, I saw they were a totally different pattern to ours ?! Perfectly legal, but German cut Avons. I now have a set for next time !

All the best

[Dan Rear]

John, any good stories you can post of the fantastic Euro 2-Litre series races from 1972-74ish? I'm stuck into some 1973 A/Sports at the moment, the variety of cars/engines in the series is fantastic: Chevron, Lola, Abarth, March, GRD, Alpine, and so on. Must have been a great time to have been racing these superb looking cars.

[John Burton]

Not sure if I'm supposed to post stories of the European Championship from the 70's on this B26 thread. My wife and I are driving over to Luxembourg for the Orwell prizegiving tomorrow. However, since I do have plenty of stories, some printable, others ... ( ! ), I'll see what I can come up with when we return.

[allenbrown]

Yes please. Absolutely. We'll distract John ...

[John Turner]

No you won't, but I would love to hear them too. John is right of course; they should be in a separate thread, but if you want to start it here, I'll move it to the Motorsport History forum where it would get wider audience.

[driftwood]

Yes John we can distract you look here is a crate of beer and a young blonde with large boobydoos
please return the crate as i get £5 back on it
let the stories roll!!

[Steve Wilkinson]

Originally Posted by driftwood

Yes John we can distract you look here is a crate of beer and a young blonde with large boobydoos
please return the crate as i get £5 back on it
let the stories roll!!

Trust Drifty! Predictable as always!

[Steve Wilkinson]

Motoring News 12/05/77 mentions that Richard Philip and Alan Sharpe had bought the ex-Iain MacLaren Chevron B26/31 and would share driving duties.

[John Burton]

Originally Posted by murray.smith

Hi John
Delighted to see you note on Mugello etc.
Raced the Chevron last wekend at Mnt Tremblant,
and it went well but broke a brand new front wishbone at the weld. Lovely!
It will be out again at Lime Rock in early September. I plan to bring it to Europe for next season.
Will you be at Silverstone this weekend for the classic? If so I will look you up
as I will be driving a couple of cars there.
It would be very interesting to talk set up with you although redoing the chasssis to make it stiffer seems to be a little extreme!

So sorry to take so long to reply !!

I tend to forget to look at this site when a thread moves slowly, but I do apologise for the long delay.

Have you brought the car over the pond or is it still in the States ? I imagine a broken front wishbone caught your attention, but hope the resulting incident was not too damaging.

I haven't raced since Spa last year, since I managed to dislocate my shoulder skiing ( mechanical failure, ski came off ) and had to have an op. to re-attach the tendon to the muscle. I guess it will be July before I can see how strong it is in a race car.

[driftwood]

Chevron B26 cars updated list with all posts added later i will add in some Autosport for sale & snippets i have found
01 Lepp
02 works Springbok Series John Watson and Ian Schecter sold to usa -According to FIA Papers filed by Jim Evans in the UK in 1994 the owership history is as follows.
1973/4 Springbok Series works car driven by Watson and Ian Schecter
1974 John Lepp
1974/78 Bob Marsland
1978/85 Richard Simms ( often entered as B36 )
1985/87 Duncan Bain Abdex sponsored car in Thundersports
1987/89 Lief Lindstrom
1989 Robin Smith
1990 March Richard Simms and Jim Evans Then restored and sold to Jack Russeli in June 1997.
Murray Smith bought car 05 rebuilt the car
03 Anastasio (Italy)
04 Venematta Racing (Italy) -now at Wren Classics Steve Farthing in the early 1990s
05 Tondelli (Italy) previous Italian owners were :- Eris Tondelli, Gili Berti, Giancarlo Gagliardi,
Sandro Cinotti, Claudio Francisco and R.Zorzi . now John Burton supersports
NB Ampus 15/16 March 1975, the first event of the French and European hillclimbing season, Eris Tondelli had a Chevron B26S with a Cosworth DFV engine. Was this B26-05 or a different (later) car?
06 nothing known (italian car?)
07 Forge mill racing for Lepp or Barrios Domecq Sherry sponsored car 2009 for sale USA
08 Gary Cove usa 2 litre Can am then to UK R Piper Thundersports Texas car fitted DFV sold top Ireland early/mid 1990`s then to USA Peter Mclaughlin
09 nothing known
10 works/Gethin Chocolate Drop 1976ish Jim evans builds it into Jim Price Skoda 1984 back into sports car 2000 london surveyor (name escapes me) owned it John Ruston 03 ish Gareth Burnett 2005ish
11 nothing known
12 racing a couple of years ago - a ‘new’ one?

Motoring News 12/05/77 mentions that Richard Philip and Alan Sharpe had bought the ex-Iain MacLaren Chevron B26/31 and would share driving duties.what car is this?


Colin Pool said
I used to own a B26. I cannot remember the chassis no. but I bought it from Eddie Arundel (now Duke of Norfolk) he raced it to very good effect with James Weaver in Thundersports. It was powered by a Swindon 2 litre BDX. My first event with it was the 1985 European GP Thundersports support race (Mansell's 1st GP victory). I drove in this race with Tom Dodd-Noble. The car was White with Red/Black arrows running along the top body ( I think I was trying to copy a Gulf idea)
I sold the car in 1987 to John Saphir who had the car restored by George Fowles. John died of a heart attack at the wheel of his Williams FW07 and his estate sold the car to Ted Williams. I saw it again when Ted had it and it was painted Yellow. I don't know who Ted sold the car to and I have long since lost touch with it. The only other point of interest was that Stefano Sebastiani ('Stingbrace') told me that he owned the car when it was new or nearly new. I think he said it was painted black. Anway he gave me all its original homologation stuff which I passed on when I sold the car. I am 'fairly' sure that the chassis no. on the homologation stuff was not the same as the car. Nothwithstanding this, Stefano was absolutely convinced that this was his car. Who knows!
then
Whilst I know that the Arundel car was advertised as a 'B36'.. It was a B26 with some B36 mods and also some extra mods that James Weaver did personally. I expect I have the receipt for the car somewhere

[Dan Rear]

Didn't Iain Mclaren have 'Chocolate Drop' in the mid-70s?

[driftwood]

sure he had b26 with 31 bodywork as per the comment above
await any info on this subject

[Alan Brown]

For sale.

http://www.maxted-page.com/cars_for_...ChevronB26.htm

[driftwood]

someone mumbled at brands last weekend that gareth had sold the car?

[rogerwills]

Originally Posted by John Turner

So, Roger has acquired Chocolate Drop, then? Or am I putting 2 and 2 together to make 5?

No, B26-02.

1973/4 Springbok Series works car driven by Watson and Ian Schecter
1974- John Lepp- "semi works"
1974-8 - Bob Marsland
1978-85 - Richard Simms
1985-87 - Duncan Bain
1987-89 - Lief Lindstrom
1989-90 - Robin Smith
1990-97 - Simms/Jim Evans
1997-06 - Jack Russeli
2007-2010 - Murray Smith

[ClassicAuto]

I saw the car racing at Silverstone and it was pretty great with a third place finsih. Congratulations.

[ossyhodge]

There seem to be one important name missing on this thread that being New Yorks Tony Cicale who took delivery of his B26 in period & really made a name for himself over a number of years with his mid blue Car in the USA inc Can Am in 77 running in the 2 Litre class at one point was a front runner as well as further developing it, he later went on to far greater achievements in US Motor Racing as a whole as the engineer to quite a lot of the US PRO Top competitors But it seems he does not even get a mention

[john ruston]

26/02 Choc Drop
Now owned by Mike Bells mate John Emerson
I owned it a couple of times , with Gareth Burnett winning the CER race at Silverstone whilst I had it and decent showings at Le Mans classic