Skip to main content

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

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

INTERNATIONAL RACING CHAMPIONSHIPS OF THE 70S

Many international championships were added to the International calendar during the 70s, which spike interest on the sport globally. These, plus the existing championships were: Formula 1 – World Championship, South Africa (also included F5000 and F2), Aurora Championship + British Group 8 (which also included Formula 5000, Formula 2, even Atlantic early on) Formula 2 – European and Japanese Championships Formula 3 – British, European, German, French, Italian, Swedish championships Formula 5000 – American, European, Australian, New Zealand Sports cars: World Championship of Makes, World Sports Car Championship, DRM (also ran Touring Cars), European GT Championship, European 2 Liter Championship, IMSA, Trans-Am, Can Am, Interserie, PROCAR, Le Mans Touring cars: NASCAR, European Touring Car championship, Avenir Cup, USAC Stockcars Formula Atlantic: Canada, South Africa, Britain Formula Indy: USAC Championship Trail   + CART Formula S...

CASERTA'S HELL

  Racing history enthusiasts will readily remember some of the darkest days of the sport, when multiple drivers and spectators died on a same race. Le Mans 1955, Monza 1933, Rouen 1970, Indy 1973, Imola 1994, are just some of those sad days that remind us how thousands of people lost their lives   at race tracks or places where races were held since the late 19 th century, in spite of today’s false sense of security.   The earliest races took place on open roads, generally from one city to another. With increasing number of vehicles and the inconvenience of closing roads for racing events, soon closed circuits emerged, while the “stradale” Targa Florio insisted in remaining open for business until the 70s. Now such racing is restricted to rallies and hill climbs.   It is not surprising that it was in Italy, in spite of the veteran Monza circuit, that there was some resistance to building of purpose made tracks with a semblances of safety. Very dangerous race...

Who invented one make championships?

I know some people who would certainly kick the butt of the inventor of one make championships, truly believing they destroyed car racing.  I dare not say what was the first international one make race or tournament ever held. For sure, there were races in the 20s or 30s, in which only Bugattis competed, albeit unintentionally.   However, the race discussed in this post was probably one of the first intentional attempts to hold a one make championship and race in the world.   The location and timing could not be more exquisite. Nowadays we are used to racing events in Indonesia, Malaysia, China, even Saudi Arabia. However, in the aftermath of World War II,  international races in places other that Western Europe or the USA could rate as madness. How about Africa? There was racing in the continent in the Pre-War period, I know. One of the most famous GP of the 30s was the Tripoli event, in Lybia, and even South Africa was visited by the Auto Union team in th...