Hogan HR-001 Can-Am car 

The second Can-Am series was created to use the unloved SCCA Formula 5000 open-wheel single-seat stock-block cars, a series that had been created in 1968 but had never caught the public’s attention even though it featured star drivers and American powerplants. From the beginning the Formula 5000 series was a source of controversy between the United States’ top open-wheel racing sanctioning body, the United States Auto Club (USAC) and the SCCA.  

In 1974 USAC threatened to withdraw from ACCUS over the “Full International” status of SCCA races but instead a series of meetings between USAC and SCCA officials commenced in January 1974 with an agreement was reached in May 1974 for the Formula 5000 series to be jointly sanctioned by the SCCA and USAC. The eighth season of the open wheel formula car road racing series, known as the 1974 “SCCA/USAC Formula 5000 Championship” began June 2 at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course with "Buckeye Cup." 

Beginning immediately, the Formula 5000 championship was open to not only SCCA legal cars but also to USAC cars powered by either 161 cubic-inch turbocharged, 255 cubic-inch double overhead camshaft or 305 cubic inch "stock block" engines. The USAC cars would run on methanol, with a required pit stop for turbocharged cars. Over the next few years, there were several USAC stars that competed in the Formula 5000 series; the roster included Mario Andretti, Mike Mosely and Johnny Rutherford, as well as Bobby and Al Unser, but there were only three turbocharged Offenhauser powered entries that ever tried to run the Formula 5000 series.

In a press release that announced the agreement worked out with USAC President Reynold McDonald, SCCA President Cameron Argetsinger was quoted that “joint sanction is an important step, but more importantly, USAC and the SCCA have agreed to direct their best efforts of a long-range plan for a common open-wheel car and engine formula and a single championship to be run on both road courses and ovals.” The timetable called for the two groups to formulate a detailed plan for approval by each governing board by January 1975 with the common formula put into effect in January 1976.

Alas, this plan of a common formula never came to pass as the SCCA and USAC were unable to agree on a common formula. Nearly a year after the planned target, on October 11, 1976, the USAC announced its withdrawal from the joint sanction of the Formula 5000 series. Frankie DelRoy, USAC’s Technical Director told Milwaukee Journal writer Roger Jaynes “for a while it looked like we could work out a common formula. But every time we tried to work out a compromise the SCCA wanted everything their way. Fuel, tire sizes, type of engine- everything.”

In the end, said DelRoy, “it was a case of us helping out the SCCA and them not helping us (USAC).  They got our name drivers - Mario Andretti, Al Unser and the rest to strengthen their series, but they didn’t want to help us one bit.”

The Formula 5000 series came to an end at the close of the 1976 season, and most of the teams enclosed their Formula 5000 chassis in full bodywork to compete in the “new” SCCA Can-Am series for 1977. This second version of the Sports Car Club of America’s Can-Am series, was created as the stepchild of the original Canadian-America Challenge Series for Group 7 (unlimited) sport cars which had collapsed in 1974.

For the 1977 racing season, the Sports Car Club of America’s (SCCA) “new” Can-Am series used the same single seat chassis used in Formula 5000 cloaked in enclosed bodywork. 

The same team that dominated the final years of Formula 5000, Carl Haas Racing, won the 1977 Can-Am title although the team’s lead driver Brian Redman was seriously injured in the first race of the season and replaced by Patrick Tambay who won six of nine races as Redman’s replacement.

With driver Alan Jones, the Haas team again claimed the 1978 Can-Am title as they won five of the series’ ten races. Veteran American second-generation road racer Al Holbert finished third in the Can-Am points for the Carl Hogan Racing Team and he scored a win at the series’ penultimate round at Laguna Seca Raceway and six top-five finishes. 

For the 1979 Can-Am series, Holbert and the Hogan team had a new weapon- the Hogan HR-001 designed by veteran race car engineer Lee Dykstra with a new revolutionary body that used the new concept of “ground effects’ with enclosed rear wheels, an undertray designed to generate suction and side skirts. Under the body the Hogan HR-001 used the Formula 5000 Lola T333 chassis and suspension components and a 305-cubic inch fuel-injected Chevrolet V-8 racing engine.   

Lee Dykstra was a graduate of the General Motors Institute and worked for the Cadillac division until he left GM to join the Ford racing program with the Ford GT40 and led the design team for Carroll Shelby’s Trans Am Mustangs. In the early nineteen seventies Dykstra formed his own firm DeKon Engineering with driver Horst Kwech.

Carl Hogan was a second-generation St. Louis trucking magnate who had been involved in Formula 5000 racing since the early nineteen seventies, and his 1979 Can-Am effort carried sponsorship from St. Louis based Anheuser-Busch Breweries Busch beer brand.  

In 1979, in addition to the Can-Am Series, Al Holbert was in his third season of racing with the NASCAR (National Association of Stock Car Racing) Grand National series in his own self-sponsored Chevrolet Monte Carlo painted in Porsche racing colors of blue, red and yellow.

The new Hogan car’s debut at Road Atlanta in May was a success, as Holbert qualified fifth fastest and finished fourth, albeit a lap behind the first three finishers, as the HR-001 was slowed during the alter stages of the race with fuel pressure problems. At the next race at Charlotte Motor Speedway, Holbert qualified tenth but dropped out on lap 40 of the 69-lap race with a burnt piston.

On June 3, 1979 at Mosport Park, Holbert qualified third but finished the race fifth, three laps behind winner Jacky Ickx in the Carl Haas entry.  A week later at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, Holbert qualified fourth with the HR-001, but again was victimized by fuel system problems and dropped out on lap 11.

Next up was the Watkins Glen Can-Am race which was held the same weekend of the Watkins Glen Six-hour race for sports cars. Holbert qualified sixth for the Can-Am race but dropped after contact with another car broke the front suspension. Later in July, Holder finished third at the long Road America road course on the same lap as winner Jacky Ickx and won $8,600.  

Before the next Can-Am race, Holbert was involved in a dramatic NASCAR crash at Pocono and his Monte Carlo burned and was destroyed. On August 19 Holbert qualified fifth at Brainerd International Raceway Can-Am race, but the clutch failed on lap 29.  

Before the next race, the original Hogan HR-001 body was replaced, and the team debuted the new car sans the enclosed rear wheels over Labor Day weekend at the Grand Prix de Trois-Rivières in Canada, the Hogan HR-001 broke on lap 37 of the 42-lap race after Holbert qualified seventh. That was the final race for Holbert with the Hogan HR-001, and after he left the team he was replaced by Australian racer Geoff Brabham for the final two West Coast rounds in October.

At Laguna Seca Raceway Brabham qualified fourth, 1.2 seconds behind pole-sitter Keke Rosberg, but once again the engine failed during the race on lap 16 At the season finale at Riverside International Raceway, Brabham qualified eighth, the car’s worst time trial result of the season, but in the race Geoff and the Busch-sponsored Hogan finished in fourth place on the same lap as the winner Jacky Ickx who posted his fifth win of the 1979 season and claimed the championship for Carl Haas Racing. 

In interviews regarding his racing career, Brabham has credited the Hogan ride as his big break in racing which lead to subsequent contract with the VDS Racing team  which led Geoff to an IndyCar ride.   

Holbert was disappointed in the performance of the Hogan HR-001 the first true “ground effects” Can-Am car which developed high levels of downforce that helped in the corners but hampered the car’s overall straight-line speed. Certainly some of the disappointment stemmed from the reliability problems with the fuel system which dogged the team 

Holbert started his own team for the 1980 Can-Am season, with the CAC-1 designed by Hogan designer Lee Dykstra and scored two wins and finished second in the 1980 season points.

The restored Hogan HR-001 shown in its second body configuration is today owned by Steve Ruiz, was shown over the winter of 2018 at the Automotive Driving Museum as a fund raiser for the Racing History Project. Check out the project’s website at  http://www.racinghistoryproject.com/index.html

All photos by the author