A Lola T70 Mark 3 with an interesting history

As he wandered through the garages at the CSRG Charity Challenge at Sonoma Raceway the first weekend of October 2019 , the author found this Lola T70 Can-Am car that competed in the famous Group 7 Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) Canadian-American Challenge Series in 1967 and 1968 owned by a famous mechanic, sponsor and with a pair of well-known drivers.

This car, chassis number SL73/127 was originally sold to famed racing mechanic George Bignotti sometime during the middle of the 1967 season.  Bignotti at the time was employed by Texas oil man and racer John Mecom, who was the Lola Cars importer for the United States. In 1967, Bignotti had already amassed three Indianapolis 500-mile victories – two with AJ Foyt in 1961 and 1964, and a third in 1966 with rookie driver Graham Hill in a career that would eventually total seven Indy ‘500’ wins.  

While the Ford Motor Company was very successful in Indianapolis-type car racing with Indianapolis 500-mile race wins in 1965, 1966, and 1967, as well as United States Auto Club (USAC) national championships those years, along with victories at LeMans in endurance racing in 1966 and 1967, Ford struggled for success in Can-Am racing.

Despite well-funded efforts with Dan Gurney’s All-American Racing team, Shelby American, and Holman & Moody, as well as its own G7A program with the unique three-valves per cylinder Calliope V-8 engine, Ford had been unable to break the McLaren/Chevrolet stranglehold in the Can-Am series. The 1967 Bignotti effort was another innovative Ford effort that used the proven-at-Indianapolis Ford double overhead camshaft DOHC "four cam" V-8 engine bored out to 305 cubic inches of displacement.  

The Bignotti Lola T70 with race number #98 was initially entered for the third round of the1967 SCCA Can-Am series, the ‘Player’s 200’ at Mosport Park in Canada in late September for driver Al Unser, but the car did not appear as the engine was not yet ready. The car appeared finished in metallic blue at the series’ fourth round in mid-October at Laguna Seca Raceway carrying race number 21 for driver ‘Parnelli’ Jones with sponsorship from American Rubber and Plastics Corporation.

American’s owner John Chalik Junior from LaPorte Indiana had raced at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway from 1961 through 1964, with his first year the most successful. Veteran Hoosier midget car racer Gene Hartley started the 1961 ‘500’ in fifteenth place in a Floyd Trevis built machine and finished eleventh, two laps behind winner AJ Foyt. 

In 1962, Chalik expanded his efforts to two cars, a new Quinn Epperly-built laydown for driver Paul Goldsmith and the previous years’ Trevis built chassis was assigned to Eddie Johnson. Both entries made the starting field, but both cars retired early in the race within laps of each other with magneto failure.      

For 1963, Chalik contracted with famed car builder Frank Kurtis to build the final Kurtis Kraft chassis built for the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the KK500L roadster, which incorporated three innovations – first, a roll cage around the cockpit to reassure the driver, NASCAR stock car star Robert “Junior” Johnson, second, fully independent suspension on all four corners and finally, the car’s Offenhauser engine used a battery and distributor ignition system, as Chalik now mistrusted the common magneto ignition system after the team’s Indianapolis 1962 debacle. Chalik remained a two-car team owner, as he also entered the Epperly laydown roadster for New Mexico rookie driver Bobby Unser.

Johnson was never comfortable in the Kurtis-Kraft and stepped out of the car before his completed his rookie test and was replaced by Colby Scroggin. The battery system in the KK500L did not allow the Offenhauser engine to develop full power, and Scroggin could not generate enough speed to qualify for the 33-car starting field. Unser successfully completed his rookie test, then spun and afterwards, Chalik asked Unser to buy his own tires. After Unser landed a Novi ride and left the team, Chalik replaced Unser with Bob Harkey, who crashed in practice and the seriously damaged car could not be repaired in time.

In 1964, the repaired Epperly was entered for journeyman driver Chuck Rodee, but early in the month, Rodee ran over some debris and crashed. Later in the month, the engine blew during practice and car owner Chalik elected not to repair the damage. 

Chalik’s Indianapolis efforts ended with a whimper, and most historians assumed that was the end of Chalik’s involvement in racing. While it is unclear on how (or why) John Chalik Jr.  became involved in the Bignotti Can-Am effort it is without question as the American Rubber and Plastic Corporation sponsorship was (and still is) emblazoned on the Lola’s front fenders.  

At the 1967 Laguna Seca Can-Am race, Parnelli Jones qualified the metallic blue #21 fourth for the ‘Monterey Grand Prix’ behind pole sitter Bruce McLaren, a Weslake Ford-powered Lola T70 Mark 3 driven by Dan Gurney, and Denny Hulme.   On race day, October 15, Jones dropped out after 14 of the 106 scheduled laps with fuel vaporization issues. 

Two weeks later, at Riverside International Raceway, Jones qualified sixth for the ‘Los Angeles Times Grand Prix’ and finished in fourth place, one lap behind winner Bruce McLaren.

At the 1967 Can-Am season finale, held in early November at the Stardust International Raceway outside Las Vegas Nevada, Jones qualified fourth only ½ second behind pole-sitter Bruce McLaren. In the October 12^th ‘Stardust Grand Prix,’ Jones jumped the start from the second row and surged into the early lead, but the Lola was eliminated after just four laps when the gear selector linkage broke at the shifter. This race marked Parnelli’s final appearance in North America’s famed Group 7 racing series.

For 1968, the driver of the Bignotti DOHC Ford-powered Lola T70 Mark 3 for the Can-Am series was two-time USAC National Champion Mario Andretti, who had appeared at five 1967 Can-Am rounds behind the wheel of the fast but unreliable Holman & Moody ‘Honker II.’ At the opening round of the 1968 Can-Am series at Road America in Elkhart Lake Wisconsin, Andretti qualified eighth and was running in third place on lap 48 of 50 when the DOHC Ford engine lost oil pressure and grenaded in spectacular fashion.

   

Two weeks later, on September 17^th at the ‘Bridgehampton Grand Prix’ held on the Bridgehampton Road Course on Long Island, Andretti again qualified the metallic blue #21 to start eighth on the grid, but this time during the race the DOHC Ford Indy engine lost oil pressure on the fourth lap and Andretti retired in the car’s final SCCA Can-Am race appearance.

Andretti and Bignotti skipped the next two rounds of the 1968 Can-Am series but reappeared at the final two rounds with a new car, the red #3 Lola T160, chassis number SL160/1 which was powered by a Ford 427 cubic engine built by Holman & Moody that carried STP Oil Treatment sponsorship. The Lola blew its engine during the qualifying session at Riverside, but in the season finale at Las Vegas, Andretti qualified the red T160 sixth and finished twelfth after a lengthy mid-race pit stop.

The appearance of such a historic machine as Lola chassis SL73/127 that appears as it did in 1967 and 1968, even though it is now equipped with a small block fuel injected Chevrolet engine at the CSRG Charity Classic highlights the importance of vintage car racing in keeping racing history alive. It was true joy to watch car owner Carl Moore of Alamo California put this restored beauty through its paces.      

Mark Donohue’s 1967 Can-Am Lola T70

The Sunoco Race Fuels booth at the 2017 PRI (Performance Racing Industry) trade show featured a Lola T70 Mark IIIB car as raced in 1967 SCCA (Sports Car Club of America) J Wax Canadian-American (Can-Am) Challenge series for FIA Group 7 cars by Mark Donohue for Roger Penske Racing Enterprises.

 

The FIA Group 7 regulations developed in 1966 specified few rules - the cars had to be fitted with fenders, windshield, two seats, two doors, headlights, taillights, roll bar, dual braking system and a self-starter and that they must run on commercial gasoline.

 

 

 

This particular Lola chassis was the third of three Lola T70s purchased by Penske over a two-year period.  Lola Cars, based in England was founded in 1958 by designer Eric Broadley. The T70 was by far the company’s most successful customer car with over hundred cars built in three iterations, with its reputation established after a Lola T70 Mark II driven by John Surtees won the inaugural SCCA J Wax Can-Am series in 1966.

 

 

The first Penske Lola car, a Mark II series identified as chassis number SL71/21, was raced during the 1966 season but after just three races was destroyed in a crash in the Watkins Glen Grand Prix after contact with John Cannon’s spinning Genie owned by actor Dan Blocker. The subsequent fire after the crash virtually destroyed SL71/21 which was replaced by Lola Mark II chassis number SL71/32.  

The second Penske Lola T70 chassis powered by a 327-cubic inch Chevrolet V-8 built by Traco Engineering was dominant in the 1967 United States Road Racing Championship (USRRC) as Donohue won five of the series’ first seven races - the rounds at Las Vegas’ Stardust International Raceway, California’s Riverside International Raceway, the sandy Bridgehampton Road Course on Long Island, Watkins Glen, and Pacific Raceway in Kent Washington.    

 

Chassis SL71/32 was damaged in a July 1967 crash during a private Firestone tire test at Riverside and though it was later repaired, Penske needed a new car for the start of the 1967 SCCA Can-Am Series so he took delivery of our feature car, identified as chassis SL75/124, a Mark IIIB lightweight Spyder.

 

The new dark blue Lola debuted at the 1967 USRRC season finale at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course powered by a thundering Chevrolet 427-cubic inch V-8 engine. Donohue set quick time in qualifying, posted the fastest lap during the race and won the race by three laps over Jerry Hansen to clinch the 1967 USRRC championship.    

Despite the Lola’s Mid-Ohio success, testing showed that the 427-cubic inch engine lacked reliability, so for the 1967 Can-Am series the car was powered by a 327-cubic inch Chevrolet engine.  With finishes in only three of the series’ six rounds Donohue finished tied with John Surtees for third in points behind Bruce McLaren and Denny Hulme and their dominant McLaren M6As.  

 

 

The key visual elements of this Lola T70 are the unique ram-air inlets located on either side of the roll bar. In his 1974 book The Unfair Advantage Donohue remembered the inlets as “….the greatest things! They made the car look like a spaceship. We didn’t realize that they were interfering with airflow to the rear spoiler, which probably offset any gains in horsepower. And they would crack, and they would fall apart, and we even sucked their screens into the carburetors.”  

Penske sold the car to the Carroll Shelby and Shelby Racing used it to test various engines and suspension parts.  Later in 1968, long-time Shelby American employees, brothers Charlie and Kerry Agapiou were encouraged by the Ford Motor Company to start a Can-Am team, and they bought using the Lola T70 from Shelby and raced the car with a hugely powerful Ford 427-cubic inch bored out to 464 cubic inches.

 

The Agapiou brothers started the season with Ronnie Bucknum as the driver but later George Follmer came on board. The car proved to be powerful and fast but unreliable though Follmer did finish second in the final 1968 Can-Am race at Las Vegas.

 

 

After its racing career ended, Lola SL75/124 was rebodied as the T70 coupe version and it spent time in a museum, but later it was sympathetically restored to its 1967 Can-Am appearance. Currently fitted with a 365-cubic inch Chevrolet V-8 engine it is raced in vintage events frequently.  

https://www.sunocoracefuels.com

 

All Photos by the author

 

The racing life and timesof Jerry Grant

part one- his early career

Jerry Grant, born in Seattle Washington in 1935, an All-City football star in high school who played football in college, began racing sports cars in Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) regional events in the Northwest in the late nineteen fifties in a Chrysler-powered Kurtis Kraft sports car. In 1960 and 1961, Grant hired on to race in SCCA events on the West Coast in Yakima imported car dealer Richard Hahn’s $14,000 3-liter (183 cubic inch) V-12 Ferrari 250 Testarossa.

During those two seasons, Grant won 27 races, including the first two Rose Cup Grand Prix races and at one point at least nine races in a row. Grant was crowned the 1961 SCCA Northwest Modified Sports Car championship and Northwest Driver of the Year.  

Grant made his first appearance on the national stage as a co-driver with Pat Pigott in a GT class Chevrolet Corvette in the 12 hours of Sebring. 1962 also marked a key point in Grant’s career as he met Seattle oil additive magnate Ole Bardahl and began to carry Bardahl sponsorship on his race cars.  

Later in the 1962 season, Grant continued to race Hahn’s Ferrari, but also competed in West Coast races of the United States Auto Club (USAC) Road Racing Championship (an early precursor to the Can-Am series) in his own Buick-powered Lotus 19 sports car.

Grant’s 1963 racing season opened in February in Florida where he drove Seattle Chevrolet dealer Alan Green’s Corvette Sting Ray at Daytona and Sebring. Grant then returned to the West Coast and raced his Bardahl-sponsored aluminum 215 cubic inch Buick-powered Lotus 19 in the SCCA United States Road Racing Championship (USRRC) (the direct predecessor to the Can-Am series) events and Green’s Corvette in SCCA regional events.

Jerry Grant's official IMS 1964 photo

1964

Grant continued to build his national sports car racing reputation in 1964 as the driver of the Nickey Chevrolet-sponsored Corvette Sting Ray and the Chevrolet -powered Cheetah GT sports car built by Don Edmunds and Bill Thomas with support from Alan Green.  Grant made his first international appearance at the famed Targa Floria road race in Italy (the world's oldest sports car race) and won the over 3-liter GT class in a 289 cubic inch Ford powered Shelby Cobra in the first of many pairings with Dan Gurney.

In May, Jerry Grant made his first appearance at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway as the driver of the new Bardahl-sponsored Gerhardt rear-engine creation. Bardahl Lubricants, the top-selling engine oil additive in the United States during the nineteen fifties, provided sponsorship of race cars in the Indianapolis ‘500’ as early as 1950, first with car owner Tom Marchese, then later with car owners that included Andy Granatelli, Ed Walsh, and Pat Clancy.

Beginning in 1959, Bardahl sponsored cars at the Speedway entered by Fred Gerhardt, usually driven by Northwest racer Jack Turner until Turner retired in 1962 after his third flip in three years at the Speedway.

The Offenhauser-powered machine Grant drove at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 1964 was a brand-new rear-engine monocoque design built by Gerhardt at his Commercial Truck Body Inc. plant in Fresno. The new Gerhardt copied many details of the 1963 Lotus 29, except for the driver position. It was by design, or because of his height and bulk, the 6-foot-4 inch tall Grant appeared more exposed and more upright in the Gerhardt cockpit than the Lotus 29 driver position.

Grant made a qualifying attempt on the first Sunday of time trials, but after two laps below 150 MPH, the Gerhardt crew waved off the attempt and the car did not make another attempt to qualify for the 33-car starting field.  

While this first Gerhardt rear engine machine suffered the same non-qualifying fate as several other brand new cars built by Americans such as the cars from Troutman-Barnes and Don Edmunds, nonetheless, Gerhardt received orders for two new rear engine cars from Pete Salemi and Ernie Ruiz for the 1965 ‘500.’  All three new 1965 Gerhardt chassis plus the revised 1964 chassis made the 1965 Indianapolis ‘500’ starting field. 

1965

Early in the 1965 season, Grant co-drove in the Daytona 2000-kilometer race and the Sebring 12-hour race with Dan Gurney in the 327-cubic inch Ford-powered Lotus 19 entered by Gurney's new All-American Racers team with sponsorship from the Lotus' former owner John Klug’s Pacesetter Homes. In early May, Grant returned to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for his second attempt to make the starting field of the most famous race in the world.

Scan of a postcard of Jerry Grant's rookie ride in 1965

For the 1965 Indianapolis 500-mile race, Grant was assigned to drive the #48 “Bardahl/MG Liquid Suspension Special,” one of the three Offenhauser-powered cars built by Joe Huffaker during 1963. Owned by San Francisco imported car importer distributor and dealer Kjell Qvale, these unique machines used components of the MG 1100 sedan Hydrolastic™ suspension system. The car that Grant drove had been entered in the 1964 ‘500’ for Mexican rookie driver Pedro Rodriquez, who had crashed it beyond immediate repair in practice.

Grant’s teammates on the 1965 Qvale team, Walt Hansgen and Bob Veith, had both driven for the team in the 1964 ‘500.’ Both of the veteran drivers assisted rookie Grant with the set up his car for qualifying and the race. Grant easily passed his Speedway refresher test, witnessed by three veteran drivers and USAC Chief Observer Llewelyn “Ike” Welch on May 14.

Grant qualified the yellow with back trim #48  “Bardahl/MG Liquid Suspension Special” in 17th starting position with a four-lap average of 154.606 miles per hour (MPH), the slowest first day qualifier.  Perhaps it was Grant’s weight, reported as 215 pounds that resulted in his car being almost two miles an hour slower than Veith and one mile hour slower than Hansgen.  On race day, Grant’s was the first of the Qvale cars to retire with a broken magneto on lap 30.

1966

Grant raced Tom Friedkin’s red 1965 Chevrolet Impala in the January 1966 NASCAR race and again finished in 11th place. Grant’s performance at LeMans in 1965 in the Cobra Daytona Coupe had  impressed Carrol Shelby enough that he paired Jerry with Dan Gurney in one of the 427-cubic inch powered Shelby American Racing Team-managed Ford GT40 Mark II entries for the 24 hours of Daytona.

Gurney and Grant were leading with just minutes to go when the car’s engine failed and they were scored in second place based on laps completed behind Ford GT40 teammates Lloyd Ruby and Ken Miles. 

At the Sebring 12-hour race, once again the car of Gurney and Grant seemed snake bitten. The pair’s pole-winning Ford GT40 was the last away after it refused to start, but Gurney passed 28 cars on the first lap and quickly seized the lead. 

Grant and Gurney held the race lead in the last hour when unbelievably the engine in their 427-cubic inch Ford engine broke. Based on the number of laps completed, the #3 Ford GT40 would have placed second again just one lap  behind Ruby and Miles, but the car was disqualified because Gurney pushed the disabled car across the start/finish line. 

Grant had a busy May 1966, as in addition to his Indianapolis 500-mile race entry, Jerry was scheduled to race in the SCCA USRRC series behind the wheel of the All-American Racers 305-cubic inch Weslake Ford-powered Lola T70. Jerry had qualified the Lola on the pole for the first two of the three USRRC rounds, but the Lola fell out of all three races with mechanical problems. 

The Pacesetter crew helps Jerry Grant strap in during 1966

At the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Grant was entered in Los Angeles area homebuilder John Klug’s brand new 1966 Eagle based on Len Terry’s Lotus 38 design powered by a Ford double overhead camshaft (DOHC) 255-cubic inch engine.  The dark blue with gold trim #88 “Bardahl Pacesetter Homes Special” was tended to by Klug’s long-time chief mechanic Roy Campbell. 

Grant’s practice session was cut short on Saturday May 7 after a piece of debris punctured the radiator of the #88 Eagle. Grant then flew west overnight to race the AAR Lola-Ford in the USRRC event at Laguna Seca Raceway in California. Grant arrived at the track just two hours before the race, started at the tail of field with no practice or qualifying laps, but climbed to fourth place before he retired just before half distance with a blown head gasket in the Ford engine.  

Six days later, on the first day of the Indianapolis ‘500’ time trials, Grant comfortably qualified the Eagle for the starting field with the tenth fastest time of the day, 160.335 MPH, to claim his starting spot on the inside of the fourth row. Although he listed his hometown as Santa Ana California, several local Indiana newspapers claimed Grant was an honorary Hoosier, as his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Harrison Grant had recently settled in the Cass County community of Logansport.

With his car safely in the starting field, Grant was free to leave the following weekend to race in the $10,000 purse Vanderbilt Cup race at the 2.86-mile Bridgehampton Road Course set in the sand dunes on Long Island New York. In qualifying on Saturday May 21, Grant set the fastest speed at 103.79 to edge out local racer Sherman Decker’s Lola T-70.

On Sunday Jerry Grant dominated the 200-mile feature race, the fourth round of the 1966 USRRC series, and finished in a track record time of two hours and two minutes. Jerry’s Lola lapped all of the other 34 cars in the race at least once except for second-place finisher Lothar Motschenbacher’ s McLaren.

Days before the Indianapolis 500-mile race, sportswriter Ed Duncklemann handicapped the field for the 1966 Indianapolis ‘500,’ as he noted that pole-sitter Mario Andretti “drives Indy like a dirt track, barrel up to the turn, brake hard, toss the car left and stand on it.”

The writer classified Dan Gurney as “our pick as the best all-round driver in the country, while Jerry Grant was described as an “often non-finishing charger, but fast, faster than Gurney.”  Jimmy Clark “could make it two in a row,” according to Duncklemann, while Graham Hill was “dependable, unlucky, and hasn’t had a winning mood in some time.”

Grant in #88 before the chaotic start of the 1966 '500'

with Jackie Stewart in #43 and Billy Foster in #21 alongside

No one could have predicted what happened at the start of the 1966 ‘500’ with 16 cars involved in the crash that eliminated ten cars on the spot. Grant, whose car had gained fluorescent green paint on the nose for race day, started in the same row as Billy Foster who was later blamed for triggering the accident, but made a clean start.

Gurney’s Eagle was eliminated, with both the left side wheels knocked off, while Leonard, who started alongside, escaped the carnage with just flat-spotted tires and finished the race in ninth place.

Rookie Graham Hill inherited the lead after his teammate Jackie Stewart’s engine broke late in the race and took the checkered flag first although second-place Jimmy Clark was convinced he had won. Jerry Grant’s Eagle was the last car running at the finish, and he was flagged with 167 laps completed and credited with a tenth place finish.

Later in July at the 1966 24 hours of LeMans, Grant and Gurney were again paired as a team, this time in the red #3 Ford GT40 and once again mechanical misfortune befell them. Gurney qualified the car for the pole position, took the race lead on the third lap, and built up a commanding lead during the early hours of the race. 

During the night the #1 Ford GT40 car driven by the team of Ken Miles and Denis Hulme (Miles' regular teammate Lloyd Ruby had broken his back in a plane crash) caught the red #3 and the two Fords traded the lead back and forth throughout the night.

However, in the 17th hour, with 257 laps completed, Gurney and Grant were out as the 427-cubic inch Ford engine suffered terminal overheating due to a holed radiator. Ford GT40s finished in first, second, and a third place but Miles and Hulme were cheated out of the victory in a controversial finish staged by Ford’s racing boss Leo Beebe. 

Jerry made two more USAC starts in 1966; he finished tenth at the special non-championship race held on the Fuji road course in Japan driving the “Harrison Special” for Jerry Eisert, and then fell out after 31 laps with mechanical failure in his first appearance on a short oval at the one-mile Phoenix International Raceway in Klug’s #88 Bardahl Eagle.

We'll continue with Jerry Grant's career in our next installment.

The photographs that accompany this article appear courtesy of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Collection in the IUPUI University Library Center for Digital Studies.