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.
All Photos by the author
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