Murphy has had a busy week. While his friends were taking care of ALMS business at Road America (if you can call the Commercial Break “business”), he was fully immersed in “Car Week” on the Monterey Peninsula. After the Pre-historics, there were events throughout the week, culminating in the Historic Races at Laguna Seca and the Concours d’Elegance at Pebble Beach. To be honest, the Bear can’t afford much of that, so he was mostly out exploring other gearhead stuff. What he learned will be described in an upcoming People and Places column – “Monterey Car Week on a Small Bear’s Budget”.
They had a good race in Wisconsin, didn’t they? Three LMP1 prototypes hit the finish line within three-quarters of a second. The small GT1 field benefited from IMSA’s much-maligned “Performance Balancing” act and traded places all day. GT2 was the usual entertainment with a new face (BMW) joining usual suspects (Porsche and Ferrari) at the front, while a former member of that club (Panoz) continued its slide. Expect better from Multimatic at home track Mosport this weekend.
Speaking of Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Ontario – OK, we were only speaking of Wisconsin, but stay with the Bear here – Murphy has a quiz question for you. Use his “comments” function on this article to answer. The first correct response before the deadline of midnight EDT on August 27 will get two tickets to the 2006 American Le Mans race of choice – Mosport, Petit Le Mans, or Laguna Seca. “When, and why, did Ford power Chevrolet to an Indianapolis 500 win?” The Bear’s decision will be final.
The Bear drove out to Pebble on Friday for the Blackhawk Museum show, and the Retro Auto (that’s books and other car junk – very expensive car junk). Of course the luxo manufacturers were there, Mercedes principal amongst them, joined – as if to bask in the aura of the Germans – by Infiniti and Lexus…sort of. Heidi got a shot of the Lexus. It appears the Toyota division is making a habit of the “where’s the car?” shtick. No announcement from Torrance, California yet in regard to the Lexus GT2 S2 project. The Bear’s been told that a PTG take-over of the program is likely, but first 
there is a BMW-PTG meeting later this week. Expect the Bavarians to make their program changes official soon after that. The boss at PTG would have preferred an announcement before this. All this raises the possibility that the Lexus won’t make it to the track any time this season. To add fuel to the fire, there is the story that Toyota will field an LMP2. Does Honda go anyplace that its buddy doesn’t soon follow? If so, might the whole Lexus deal be still-born? It would only be a five million dollar write-off – peanuts in the car biz, considering that Daimler-Benz is tossing out $225 million on the ubiquitous “Dr. Z” ads.
Less speculative is that Tracy Krohn will return to the ALMS with a pair of Aston Martins. “A done deal,” was the description of this one. This split from the Grand Am series is reportedly even less amicable than the Fernandez one. The recent, and most egregious transgression – from the team’s point of view – is the “hockey major” given them at Watkins Glen.
This is the kind of weekend that brings out the old guys driving Ferraris and with nubile young things on the arm. About one particularly striking couple, Walter the Walrus observed wryly, “She’s a rental and so is the car.”
Murphy hears Zytek’s intent to race at Petit Le Mans may be in trouble, and Creation isn’t entirely firm either. Time will tell.
The Penske crew got both Spyders to the finish line, putting Sascha Maassen in the series driver’s championship lead by two points over Clint Field and Liz Halliday, 123-121. Lucas Luhr’s third left him at 119, still in the hunt. No doubt the yellow prototypes have superior on-track performance, but this one isn’t over yet. With just three races left on the schedule, all it takes is a DNF to eliminate anyone in that list. As long as we’re on the subject of DNFs, not only were those reliability issues clearly a motivation to re-shuffle the Penske driver line-up, they may have played a role in Porsche’s hesitancy to put a price tag on the Spyders. Murphy hears that you shouldn’t expect to see any privateers on racing grids in 2007. There is a possibility that a privateer may appear after Le Mans, but that seems remote. Meanwhile, the Penske program will continue in the coming season.
Elsewhere on the LMP front, don’t be surprised if there is a return to the principal behind the LMP675 rule, which was not when originally introduced a separate class, but rather an alternate approach to win overall. “Consider,” said the Bear’s source, “what the alternatives are.” AJR, P-WL, and the Lizards will be back with new 997s, one of which is likely to see its first North America action at Laguna Seca, in the hands of a team not in the Championship points chase.
As always, the Historic Races and Concours drew a bunch of notables. There were Jay Leno and Sir Jack Brabham, Tom Milner and Jean Todt. Walter got Murphy into a small Pacific Grove affair where he could visit with John Fitch. Juan Manuel Fangio II was on hand to wheel around a Celica GTO for Toyota, and Ricardo Zonta set an (unofficial) all-time Laguna Seca track record in a Toyota TF 106B.
Bobby Rahal and Boris Said – both of whom drove BMWs on the weekend for Tom Milner – had a nice chat on the pit wall before their race in Group 7B – Historic 1970-1980 IMSA GT Cars. Could this be a driver pairing in a Milner-run Lexus?
Where have all the drivers gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the drivers gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the drivers gone?
Gone to Monterey every one
Bruce Leven, Roger Mandeville, John Morton, John Goodman, Juan Manuel Fangio II, Bobby Rahal, Bobby Akin (sadly, not his father), Sir Jack Brabham, Vic Elford, John Fitch, Brian Redman, Gijs van Lennep.
The Bear’s going to leave the house for now. Next time he’ll share his discovery of a Monterey Car Week for “the rest of us.”
2003. When Cosworth (Ford owned) built the Chevrolet IRL engine.
Try number 2. Gaston Chevrolet (not sure if Frontenac was associated with Ford. Otherwise I think the question may not lead to a correct answer. My first answer was wrong as Toyota was the 2003 winner (unless Cosworth was the builder of the Chevy that was rebaded a Toyota, in which case answer one may be correct). 2002 Chevy winner was Illmor.
I would say 2002, when Castroneves won with the Chevy badged Cosworth IRL engine. But why is the Bear asking an open wheel question?
Wish you were there, Murph, when Tim Mayer admitted at the sponsors’ meeting that he reads Murphy too. Someone asked him if Murph was right about the ALMS schedule and he hedge(hogged) his answer as expected. Nice to know that the boss reads U2!
Bono; I mean Bene!
Hey, Mr. Stuffing-for-brains! I notice you carefully say “don’t be surprised if there is a return to the principal behind the LMP675 rule, which was not when originally introduced a separate class, but rather an alternate approach to win overall.”
So, by this do you mean the ACO is standing by the PRINCIPLE (the right spelling in this context) that LMP2 are as likely to win races, and thus no rules tinkering will occur to make them slower than LMP1′s? As the ACO must be painfully aware by now… why they heck would *anyone* want to buy or build a P1?
Clearly the ACO is very much aware that it didn’t handicap the P2′s enough in the power-to-weight ratio department… on a tight track, the P2′s brake and turn in better due to the lower weight and can hang with the P1′s. So they are standing by their goof? How come they don’t seem to understand the most basic of engineering principles? (See: “diesel tank size adjustments”)
Who:Marlboro Team Penske, Helio Castroneves
When: May 26th 2002.
Why: The Chevrolet engine was way down on power and Cosworth agreed to do it because the income from Chevy helped to ballance the books to reduce the pressure on the F1 program.
The question is flawed, the Cosworth/Chevy deal was in mid 2003 after the Gen III Chevy engine was being beaten by Honda and Toyota. 2003 Indy 500 was won by a Toyota engine. Maybe there is another time Chevy and Cosworth partnered?
Okay, Frontenac was associated with Ford (built cylinder head for Ford).
So, Gaston Chevrolet, 1920 Indianpolis 500 winner.
Beat me to it!
Good One BobN took we too long to get the Ford tie in figured out. I said the question was flawed, no, my original answer was flawed. Oh well….
I don’t see anything to indicate that the answer is correct yet. Murphy may be looking at a whole different angle than we are.
I guess the “Why?” is what’s left. The point may be that the Chevrolet brothers developed the famous Frontenac head for the Model T, thus making it a Ford product. So” Why?” would be becasue they developed it anyway? So, Gaston Chevrolet in 1920, becasue he and his brothers developed it as Frontenac for Ford in the first place.
From what I’ve heard, BobN has it right. Ford powered Frontenac run by the Chevrolet brothers (Gaston driving).
\”Once upon a time Chevrolet made parts for Ford cars — Ford racing cars, that is. Louis Chevrolet and his brothers formed the Frontenac Motors Corporation in 1916. The company was named after the 17th century governor of France\’s North American colonies, in order to hide the fact that the Chevrolet brothers were doing something other than making Chevrolet cars, especially with the competition\’s chassis! The Frontenac race cars they produced were nicknamed \”Fronty Fords\”.
The Frontenacs enjoyed numerous victories during the 1916 and 1917 seasons before the suspension of racing activities for World War I.
1921 was the last Fronty win at Indianapolis (Gaston Chevrolet won in 1920, and Tommy Milton in 1921) and Chevrolet went on to make heads and valve assemblies for Model T dirt track racers. His engines were virtually unbeatable, and were raced across the country well into the 1940s.\” Copyright © 2005 By Frontenac Motor Company.
Murphy adds: Although the engines in 1920 and 1921 were listed on the entry as \”Frontenac,\” there is no doubt, like the Frontenac chassis, that they owed a great deal to the General Motors competitor. By the 1924 race, with Henry Ford in attendance, the Frontenac cars sported the Indy \”Winged Tire\” with the word \”FORD\” on it. So the reference to Chevrolet is to Gaston, of course, who drove to that 1920 win. Anoraks out there will also probably know that the 1920 car is sometimes called a Monroe, or a Monroe-Forntenac, since it was based in significant part on a European race car of that name, but \”redesigned\” by the Chevrolet brothers.
A web search of \”Frontenac\” will bring up a town by that name in Minnesota, various Wisconsin references, and two important sites in Canada – Fort Frontenac, on the shores of Lake Ontario (thus that clue), where a battle of the French and Indian wars was fought in 1758, and Le Château Frontenac in the heart of Old Québec.
BobN is our winner, having gotten the essentials, the 1920 win by Gaston in a car that owed much to Ford. (And nothing any longer to the division of General Motors after Louis Chevrolet and his brothers were bought out by Will Durant in 1916. That agreement prohibited the Chevrolet brothers from ever again building a car using the name \”Chevrolet.\”)
Many thanks Murphy.