2023: my friends and I were obsessed with Can-Am and spent our summers following it at our homeland tracks of Mosport, Mont-Tremblant and Trois-Rivieres. We got stateside a lot too, including Road America - a 10-hour haul. Given the spectator safety standards of the day you could often get close enough to feel the vibrations in the ground. There will never be, to my mind, a more thrilling motor sport scenario than a pack of these beasts out there making huge noise and spectacle - while featuring infield camping and comradery. My personal sentimental favourite, as seen on my office wall, was the M8D. Bless the Bruce and Denny Show.
I too remember those days brother, heady stuff to be sure. Now 68. Only in the Can Am could a family 'privateer' race business become king. Totally agree with you sir...God bless both Bruce and Denny! As a side note: May I also give great and honorable mention to JIm Hall of Chaparral fame. Between Bruce and Jim (imho) came some the most revolutionary concepts in motorsport that were ever put into motion (yes pun) lol.
I was fortunate to see several CanAm races at Road Atlanta in the early 1970s. Those cars were beasts! Incredibly fast and loud. The sound went through your body, creating a rumbling in your chest. This video shows a couple of CanAm cars. Try to image a grid of 20+ of these running at full speed. God, I wish they had racing like this now.
Just for the 'experts', this M8F was only imported a few weeks before the event, which was a tribute to Denny Hulme at Hampton Downs. On running the car for the first time, it blew the front oil seal our of the engine and dropped oil over 7/8ths of the circuit - a feat not exceeded yet! At the next running the Crown Wheel and pinion failed and had to be repaired. the consequence was that I came in to this weekend with little driving and then found that the gearset was for Road America and very tall all round - hence the lack of gear changing! I had a wonderful weekend of driving this McLaren, but never had the chance to really sort out gearing and handling issues. So my apologies for not showing the perfect drive, but I was doing my best!
As a musician, there is no such thing as a favorite song of mine. But there isn't another song that I love MORE than the sound of an incredibly healthy American V-8 at full-tilt. Chevy, Ford, Mopar, it doesn't matter, I love 'em all. As Alice Cooper once said, "it's the sound of rock and roll." Amen to THAT.
Tony it's Joel Robinson, put more gass on and relax your steering inputs then brake under the 30m board . Get out of the corner faster than you enter. Kenny Smith will tell you I'm correct. Try it. Geoff Manning and designed that track for winding out fast lap times in Sprint racing, and skew tyre wear.
dream on brother - so tell me why the Porsche 917/30's completely destroyed them so badly the Canam series was scrapped? they started a series in Europe, the Interseries Sports Cars, which was short lived for the same reason - total Porsche domination.
Denny Hulme loved these beasts, they were his favourite cars. I remember a story that when he & Bruce got too close the wheels of the following car would lift off the ground under heavy acceleration. I was lucky enough to see Denny away from big crowds talking about banked ovals, he was quite a story teller when he opened up . An amazing driver. Would love to see a driver of his calibre driving this flat out.
Nice circuit. I saw these guys at Albert Park many years ago and it was really obvious how difficult they must be to drive. The drivers seemed to make very slow and very positive downshifts. The only reason I could think of for this was the amount of compression in such a large engine. I assumed that if you got it wrong, the back wheels would lock. I'm sure the gearbox and shift was very heavy too. I really like that whole open cockpit/wedge shape thing too.
Great Tony, this is the first time Ivé seen the circuit, I like it, the gearing you had was near to perfect for the car, and your driving was so smooth, I well remember your style... Good stuff, one day I´ll drive you around the Nordscheife, and yes one has to change gears a hundred times a lap, well fels like it anyway... Cheers
Awesome! It was worth the trip to actually see these amazing cars in action. I can only imagine the glorious earth-shattering noise during the Can-Am heyday.
I agree that the MK8F should be great on der nordschleife. What some choose to call "the green hell" I called home. I first learned driving from grandpa & Fangio on WV roads.
@@thethirdman225 There will be those people who like noise though. There is an amazing bit of footage of a V10 Ferrari at Monza. The sound was just amazing. It must take a little away from racing though. But it is very hard to overtake at the moment, because of the dirty air behind high ground force cars .
@@beagle7622 If motorsports want to continue, they have to be relevant and if that means better battery life for people’s electric cars then I won’t complain, regardless of what the spectators think of the noise.
Gareth Duncan bruce mclaren was a Kiwi as we all know but his entire race team and engineers were in the UK...as they remain to this day. Bruce mclaren was a genius though.
Petyr Kowalski. Ask the early years McLaren staff where they were raised and did their apprenticeship and the answer from a considerable bunch would be New Zealand or Australia .Bruce didn’t forget his roots.
Probably a combination of older technology ignition & fuel injection systems.with well set up systems it would not be a flame thrower. The exhaust too has no mufflers which are a requirement in Australia, the only exceptions F1 cars. 8.8 litres of Aluminium engine running at 8000 plus rpm would be great to hear. I remember a comment about Mclarens in Road&Track "a common car built abnormally well". I would love to see this beast!!!
No, there are circuits in Australia where you can run without mufflers. the S5000s have run at both Tailem Bend and Albert Park without them. Not sure about SMSP.
@@thethirdman225 I know they put them on at Sandown. It was Denny Hulme who said the 8.8 litre motor was wild to drive. Denny had driven both the MK11 & Mk1V Ford GT’s at Le Mans. Came second in 1966 with Ken Miles. In 67 Lloyd Ruby beached their MK1V at about 2 am, they couldn’t get it out. Denny started driving with Bruce in 1967. One of those quiet drivers but he was a really great racing driver.
I think the blue car this guy dices with is a Lola T165 circa 1970. Anybody know? Anyway, notice the guy never gets past third gear. These machines had that much torque.
EnglertRacing96 At the 2017 spring classic at Laguna they combined the 1983-2007 LMPs with the 1966-1972 Can Am in Group F and a 2005 Audi R8 won easily every session.
the McLaren M-6 coupe' is one of the baddest GtTcoupe's to ever roll....roof line like a loboy coffee table. Wanna hear bbbaaaadddd to the bone...find video with the "Blue Goose" (Mangusta).....much kwiker revving than the Panteras He's running with. former Goose owner...8MA-1148...Bladecutter
@@demonsbutterfly I find that less and less important with every race I see. All I care about is close racing. Nice if you can have colour and noise and some nice shapes to go with it.