The Garage Blog

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Memories of John Dobbins

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John Cannon in the MK1 McLaren at Bridgehampton in its first race. John Dobbins looks on from behind the car.

I’m sure that any of you racing drivers out there have had an individual or two who provided advice and/or technical expertise at one time or another that was indispensable and made a significant contribution to your successes. One of those individuals for me was John Dobbins.

Dobbins, as he was called by virtually everyone, arrived in Ontario from Ulster in the late fifties. He brought old country mechanical skills which were soon being called upon by local competitors always in need of practical, dedicated and virtually free talent. He contributed significantly to early Canadian racing by preparing cars for Grant Clark and a number of early stars. One such happy racer was Len Coates whose Sprite suddenly broke 3 (or was it 2?) minutes at Mosport with a Dobbins built engine that Len described to me once as, “the best little engine my Sprite ever had.”
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Tony Stewart and Lewis Hamilton swap rides at The Glen

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Whether you consider it a marketing stunt (which it was) or a historic motorsports event (which it also was) yesterday’s Mobil 1 Car Swap at Watkins Glen was a pretty cool concept. Take a pair of stars from NASCAR and Formula 1, stick them in each other’s cars and let them loose. The stars in question were Tony Stewart and Lewis Hamilton, both of whom are sponsored in their respective series by Mobil 1, which led to more than a bit of cynicism from many fans, not to mention news editors who considered it a stunt not worthy of coverage. Wah.

Of course swapping seats is not a new idea, as it has been done before with Gordon and Montoya. Perhaps less well known in North America was a similar event featuring Damon Hill and rally star Colin McRae. Guys always want to play with new toys and when the guys are stars and the toys are made of unobtainium, the fans want to see the action. For this event, Mobil 1 opened the gates to fans for free, which ensured a decent crowd would show up despite the dismal weather.

The day dawned rainy and cold, which set up some interesting challenges and a first. They say this was the first time a Cup car had run on rain tires. I’m not that well versed in NASCAR history, so I’ll believe them. It was also the first time a Cup car had been run on the full course, including The Boot. While vintage F1 cars compete at the one time home of the U.S. Grand Prix, this was the first time a modern F1 car had been driven on the track.

As the teams prepped the cars for their warm up drives, the rain stopped and the fog rolled in. 20 minutes later, the fog lessened somewhat and the rain returned. Then, more fog. Not a nice time for fans or photographers and I’m sure the teams and drivers were less than impressed too. Until they got in the car that is! On the warm up laps in the number 14, Stewart was hanging the tail out every chance he got, while Lewis was pushing his McLaren pretty hard too.

The sound of a solitary F1 car reverberating off the hills of Upstate New York in the fog is a difficult sensation to describe. Perhaps the best word might be haunting.
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Vodaphone puts Lewis & Jenson to work

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Some of the best ads ever created actually have little to do with the actual product being sold. Vodaphone has gone that route with their newest ad. Sort of.

When Lewis Hamilton and Jensen Button are left alone to assemble a Formula 1 car, Vodaphone hopes to show how important a network is. Really, they’ve shown that the two drivers know how to have a bit of fun. They’ve also shown that Lewis is at least a little bit handy with the tools, while Jens doesn’t appear to even pick one up! All in all, a good bit of fun.

Video after the break. Be sure to watch the full screen, full HD version.
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Classic cars aren’t always what they seem: The case of the McLaren M8F-2 clone

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Over the past few years here in The Garage we’ve discussed the legitimacy of clone replicas and continuation builds. All of us agree there is a place for these cars, just so long as the owners don’t attempt to deceive anyone as to the actual provenance of said car. Thanks to Paul Chenard, we have just one such example today.

Paul’s friend Jennifer Revson is the late Peter Revson’s sister. She remains active in the enthusiast sister and continues to manage her brother’s affairs since his death during practice for the 1974 South African Grand Prix. At the 2009 Monterey Historics, Jennifer saw the McLaren M8F above and was informed by the owner that it was indeed a McLaren team car. A few inquiries around the paddock brought to light that the car is actually a replica that was built by the Commander Motorhomes racing team from spare parts.

A few weeks ago, Ms. Revson saw the same car at the Amelia Island Concours D’Elegance, again being passed off at the original Revson car. I’ll let her take up the story:
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Shutter Speed: Dewar, Cooke, and Jackie

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My new position as the chief and only photographer for the Canadian Baby Photographers in the Ottawa area was going well, but it had some serious challenges. Since I worked on a commission basis of my work sold, I needed to have good images and a great salesman to sell my work. The problem was the company would send up a salesman from Toronto to get orders. Then I would get paid. In between I was on my own. It was all very confusing and put a serious strain on my family life. I soldiered on trying to make ends meet. Over Christmas we decided to make a break out on our own with my wife now selling my work. The company supplying the leads for our now ‘Ottawa Baby Photographers’ came with us. There was now a lot more to consider with film processing and the final orders to be processed, but we dug right in and it turned the corner and began to make money. One of my neighbours was a very excitable man named Rick Conrick. Rick was a printing salesman for a Montreal printer. When he saw my work he began to envision a customer for a calendar of motor racing pictures. He came up with Imperial Tobbacco whose head office was in Montreal. He called them and got an appointment with the head of promotions. I soon found myself walking off a top floor elevator at the Imperial Tobbacco head office. The building had a strange smell.  It processed the cigarettes at this location.  We were met at the elevator by Tony Kallock, the VP of PR. All Rick said was, ‘Tony, I’ve got something thats going to blow your fucking mind!’  Not quite my approach, but we walked out of there with an order for prints for the Imperial Tobbacco calendar to the tune of over four thousand dollars!
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Why they called them Ground Pounders

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john burke mclaren

Those of you who have never seen the Can Am cars of the late Sixties and early Seventies missed out on what may be considered the most visceral motorsport of all time. Fortunately, many of these cars are still being raced and have lost none of their ferocity.

The car in the photo above is the 1972 McLaren M8F belonging to John Burke. The car is powered by a 598 cubic inch V8 that creates a whopping 1,019 horsepower. It is naturally aspirated, not turbos or supercharger needed. Yes, you read that right!

Just to give you an idea of the violence involved in motivating this monster, listen to the beast come to life:

Check out the beast in action after the break.
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2009 Greenwich Concours d’Elegance: The British

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The Fourteenth Annual Greenwich Concours d’Elegance was held on June 6-7 at Roger Sherman Baldwin Park in Greenwich, CT. Founders and co-chairs Bruce and Genia Wennerstrom hosted an impressive variety of marques, featuring rare, classic, unusual, exotic, and one-off production and race cars.

It is a pleasure to share this delectable mix of devastating machinery with you. So as to not overwhelm you, gentle reader, we will show the cars in separate installments by the car’s nation of origin. Enjoy!

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Lewis Hamilton proves he’s got the stuff at Spa

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I managed to catch the last 14 laps of today’s Grand Prix from Spa, just in time to watch the monumental battle between the McLaren of Lewis Hamilton and Kimi Raikkonen’s Ferrari. Mixed wet & dry surfaces, run off roads, errant spinners and big brass balls all came together to produce one of the best finishes F1 has produced in years. At the end, it was Hamilton who kept it on the island and earned a very much deserved place atop the podium.

Oh yes, I yelled so much I woke up the teenager! Oh well, she should have been awake anyway!

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Video: McLaren M6B lapping Infineon Raceway

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Some time ago, Gary Faules took us on a tour of Infineon Raceway in Lucky, the GT350R. I just stumbled across this video that puts things into a completely different perspective. Vintage racer Gary Sheehan takes us for a few laps of the legendary Sears Point track in the McLaren M6B Can Am car originally driven by Jo Bonnier. While I get the feeling that Gary S is far from flying in the beast, this video gives a pretty good idea what the view was like from the cockpit of one of the Can Am monsters.

Oh yeah, you might want to crank the speakers for this one!

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