F5000... the formula that thrilled?

[Ray Bell]

I have great memories of it, but what feelings do others have?

F5000, stockblock V8s in the back of cars that were similar to F1 cars. About the same power, more torque as the DFVs of the era, raucous sounding and brutal handling... they were popular in a lot of countries.

So what do you remember about F5000?

err... this isn't about the Cosworth V6 cars that ran with them...

Cars like this:



Cars that were tail heavy and awkward, but still very fast....

[Ray Bell]

Just when you think it's safe to turn away... I used the wrong filename...

[Milan Fistonic]

Ray
I've just been reading Barry Green's book on Longford and was reminded of Austin Miller's Corvette engined Cooper T51. That must have been one of the very earliest examples of what would become F5000. He set a new Australian land speed record with the car in 1961. 172mph one way and 150 mph the other to give an average of 163.94 mph.

[Ray Bell]

I have a fax here about Ken Cox, this also mentions a Cooper with a V8 stuffed into the back of it... a 289 Ford in this case, and says it was the first F5000. It was nearer the time, of course, and was actually raced in F5000 by Des Lascelles... and I suspect I have a recollection of Bob Minogue in it too...

Barry's book I haven't seen, but I do await Rob Saward's with great interest.

[turn7]

Ray,

Did you take the picture of Kevin Bartlett`s Lola T300 ?
What is the location ?

There was a pair of Lola T300s at the recent Zolder Historic
Grand Prix. I was above the pitlane when the 5-liter Chevrolets
were fired. What a throaty bark ! You could feel the vibrations
through the concrete of the grandstand.

[Ray Bell]

Yes, I spent an hour or so one practice day taking a whole bunch of shots all around Warwick Farm at the September meeting in 1972. The purpose was actually to get background for the cover paintings that we had on the cover, we wanted pics taken at different points.

This one is on Hume Straight... two Elfin MR5s, the first local production F5000, both with Repco Holden engines, the yellow one being that of Max Stewart, the Ansett Team Elfin car being John McCormack.



If you wanted to know about the ground shaking, though, the 7-litre Cobra was the one...

But a full grid of F5000s was an awesome aural spectacle too...

[turn7]

Ray,

did Frank Matich, John Walker, Gary Campbell and Warwick Brown
also run in that Warwick Farm race ?
Do you have pictures of their cars ?

[hgb]

Hey Turn7, I was there too. You took the picture about 20 Minutes before the race from the roof of the pit building. I remember how the cars were fired up... awesome. We must have been standing very close together.

[Ray Bell]

Gary Campbell? I must look it up... he would have, I think, that was when he had the tear in the monocoque that they didn't find for months... or maybe not, he was fourth fastest in practice, Bartlett having trouble.

Gary was such a great bloke, a real sportsman as well as a keen advocate of humanity. Such a shame he died in that plane crash...

Anyway, let me give you a bit from the report on the meeting, there were two races, both over ten laps, and the starts were interesting and controversial.

------------------------------------
Drama From The Start
There was a great deal of tension on the grid for the Motor Show Trophy race, Heat One - perhaps Matich was feeling the presence of Stewart beside him was a threat to his dominance at the Farm - and then the flag fell. Stewart moved fractionally sooner, and Matich saw red, giving the rear tyres little chance to bite as he floored the throttle in second gear.

With Stewart still a little ahead and Matich moving slightly to the left, the viciousness of the wheelspin was enough to start the Matich visibly vibrating and as they went for third gear the cars touched and Stewart went flying.

The yellow Elfin jumped six feet in the air and speared off the track at an angle, collecting a braking marker on the way. This damaged the front suspension...
--------------------------------------

So you see there was some colour and excitement about the place. Matich won from McCormack and Brown, who was in the McLaren M10B, Bartlett third and then Harvey in the Jane/Bowin P8 and Walker's Matich followed him.

After setting a lap time only two tenths better than Rindt had done in 1969 with the high wings on the 49T, Stewart was on a bit of a high, and with his quarry, the hated Matich, or "Frank Who' as he was called at the time, so close, efforts to get his car going in time for the second race spared nothing.

So imagine this situation:

---------------------------------------

Heat Two: Controversy Reigns
to say that Max Stewart was cross woudl be understating the matter tremendously. He and his team had set about the reconstruction of the right front corner of the car and Max asked for two warm-up laps in the interest of safety. This was denied, on the grounds that the meeting's tight schedule didn't allow time for such frolicking. Try to imagine his fury, then, when he had to sit out a ten-minute delay when Matich belligerently parked his damaged car on pole and set his me about repairing it!

The Matich had suffered a brake lockup approaching Creek on the warm-up lap after he had shot out of the pits with a fabulous practice start. Demonstrating the loss of control suffered in a full-power change to third, the car slewed to the left of the circuit before being restrained for the entry to Paddock Bend. the other drivers took the Matich lead and it was terrific to see the whole field coming from the pits, accelerating furiously with wheels spinning. Bartlett must have been anxious, for he exited the pits overtaking Warwick Brown! After this action-packed beginning to a warm-up lap, it was not surprising to find that Matich had troubles at the bottom of the circuit. It was more than just a blown tyre though, and the mechanics had to change the hub as well as the wheel.

While all this was going on, Bill Hagon was doing a great job of keeping the crowd informed of the proceedings by interviewing most of the drivers as they sat waiting. He was unable to reach Max Stewart, however, as he was at the rear of the grid, positions being decided on finishing order in the first heat. It would have been interesting to hear what Max would have said had the microphone lead been long enough.

Supplementary Regulation 23 for the meeting stated that cars may only be worked on behind the pit fence, and the stewards of the meeting fined Clerk of the Course, David Bones, for allowing Matich to do the repairs outside this area. Few agreed that it was David at fault.

When the start finally came, Matich made no mistakes to shoot away. Behind him, Brown made an even better start to follow through in second spot ahead of McCormack. Then came the next incident. Harvey tried to follow Brown's lead, but Bartlett moved over on the entry to Paddock and the new Jane collected him, spinning just ahead of the rest of the field and finishing on the outside of the corner with the nose and left front suspension in a mess. Walker was sufficiently involved in this to retire also, and there were now only eight little indians.

Only eight in the race - but what a race. Though Matich was streaking away, the event was spine tingling. Brown was driving the race of his life using some of Matich's cast off tyres on the old McLaren, andhe had McCormack well in check. Bartlett was hanging on grimly with his ill-handling Lola ahead of Cooper, while O'Sullivan knew it was only a matter of time before Stewart gave him the Royal Order. And then there was poor Gary Campbell, again suffering the ill effects of somebody else's problems.

-------------------------------------

The race continued with Matich winning easily from Brown and McCormack, Stewart working through to fourth... with Garrie Cooper trying to stay with him as he went by and spinning as he did so...

Now... pictures of their cars? Probably, but not yet scanned. They are slides and I will get them done eventually. Matich, by the way, ran this meeting with a second large rear wing, this one being just behind the gearbox, low down, and was seen on the car a few times during this period.

A colourful meeting, all round, wouldn't you think?

[jonboyG]

One of my dad's friends bought a Lola F5000 car recently, but I'm not sure if he's got it running yet.

He was telling me that because the car has a good history, he was invited to join a series, the opening race for which was a support race for the Australian GP! He had to decline because he had only just bought an engine for it and hadn't had time to run the car yet.

[Ray Bell]

One of the things about these cars that kept them alive so long, particularly here in Australia, was their visual and aural impact on spectators.

They looked hairy, they were hairy to drive and they sounded like it. Hence people craved driving them, went to greater lengths to be able to do so...

Of course, they did exact a toll, particularly the 'Lola Limpers' (Bartlett, Lawrence, Campbell in a minor way, Warwick Brown big time), the worst being the deaths of Max Stewart and Colin Trengove.

They had an aura that is hard to recapture today, and as I recall standing at the top of Lukey Heights and hearing the grid roar as the clutches bit and the wheelspin started, and saw the flock of seagulls rise as one about a mile down the road from them, and waited to see who would come out of it all first...

And then the arrived in full view, racing at high speed into the Olympic Corner braking area, barked at us as they headed south againa and out of sight for a moment, then there they were!

Climbed out of Siberia, roaring at the hill and the train of them snaking quickly towards us, slowing for the crest and going light on their wheels over it, then a quick dab on the power, over to the brakes as they dived into MG...

Magic moments these were...

[allenbrown]

Originally posted by Ray Bell
I have a fax here about Ken Cox, this also mentions a Cooper with a V8 stuffed into the back of it... a 289 Ford in this case, and says it was the first F5000. It was nearer the time, of course, and was actually raced in F5000 by Des Lascelles... and I suspect I have a recollection of Bob Minogue in it too...

Ray

Please tell more. I have Cooper T53 F1-7-61 listed in my Cooper lowlines histories as "Rob Walker (UK) 1961 for Stirling Moss in F1 and later in New Zealand and Australian Internationals 1962 - Sandown Park organisers (Australia) 1962 - Frank Gardner (Australia) 1963 for Australian Internationals and crashed at Sandown March 1963 - Stan Jones (Australia) 1963 - Ken Cox (Australia) 1966 for Holden engine. Subsequent history unclear.". Is this the car you're talking about?

Also, under Cooper "F1-4-61", I have "First seen with John Ceirpicki (Australia) 1970 with Holden engine - Bob Minogue (Australia) with Ford V8 - D.F. Laselles (Australia) - George Johnson (Australia) - Alan Banister (Australia) 1974. Retained 1999.". So are these the same car? The Minogue/Laselles connection came to me from Bannister.

The Holden connection had made me think they were the same car, despite Alan Bannister's protestations that he has F1-4-61. Am I wrong about the Holden in both cases? Was it a 289 Ford?

I'm fascinated!

Allen

[Warwick]

Unfortunately i didn't see the cars in their heyday,but I attend a meeting once a year at Ruapuna (Christchurch NZ) where there are normally five of these cars.
2 Lola 332's
2 NZ made Begg's
1 AU made Matich
I dont have any history on these cars.
One of the Lola's has just been sold to the UK,although the guy who owned it has got another one to rebuild.

[Ray Bell]

Originally posted by allenbrown
Ray

Please tell more. I have Cooper T53 F1-7-61 listed in my Cooper lowlines histories as "Rob Walker (UK) 1961 for Stirling Moss in F1 and later in New Zealand and Australian Internationals 1962 - Sandown Park organisers (Australia) 1962 - Frank Gardner (Australia) 1963 for Australian Internationals and crashed at Sandown March 1963 - Stan Jones (Australia) 1963 - Ken Cox (Australia) 1966 for Holden engine. Subsequent history unclear.". Is this the car you're talking about?

Also, under Cooper "F1-4-61", I have "First seen with John Ceirpicki (Australia) 1970 with Holden engine - Bob Minogue (Australia) with Ford V8 - Des Lascelles (Australia) - George Johnson (Australia) - Alan Banister (Australia) 1974. Retained 1999.". So are these the same car? The Minogue/Laselles connection came to me from Bannister.

The Holden connection had made me think they were the same car, despite Alan Bannister's protestations that he has F1-4-61. Am I wrong about the Holden in both cases? Was it a 289 Ford?

I'm fascinated!

Allen

He would probably know, though I have no affection for the guy since he threatened to sue me. Now, I really wouldn't have a clue... it seemed to me that it was the one car by the timing of the ownerships... but there is so much you can't know, isn't there?

It was a 289 Ford, I'm fairly sure, though the 302 was out by then... 289s would have been a lot easier to get.

I have a story in MRA where there is a pic of Cox's car at Winton and it says in the caption that Minogue later raced it. Now, the story was about Minogue, and I would be fairly sure that Minogue would have had some say about the captions, as he probably supplied the pics (he's in another car passing the Cooper in that photo).

Looking at that pic and a very good one I have of Lascelles at Warwick Farm (must get Ben to scan it for you) I would swear that the exhausts are the same, and it's looking a bit like the wheels are too. Now, it's true that the bits may have been sold from one Cooper owner to the other... but I don't know. Then again, I think the mirrors are the same, only clear difference I can see is the brace for the rollover bar, which would have been a mandated change between the time of the two pics. General appearance of the car is the same, nose seems low, central vent etc.

A small point of interest is that it would have been the last racing car that Stan Jones owned...