EUROPEAN 2 LITER CHAMPIONSHIP

By Carlos De Paula

By 1969, there were quite a few 2 liter sports cars around in Europe to warrant a separate championship. These cars normally competed in the World Championship of Makes, with no chance of outright victory, so competitors welcomed the chance of actually winning races, rather than classes.

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KINNUNEN, LEO

Born 8/5/1943, Tampere, Finland
Starts:1
Points: 0
Wins:0
Poles:0
Fastest Laps:0
Curt Lincoln had been, until 1970, the only Finnish race driver of any international reputation. Curt did not go as far as Formula 1, after all, Finnish drivers were mostly known for their rally exploits. Leo Kinnunen made it to the upper echelons of motor racing in 1970, named Pedro Rodriguez’s partner at John Wyear Racing. He did well enough not to mess up the work of expert Rodriguez, and manage to manhandle the difficult Porsche 917 to four world championship victories. This was followed by three titles in the reasonably prestigious Interserie championship, supposedly the European equivalent of the Can Am series, from 1971 to 1973. For 1974, Kinnunen was to make the big move. The Finnish AAW Racing team decided to field their local hero in the F-1 championship, but the weapon of choice was anything but ideal: a Surtees TS16. Unfortunately for Kinnunen, his Formula 1 career comprised of 6 entries, with 5 DNQs. The only time he managed to qualify was in Sweden, where he started dead last, at 26th, and retired in the race. The 1974 GP entries were mostly oversubscribed, so there was no guarantee of starting a race, and Kinnunen posted the slowest time in three occasions, which happened to be the races with more entries [Belgium (32nd), England (34th) and Italy (31)]. So this was the end of Leo’s F-1 career, and he went right back to sports car racing for a few more years, before retiring for good. He holds the dubious distinction of being the last F-1 driver to race with an open face helmet. Finland would need to wait for Keke Rosberg to start its tradition of fast F-1 drivers.

The cycles of life or nothing new under the Sun

The Bible's Book of Ecclesiastes says there is nothing new under the Sun, hinting that new happenings are nothing more than revamped versions of yesterday's occurrences. For those who do not believe the Scriptures, consider the macroeconomic books, that suggest there are Economic cycles of prosperity and scarcity, caused by a number of external factors, such as supply and demand imbalances, climatic factors, extreme speculation. This tells us that continuous prosperity on a macro level is a fallacy.

Let us talk about another book, Autocourse. I was reading an annual from the early 70s, and the writer forecast problems ahead for the world of racing; He simply said there are too many categories in European racing, and the market could not support it.

In the late 60's,  there was F1, European F2, British, French and Italian F3, World Makes Championship and the European and British Touring Car Championships. Then, with the advent of commercial sponsorship, beginning of TV coverage and greater general prosperity, the number of categories all over Europe mushroomed. Formula Ford consolidated in several countries, Formulas 5000 and Atlantic appeared, so did Formula Super Vee, Formula Renault and Formula Italia. A new European Championship for 2 liter prototypes was created, in addition to an European GT Championship, the Interserie, the German Racing Championship (DRM) to name a few.

All it would take was a severe jolt from outside to create havoc in this wide expanse of racing series. It did come in the form of the 1973 Middle Eastern crisis, that resulted in the prolonged economic travails of 1974 to 1976. In a short period of time, a lot of these series disappeared or metamorphosed into oblivion. Euro GT, 2 Liters, Formula Atlantic disappeared, the Interserie, the European Hill Climb and Formula 5000 became a joke.

Talk about cycles, it is happening all over again, and one of the series that almost disappeared in 1974 is in danger again.

In a nutshell, in the mid sixties, a budding GP driver began in F3, then progressed to F2, then F1. A very few chose sports cars, after starting in the little screamers. A few others bypassed F3, and managed to reach F1 through sports cars alone.

Then, a number of support categories sprouted all over Europe, and many other paths were created. To worsen F3's situation, the regulations were changed. The 1 liter screamers of 1970 became 1.6 liter cars in 1971 and 2 liter cars in 1974. All of a sudden, F3 cars had the same capacity as F2, and some folks got the wrong notion that they could start at F2, bypassing F3.

The first year of the 2 liter F3 in Britain was dreadful. Many races had grids with less than 10 cars, the level of competition was not all that strong, and at one point it seemed Atlantic would get the better of F3.

So now British F3 has the same situation. The once proud series, which in the old days had as many as 100 entrants in races, requiring many qualifying heats, has trouble putting together a grid, thus the calendar is reduced to a mere 4-event double headers.

The reasons for British F3's situation is similar to the 70's for the same reasons. There are way too many entry level categories in Europe, which seem to serve no purpose besides creating a large number of champions that would never amount to much if they were racing in a single, strong F3 championship. Sure, now there are drivers from over 50 nationalities with pockets full of money seeking a spot under the sun in Europe, which was not the case in 1973. However, there has been very little reason for A1GP, Super League and F2, all of which have ceased to exist.

The fact is that British F3 has produced a great number of excellent GP drivers, including a few world champions, and it would be a shame to see it wither away.

I do hope that something is done, although the odds stack against it at the time.
   
 

The HRT sale and a crazy irony

Let us be honest. The last two North American Formula 1 endeavors were resounding failures, to wit, the USF1 race team and Craig Pollock's PURE engine. I find that both projects were very naive from the onset, thus their failure.

In USF1's case, I followed the project closely. I could tell it was ultimately doomed when the team announced its driver would be Argentine Jose Maria Lopez. Nothing against Argentines or Lopez, whom I rate highly. It seemed, though, that such a patriotically named team would only be successful with American sponsors and drivers. The fact it was turning to Argentine driver and funding augured poor for its future.

So, I see the current purchase of HRT by American-Canadian Scorpion Racing concern with a pinch of salt. I understand that what they are really doing is buying a slot, no more no less. They are certainly not buying HRT's race car designs, at least I hope not. In the time HRT was in F1, it just got worse and worse, in spite of drivers`  and management's optimistic comments.

If the buyer were Penske, Andretti or Ganassi, for instance, I would be expecting great things. Such is not the case.

It they are buying the existing structure, such as designs and technology, then it is really worrisome, for they are buying the dudest of duds.

Thus, call me a pessimist, if you must, I think this is not going to progress very far. And I hope talented drivers Alexander Rossi and Robert Wickens are not in any fashion involved. Cosworth powered Formula 1 cars, until second notice, are a thing of the past in F1.

Then I recalled something.

Nowadays, we are used to race series where entrant lists are pretty much unchanged from race to race. This was not so, in the 70s. In the World Championship of Makes, for instance, some races had tons of cars on the grid, while others, few. Back in 1973, for example, the Targa Florio had 76 cars starting while the race with less starters had a mere 18. Entry lists consisted of giants in the world of motor racing, such as Ferrari, Alfa-Romeo and Matra-Simca, and cars that were literally put together and maintained at the simplest of garages, and enthusiastically, but poorly driven by inexperienced and slow unknown drivers.

The race with so few starters that year was the 1000 km of Oesterreichring, in Austria. There were a couple of reasons for that. Number one, no GTs or Group 2 cars were accepted, only prototypes. Number two, it was late in the season, and many a budget had been spent by that time.

It was thus a great opportunity for a small, garage team to participate.

One of the entries that year was a car entered by a team called Promoto. Car 26 was to be driven by Ed McDonough and John Blanckley. The 2-liter Cosworth powered race was called, believe it or not, the Scorpion JB-4. No relation to Scorpion Racing, of course.

The Scorpion JB-4 was the most consistent car that weekend. It was always the slowest car in qualifying, always raced in the back while on the track, and in fact, it was disqualified after 40 laps, being too slow and deemed too dangerous for other machines.

The Scorpion JB-4 is such a rarity, that I found no picture of it on the Internet. I have also not seen the car entered in any other race, so this might have been its only outing.

The irony is that almost 40 years down the line, another Scorpion attempts to make a crack in F1. I do hope it is not as unsuccessful as the number 26 machine. It would be quite ironic.

Carlos de Paula is a translator, writer and auto racing historian living in Miami