A special thank you to Jerry Entin, Gil Munz and Ike Smith for their help in supplying the pictures of the Penske T70s.
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For years now, I have been investigating the histories of Lola T70s, in particular those that the Roger Penske Racing Team used in 1966 and 1967, in both the USRRC Championship and the then burgeoning Can Am Championship. One would think this would be a simple exercise; after all, one would only have to look at the Lola chassis records to see who they were sold to and-Bingo! there they would be.
Not so. Lola sold their products destined for the U.S.A. to their American agent who, in 1966 and 1967, was John Mecom, an oil tycoon from Houston, Texas. I've tried many times to find the records from John Mecom as to who he sold the various T70s that he bought from Lola to, but they appear not to exist any longer. The same is true of the Carl Haas's records. He became the U.S. Lola agent in 1968 but did not keep his records for this period either. (see footnote). |
Mark Donohue, Roger Penske's driver in 1966 and 1967, (he was joined in the 1967 Can Am season by George Folmer), co-wrote a wonderful book, (with Paul van Valkenburgh) in 1973-74, called: "The Unfair Advantage". In one chapter: " Lola T70", he described the team's experiences with the T70 roadsters and it is this book that I used initially, to attempt to identify the various T70s that passed through the team's hands. Now bear in mind that this account was written a mere six years after the events described and I think you'll agree that it should be a very good source record. It is in some ways. It is, in other ways, misleading. More on this later.
Luckily, the auto press of the day covered the Penske team in quite some detail. Two excellent sources include: Jon McKibben wrote a technical analysis of Penske Racing’s 1967 Lola T70 (Mk III & IIIB) for “CAR LIFE” (Jan 1968), complete with chassis photos, a cutaway drawing by Clarence LaTourette, and set-up specifications. Karl Ludvigsen wrote a summary of the first half of the 1967 Can-Am Series, which |
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T70s being prepared in John Mecom's workshop.
(The John Mecom Collection) |
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| discussed all the major teams in some detail for "Corvette News". This article even noted the chassis numbers of the cars used in that year's Can Am season. |
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So to the story itself. In 1966, Roger Penske retired as a race driver and, at Walt Hansgen's funeral in 1966, offered Mark Donohue the job of driving for him in his newly acquired Lola T70 Mark II, that the Penske team had fitted with a big-block 427 cu. inch Chevrolet as their "unfair advantage." The car, or rather the 427 engine was, frankly, a disaster; It ran a wet sump oiling system and, no matter what the Chevrolet engineers did, they could not get their plumbing right and the engine kept running it's bearings.
The first race that Mark Donohue raced for the Penske Racing Team was the fourth race of the 1966 USRRC season, at St. Jovite, in Quebec, Canada. In "The Unfair Advantage", Mark Donohue recounted the oiling problems and how the engine gave up the ghost after he had spun the car and punctured the radiator. The next race was at Mosport and, they encountered the same problems with the oiling system; plus, after watching another competitor hit a flag-marshal, Donohue retired and Penske didn't argue. Donohue also told the team he thought that they should use the small block Chevrolet like everyone else, and that's exactly what the team did.
This paid off for, at the June 26th USRRC race at Watkins Glen, Mark qualified third. All went well in the race until Mark spun on gas spilt out of his fuel tank when the fuel cap sprung open. Trying to make up time, he came over a rise to find John Cannon’s Genie blocking the track, after it had spun. Mark hit it fair and square, the fuel cap sprung open again, and Woosh! The car went up in flames. Mark Donohue was burned, spending some time in the hospital.
The T70 was completely destroyed, Bill Preston of Sun Oil reporting that there was: "Nothing savable except perhaps the engine and gearbox ". (I should be surprised if even the magnesium casing of the gearbox survived-Author) . Scratch one Lola T70. Karl Kainhofer, Mark Donohue's crew chief, still has the chassis plate from that car. Whilst I was on the 'phone to him one day, he went and got it and told me the number: SL73/21. SL71/21 MAY have been rebuilt by one of the Penske mechanics, "Murph" Mayberry, though this is uncertain as I write. It's Hewland LG500, gearbox, as noted down in the Lola records, was number LG500-48.
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Mark Donohue in 1966.
(Photo courtesy of Gil Munz) |
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Whilst Mark Donohue was still in the hospital, Elmer Bradley of Sun Oil visited him and promised him that the oil company would purchase another T70 for Mark to race.
Penske Racing received a new car, fitted it with a Traco Chevrolet engine of 333 Cu. Inches, and first raced it at Kent, Washington on July 30 and won! Mark Donohue described the win as: "A hollow victory, though, because everyone else just fell down around us-and we moved up through attrition", it was nevertheless the team's first victory and re-energized the small team, which consisted of Roger Penke as Team Boss and Manager, Mark Donohue as driver, Karl Kainhofer as Donohue's Crew chief/mechanic and Norman Ahn as an extra mechanic and "gofer". Bill Scott was the team's multi talented fabricator. |
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According to Donohue's narrative, the Lola was then sent to Jim Hall's "Rattlesnake Raceway" in Texas for sorting and benchmarking for a week after the Kent, Washington race.
When it came back from Jim Hall's establishment, it sported a chin spoiler and a wing on the tail and had a bigger diameter swaybar at the rear to help to dial out some of the understeer that the T70 had suffered from.
On the 29th August, the team raced at Mid-Ohio but retired due to mechanical problems.
It is now that we come to the first big mystery in Donohue's narrative. He says that the team went tire testing at Riverside, California as Roger Penske had a contract with, and was a distributorship, for Firestone. Donohue states that, at this tire test, the Lola suffered severe accident damage after its brakes failed at turn seven. |
Bill Preston, Sunoco's representative, told me that the team was experimenting with Airheart Sprint brakes, which were lighter than the original Girling calipers fitted. The team had tried them previously at Watkins Glen practice on the 26th June, but removed them for the race, reverting to the Girlings as the Airheart brakes did not work well, due to flexing of the bridge part of the calipers. Apparently, a brake line chafed through at Riverside and Donohue himself says that: "Naturally, I drove right off the turn, through the haybales, and through the chain-link fence." "That was the end of Lola T70 number two. The tub was too badly bent to race anymore. I think that eventually we repaired it and sold it as a coffee table or a show car, but most of the other stuff off of it was used in Lola number three."
Bill Preston later recounted: "Last USRRC race in 1966 was 29
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A T70 under construction at the Lola factory at Slough.
(The Lola Archive) |
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| Aug at Mid-Ohio. We DNF but I don't remember why. Not gearbox."
"Tire testing crash was 3 September. Say four days to repair whatever was wrong at Mid-Ohio and tow the car to Riverside." |
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Karl says that “the damage to the front of the car was minimal chassis-wise. It would have needed a new nose, which the team would have had.” He is certain it did not need a new tub.
Bill Preston remembered that: “I was there because our gear oil for the transaxle was failing and I flew to Riverside to try to take temperature of the gear oil by two different means."
The first 1966 Can-Am was at St. Jovite on 11 Sep. The team would have driven the car back to Newtown Square on the transporter, repaired it, and taken it to St. Jovite. They had a week to do that. The problem with this statement is that the first Can Am race took place on September 11th, as Bill says in his statement. If Donohue is correct in his assertion that the car was, to all intents and purposes, a write off, then at least another tub or car must have been bought by Penske's, in order to get the car ready for the Can Am season. Given that it would have taken at least a day's drive for the team to get from Philadelphia, their base, (and that's pushing it!) to Mont Tremblant in time for testing and qualifying, (September 9th at least), this scenario does not fit. It would have been quite impossible for the team to have trucked the damaged Lola from Riverside, California to Philadelphia, rebuilt the car, (around a new tub?) and then leave their team base by, at the latest, September 8th and get to Canada.
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| Footnote: Lola's Glyn Jones comments "In fact Carl Haas's historical records were inadvertently destroyed during a move to new premises, having been mistaken for rubbish!!" |
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