Can Am '66: The Year Of The Beasts

Among its wackier racers were: a ‘pornstar’s go-kart’; a 4WD powered by four two-stroke twins; and an aerodynamic ‘brick’, allegedly inspired by a child’s sketch, that stirred a whole heap of s**t – it even brought its own fans! – by sucking as it blew rivals into the weeds.

Among its less sci-fi rocket ships were: the worst car of Jackie Stewart’s career, the worst of Mario Andretti’s, and one whose nomenclature was an amalgam of the chemical symbol and atomic number of its main constituent: titanium.

Formula 1 had gone 3-litre – from 1,500cc – in 1966 and a seven-litre Ford MkII won June’s Le Mans 24 Hours.

Can-Am hit that fastball out of the park. It not only encouraged innovation but also fuelled it by more than doubling prize money to $1million by 1969.

Evolution was rapid as a result and power would more than double to 1,000bhp and beyond by 1973.

Backed (until 1972) by Johnson Wax and fronted by a polished Stirling Moss, stars gravitated to it. World champions Graham Hill and John Surtees, plus future champs Denny Hulme and Stewart, were tempted over to tackle homegrown superstars Mark Donohue, AJ Foyt and Parnelli Jones, as well as Andretti, Dan Gurney and Phil Hill.

Despite this stellar roll call, however, drivers had to battle their cars for the limelight every inch of the way.

For these two seaters with a singular purpose pitched and rolled – even those fitted with newfangled skyscraper wings trimmed to order from the cockpit – and ducked and dived throughout these 200-milers.

And their increasingly fatter tyres and torque curves left thicker black lines, dead arms and wrung necks.

It should come as no surprise, therefore, that the most successful wielder of these weapons of whoa! – whose ‘grenade launcher’ inlets and ‘Bazooka’ exhausts smacked of Vietnam – was the son of a Victoria Cross-holder, and nicknamed ‘The Bear’.

Hulme possessed the right stuff – he would race despite the blisters of burned hands seeping through bandages – but, just as surely, he had the right equipment.

Gas-guzzling ‘hybrids’ of American muscle in lean British chassis’, McLarens from Feltham and Lolas from Slough packed the grid: there were 15 of the former and nine of the latter at St Jovite on 11 September 1966.

The fastest American chassis’ that inaugural weekend in Québec started 20^th and finished 15^th.

The only realistic challenge to the tested Anglo-American formula resulted in Can-Am’s most iconic cars – but just one victory.

Jim Hall’s Chaparral was the ‘white hat’, its dramatic and radical cars emerging from private Rattlesnake Raceway in Texas – via the back door of Chevrolet’s clandestine R&D department – to reset the sport’s parameters.

His first mid-engine (plastic composite) monocoque dominated Can-Am’s predecessor, the United States Road Racing Championship – inaugurated by the SCCA in 1963 – and upstaged Ford by winning the 1965 Sebring 12 Hours.

The subsequent 2E model looked every bit a winner, too.

Its high wing was mounted to the rear hubs rather than bodywork to obviate overtly stiff springing. Its semi-auto torque converter freed the clutch foot for braking and the operation of the adjustable aero package via a third pedal/footrest. And its side rads allowed for a front air slot that opened and shut to balance that wing.

Bruce McLaren stood agape at his rival’s trick bits and exclusive aluminium Chevrolet V8. The New Zealander’s M1B was as humdrum in comparison as a spaceframe wrapped in wafer-thin fibreglass and crammed with a 500bhp V8 can be.

Yet it was Lola designer Eric Broadley’s handsome T70 – longer, lower, wider, and more planted and settled than the McLaren – that proved to be the car to beat in John Surtees’ hands.

That was remarkable given that one had almost killed John at Canada’s Mosport 12 months before; his displaced pelvis literally had to be heaved into alignment at London’s St Thomas’ Hospital.

Despite being Lola’s official development driver, his US operation ran only to a hard-pressed Chevy truck with trailer and a single full-time mechanic.

“We had nowhere near the facilities of Chaparral,” he says. “But the Lola was a good all-round car. It could be a little fragile but usually you could drive it forcefully. It had a good aero balance and it was not hard to adapt it to different circuits.”

It helped, too, that he was at the peak of his ability. Surtees probably would have won that year’s F1 world championship had he not tired of Ferrari politics; instead he finished it as its fastest man aboard a Cooper-Maserati.

He won Can-Am’s opener after a spirited back-and-forth battle with McLaren, and wins at Riverside, scene of a thrilling dice versus Hall, and at dusty Stardust Raceway in Vegas completed his successful late bid for the title.

“I look back on that with great satisfaction,” he says. “It was consolation for what happened at Ferrari.”

He couldn’t know that he would score just one more Can-Am win.

Nor could Lola know that it would win just thrice more.

For Gurney’s T70 had given Ford’s V8 its first and only Can-Am victory – leading from start to finish at Bridgehampton on Long Island – and was set to win at Mosport when the crankshaft broke a handful of laps from home.

Donohue’s Chevy-engined version inherited that one; and Jones’ won the second heat at Laguna Seca from 27^th and last on the grid – but not before nerfing Surtees into the Cali dirt and retirement.

Only Chaparral – Phil Hill leading his team-mate to an aggregate 1-2 at Laguna – broke that sequence.

Hall was often fastest in practice but both men’s challenges were blunted by unreliability. McLaren stood aghast at his rival’s quirky yips now and decided to steer a measured middle course.

No one could know, but Chaparral would never again win in Can-Am – and a pair of laidback Kiwis were readying for blast-off.