2010 Formula Atlantic Season Canceled

[swede9]

http://www.auto123.com/en/racing-new...ampaign=racing

[marc sproule]

I was very fortunate to have been involved with series during its heyday. Unfortunately what has happened to the Atlantic series is just a reflection of the lack of foresight now so prevalent in the pro open wheel ranks.

I will always cherish my time with the series, the racing I got to see and the people I got to know.

I have many thousands of Atlantic images in my archive and will be adding to this set frequently.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/4668198...7623186773769/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/46681980@N03/

[Paddy O'Brien]

Its time to revive the ECAR/WCAR series of the 1980's !

[Stan Clayton]

Its time to revive the ECAR/WCAR series of the 1980's !

Yep...any car complying to the SCCA FA rules.

Any questions?

[Keith Carter]

So now the ladder process is more defined I guess for open wheel. Pro Mazda to IPS to IRL?

[Dave Welsh]

http://www.atlantic-championship.com/

http://www.atlantic-championship.com...-news&Itemid=1



I visited the Atlantic Series website a couple of days ago, and they stated they had 10 entries for Sebring, Mirl Swan was listed as one of the entrants (C2?).

The above links are for the series website, and their announcement.

[quartzracer]

One person who could pull this off: TIM FORTNER still in the business.

[marc sproule]

As much as it bothers me to say this, I see no reason why anyone would want to save the series.

It has always been an orphan, even though it produced some of the best drivers ever. The fact is that after Gilles and Keke made it in F1 there hasn't been a single Atlantic driver to get to F1 and make his mark.

Even though many of the drivers did go on to good careers in CART and other series, today there is nowhere for a talented, successful open wheel driver to go, at least if he or she comes out of American open wheel racing.

The only place for a serious American open-wheel driver to go is to Europe. Or bite the bullet and try to make it in NASCAR. The IRL certainly isn't gonna do anything for a driver, excluding Danica "I am my own brand" Patrick.

And now that USF1 has shot their wad, I can't imagine that Americans are going to get much else than a sideways glance from the F1 powers that be.

Sad but true.

[provamo]

did not Jaques win an "atlantic championship" before becoming world champion?

[marc sproule]

Yes, Jacques did win. Don't forget though that his dad went straight from Atlantic cars to F1. Jacques went there via CART.

I would wager that if Jacques' last name was say, Carpentier, he wouldn't have had a shot at F1. Check Pat's Atlantic record.

The fact still remains that since Gilles, no one has gone from Atlantic straight to F1. Rosberg was already running in F2 when he came to the Atlantic series.

I would submit that the only way for an American to get a shot at an F1 seat is to start with a very large pile of cash, head to Europe and blow the doors off everyone in the lesser formulae.

Even then there's a very good chance that he or she wouldn't stand much of a chance. American open wheel drivers are looked down upon in F1 for a variety of reasons, not all of them rational.

Neither Scott Speed nor Michael Andretti did much to improve the image of Americans in F1.

I don't claim to know who all the young American hotshoes are these days
but if they're not in Europe or planning to be there they don't stand a chance.

Like I said before, sad but true.

As a postscript.....I'm old school and even though I covered the Atlantic series for a couple of years in the '80s, the thrill of watching them went away when ground effects cars became the norm. Nothing was more fun than watching the hotshoes throw a flat bottomed Atlantic car around.

Especially when someone would come blowing by wherever I was watching/shooting, full opposite lock, one hand on the wheel and waving with the other hand.

Dan Marvin was particularly good at that.



Just my .02

[provamo]

wasn't that the opert car rossberg used to three-wheel around corners?

[marc sproule]

I'll have to dig up some snaps of that little bit of copy on the nose.

The car was blue the first race or two with the Excita sponsorship.

Keke wasn't the only one to 3-wheel an Atlantic car. As I go through my snaps all these years later I realize that most of the chassis were flexi-flyers. Check out the twisting from front to rear in the snaps from the "jump" at Quebec City. The laws of physics dictated that with that much flexing going on there was bound to be a front wheel off the ground.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/4668198...7623186773769/

More factoids about the Excita era.

At some point I will upload a snap or two of the car when it had a small wooden "sculpture" on the nose that looked a lot like what the sponsor's product might have been applied to in real life. Said "sculpture" also served as a knob for the shifter for a while too.

Then there was the time I made the trip from one race to the next in a Winnebago with one of the drivers who shall remain nameless. Here's a hint..he won Indy, had a motel chain as a sponsor and now promotes vintage races.

During that trip we put our demented minds together, decided to freeze a banana and then when we got to the track...I think it was Edmonton...applied one of Keke's sponsor's products to the banana and then left it in the seat for Keke to find.

Let's just say a frozen banana's looks are not improved by pink latex.

There are plenty of other stories like this from that era but it's late, I'm old and I need my beauty rest. Maybe someday I'll post some of the more amusing stories...g-rated versions of course....about some of the craziness that made the Atlantic series so much fun.

Can you say "traveling family circus"?????

[DB4 Tim]

36 years ......and we all know it will never come back.

[Phil Creighton]

I looked at the photo collection and it brought back a lot of memories. As one who arrived here in 78 and ended up being around Atlantic in that period I have to say that the characters were unmatched in my experience. Forget the drivers for a moment, look at the the support guys from Joe Stimola, "Sneets", Joey Grimaldi, Fred Opert, Doug Shierson, Eric Kerman, Ted Wenz, various Kiwi's called Murray ....., Graham Donaldson, Brian Robertson, Dave McMillan, etc. Probably a lot more than that that I just don't remember their names. It was a different era but still a great bunch of independent characters that just loved the Formula.
Anyone got a copy of the Rosberg Chevron at Quebec 78 using the wall exiting the last turn (almost every lap) that was made into a poster.

I'm sure it will be resurrected in some form

Phil

[Charles Warner]

Its time to revive the ECAR/WCAR series of the 1980's !

Or get the older cars out and join the HMP to form a historic atlantic/F2 group?

[provamo]

marc thanks so much for your hysterical blasts from the past

were you in attendence at the Atlantic street race in downtown Hamilton Ontario Canada?
what a fiasco! i think they got the course completed in the late afternoon and i remember the race ending in the dusk with one car trailing a shower of sparks like a meteor!

[marc sproule]

I went to my first Atlantic race in '75...Wetwood. Also went to Trois Rivieres and Brainerd that year. After that I went to every Atlantic race through '81 or '82. I'll have to check my archives to see when I stopped going to all of them.

And yes, there were a few characters in that series. to say the least. Don't forget that Labatt's was the sponsor in there for a while and just perhaps a wee bit of the sponsor's product was consumed.

I had the good fortune of spending a lot of time with most of those characters that Phil Creighton mentioned. I can safely say that a very good time was had by all.

As time, memory and interest from the readers permits I can reconstruct some stories. There might even be one or twelve stories that can be posted in a public forum.




Gordon Kirby and I were standing next to Paul Webb when he took that famous wall banging shot of Rosberg. We turned to each other and said we thought that he had just smacked the wall. Paul said he thought he had gotten it on film. Obviously he had.

I will contact Paul about it, but my memory is that the slide disappeared during a move by Paul.

Yes, I was at the debacle in Hamilton. Not a pretty sight.

Enough for now.

[JeffW]

Those days were so much fun. They were THE big event at Atlantic Motorsport Park in Canada easch year which was my home track in those days. We raced in the undercard FF race. Bill Brack owned that track in FA, with Gilles making spectacular appearances, but not always finishing. The Excita car was constantly sideways in true Rosberg fashion.

It left an imprint for sure and I was lucky enough to find the B45 Excita car in Europe in bits and pieces which I brought over from the UK. This was chassis #4 originally obtained by Opert and assigned to Eje Elghe, but later given to Rosberg when he stuffed his chassis #2 at Lime Rock. Chassis #4 was later returned to the Chevron factory for a refurb before the Macau race and had a coming together with another car in the race and didn't finish. After that Jim Crawford bought the car and put a big Cosworth 4-banger in in it and ran the Aurora FX1 series in the UK, winning in the rain at Oulton Park. Later it was sold on to Vin Malkie and eventually did the rounds with various club level drivers in the UK before I found it.

I have some photos of the period with Rosberg and Crawford (who was very helpful with details before his premature demise), but I would be very grateful if I could obtain others featuring the car. Finally in those non politcally correct days check out the photo in John Zimmermann's book of Rosberg sideways in a B45 kissing the wall. Note the appendage on the nose.....

Great racing indeed.

Jeff

[Jim Gustafson]

Or get the older cars out and join the HMP to form a historic atlantic/F2 group?

Charles, count me in. With your experience in HGP, and now that you are retired and have nothing to do, I nominate you as Grand Poobah of the Historic FA/F2 Driver's Association Maybe include FC/F3 too. The F-5000 Drivers Association launch was only two years ago, and look what they've accomplished in a short time.

Regarding all of the newer machinery out there, the WCAR/ECAR in the '80's was pretty much a grassroots movement, and that model would work again today for current (RT-41's, Swift 008 14, 16's etc) cars. The series doesn't have to be stepping stone or ladder to anything beyond, to be relevent, and it shouldn't be a spec-car, profit center for any particular individual or group either. The current Trans-Am revival is another example of racers getting together to make it happen.

Jim Gustafson
Visual Communications

[Charles Warner]

Charles, count me in. With your experience in HGP, and now that you are retired and have nothing to do, I nominate you as Grand Poobah of the Historic FA/F2 Driver's Association Maybe include FC/F3 too. The F-5000 Drivers Association launch was only two years ago, and look what they've accomplished in a short time.

Jim,

They did accomplish a lot but it took a great deal of members committing to making it work. I've put fortyh the idea to Bobby but any such movement would need its own organization ala HGP or F5000 and that takes organization and a willingness to pay ones dues, both financially and with time commitments. First these drivers have to show their intentions by entering the HMP races consistently, basically demonstrating they are worth their own run group.

[D.T. Benner]

When they lost TV coverage and Tony George didn't want the Atlantic Series running on IRL weekends.
I followed the Atlantics from Day One and would go to see the Atlantics Race with as much or more anticipation then seeing the Headline Series they ran with.
I even had a chance to be on the "inside" at a few races as a Crew member.
R.I.P.

[Brian Graham]

No championship for Jacques, he lost out to David Empringham as did his teamate Claude Borbonais. Uncle Jacque did win two championships to add to the ones Gilles won for the Villenueve boys. Always my favourite cars, just seemed to capture the whole essense of what racing was supposed to be like, right from the early days. Brian.

[JeffW]

Brian, didn't a gentleman from Ontario get a vintage FA series started a few years ago?

JeffW

[marc sproule]

Obviously all those Quebecers look alike. That's why I got the two Jacques mixed up.

And speaking of Quebecers....one of my favorite Gilles stories.

Road Atlanta '76 pre-grid. I'm taking some snaps of Gilles being grilled by a young Southern Belle from a local radio station. She keeps calling him "Giles" as in Jiles. "Villanewavy" as in new gravy.

Gilles is cracking up. When she walks away he motions me over, "How much are those negatives gonna cost me?" Joanne wasn't with him that weekend.

"How much do you plan to win today?," replies the smart alec.

Fast forward to the press room after the race. I'm pounding out my Autoweek story on my manual typewriter but I'm having a very hard time. Gilles had won. and he's sitting next to me, radio reporter grilling him again.

Every time she breathlessly says something about the whuppin' he'd just put on the Atlantic field he laughs out loud. And jabs me in the ribs.

That was one of the most painful race reports I ever wrote.

And adding insult to injury, the little creep never did offer to buy the negs!!

I coulda used that ten grand.

[dalz]

Atlantics caught my eye when I was a wide-eyed kid absorbing every word and photo of my On Track magazine every two weeks. Back then Ralt dominated every development series, and the Ralt FA, SV, and F3 cars were almost indistinguishable, but the FAs had big wide tires and did standing starts in the US. The forthcoming new Swifts and Ralts only made the series cooler. Sad that its time has come and gone.

Dale V.

[Mark Walthew]

I found my old Formula magazine from 1978. I was 16 and this photo made quite an impression on me.

[James Hill]

You're all invited to come to Mosport and race with Brian Graham in Formula Libre.

[provamo]

Mark Walthen thanks for digging up that cover shot!

makes one kinda wish ground effects was never "invented"

[marc sproule]

I'm waiting to hear from Paul Webb, the photog who took that snap of Rosberg doing his wall-banging act.

I'll post what he has to say. As I said before, the original slide may have been lost. If he's found it I'll pass on the info to those who might be interested in getting a copy.

And yes, that little unit on the nose of the car, is indeed the little wooden unit I mentioned previously.

[provamo]

that is a little woodie isn't it LOL

no cool sponsors like that anymore, no E.Z.WIDER, Penthouse, etc

[marc sproule]

That is the small unit I referred to earlier. And as I said earlier, at one point it was also employed as a shift knob too, so to speak.

I seriously doubt that any of his mechanics polished it for him. It always looked kinda grungy to me.

And since we're talking about woodies I could say something like "here in Santa Cruz the woodies we have are considerably larger".

And it would be true.

There is a fine "Woodies on the Wharf" show here every June. People bring their woodies from all over the country to let the world see them and the next day they cruise en masse along West Cliff Drive.

One of these days I'll upload to Flickr some snaps I've taken of those rather bigger and considerably more expensive woodies. I have some detail shots of a couple of Rolls Royce woodies even.

Quite the show.

And in other news....I exchanged emails with Paul Webb earlier. The slide of Keke kissing the wall is still lost.

Oh well.

At least I can add an amusing Rosberg story to this thread....

We were at Shubenacadie...more commonly known as Atlantic Motorsport Park...which is out in the middle of nowhere in Nova Scotia. The motel nearest to the track was the "Inn on the Lake" and everyone stayed there.

It was a pretty cool place. Had a communal sauna. My recollection is that a bunch of us were outside, near the lake, having just enjoyed a bbq that had probably been organized by Alan McCall.

Probably some Labatt's had been consumed too.

At any rate, all of sudden there was a bunch of yelling coming from the part of the motel where the sauna was. We looked up to see one certain future World Champion and one of McCall's mechanics, Graham Freith (sp?) come running by, clad only in towels.

As they got to the little pier jutting into the lake they shed their towels and jumped in the lake.

And, of course, I didn't have a camera in hand.

And since you mentioned EZ Wider that reminds me of another little scene at the Inn on the Lake.

There were a number of people roaring around the lake in boats, pulling water skiers. Howdy Holmes walked out onto the little pier...he had on trunks...and stuck out his thumb.

We all thought he was just goofin' but it didn't take long for somebody to pull up next to him in their boat. Howdy being Howdy, talked to the people in the boat.

He must have had a pretty good line because it wasn't long before he put on the skis, grabbed the rope and took off behind the boat,

And how does EZ Wider fit in all this??

EZ Wider was Howdy's sponsor on the AMC Pacer he ran in whatever they called that IMSA series for grossly ugly cars.

And of course, we never helped with any kind of product development for that sponsor.

Nope. Never, ever.

[rickb99]

....There were a number of people roaring around the lake in boats, pulling water skiers. Howdy Holmes walked out onto the little pier...he had on trunks...and stuck out his thumb.

We all thought he was just goofin' but it didn't take long for somebody to pull up next to him in their boat. Howdy being Howdy, talked to the people in the boat.

He must have had a pretty good line because it wasn't long before he put on the skis, grabbed the rope and took off behind the boat,

Ahh yes, Howdy Holmes #10 AMC Pacer

Indeed, quite a charactor. And, being heir to the Jiffy pancake fortune can get you a couple of good seasons in CART ! ! But he's doing okay these days being president of the Jiffy pancake company and living the socialite life. He would make an interesting Vintage "guest' driver.

Him, Howdy Jr. and wife... nice

[marc sproule]

Do you know when that snap was taken?

It looks recent as I saw Howdy on a tv program recently that featured Jiffy Mixes and he was one of the talking heads of course.

Here's another Howdy story...not funny but it worked out well.

Howdy locked up the Atlantic championship in Montreal in '78 and after the race his dad came up to me and related this story......

Dad and Howdy's brother Bill had flown up from Michigan in a Cessna..182 perhaps...with Bill at the controls. As they started to make their final approach Bill went to put the gear down.

No go.

So they called the tower, explained the situation and the emergency crews foamed the runway.

Bill made a perfect gear up landing and neither he nor dad was injured.

Dad relayed the story to me as he was on his way to tell Howdy. He'd gone the whole weekend without telling H2 so it wouldn't interfere with Howdy's concentration.

I have plenty of other H2 stories but right at the moment those that come to mind are a little bit too incriminating.

For more than one party involved.

I also have a snap of the missus Carol at Indy in '84 or '85 that just might make it on to Flickr if a sufficiently large donation to my retirement fund isn't forthcoming!!

[rickb99]

It IS a recent picture but I cannot give you the exact date. Like I said, living the good life. Picture is from the New Your City "Social Diary".... LOL From AMC Pacer racing to the swank of NYC..

[marc sproule]

"Miss Honey Date Muffin Mix Wet T-Shirt Contest"??????????

I'll keep my eyes open for pix of those little endeavors.

Contact me offline and I'll make a list of those who want to see ones that aren't for public forums. I'll post ones that are publicly acceptable to my flickr stuff.

If I can find any.

I have one that became a composite of Gloy in his T-460 and the winner of the contest at Ontario Motor Speedway in '76.

Peter Gregg is in the background of that one.

He denied it was him.

[JeffW]

This is truly becoming a trip down memory lane......maybe boring for some but fun for others.

I used to host and produce a cable TV show in Nova Scotia called Motorsport Atlantic. Got to meet and interview all the FA luminaries of the day when they visited town (many stories about that). In 1977 one of the highlight sponsors was Penthouse (for EFR's car as I recall) and they brought along Miss Avril Lund a Penthouse Pet of the Year - I amaze myself at times with recall...

We had our FV parked beside the EFR's FA at a Mall dislay in Halifax and Avril kindly let me photograph her sitting in the cockpit.....of my car.

JeffW

[marc sproule]

Not a very good exposure, but I think it serves the purpose?

[Dave Welsh]

Take a look at the entries for the Roebling Road national being run this weekend.

106 total entries, how many FA's?

http://www.motorsportreg.com/index.c...7F733ADEA49971

There was one withdrawal today, #96 Ben Johnston

[rickb99]

Interesing. A little Formula Atlantic series history and a prophetic comment that the series might not make it:

http://www.fastlinesinternational.com/page_three.html

[James Hill]

try something in FC, Jeremy Hil raced his Motorcycle Powerd Formula Car since 1997, after 10 years of work and a nice GSXR power plant he was able to win a few races.