History Can-Am: Raw Power

This could never happen again, sadly. These races would register on the richter scale with alloy BIG,BIG, BIG blocks wrapped in state of the art suspensions and aerodynamics. Hot rods gone wild. At their zenith they were the fastest road course racers anywhere, including F1...

 

Could someone explain to me why Canam was killed off. As i understand it, there were some issues in regards to parity.

 

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
Its all in here...

 

I love these cars.
As a kid, my dad built models of them and I got to see the details (at the model level) of the construction.
Too bad they are no longer able to run at any tracks anymore.
r

 

1982..Laguna Seca, 917

 

I would love to see a class with no restrictions for two seaters today. Especially if the cars didn't look exactly like one another, and it was a relatively short series.

 

They are alive and well at vintage races in many venues.

 

I'll have to get that book...

But yeah, from what I've heard, this car pretty much killed it off.



I believe it still holds the record for the Road Race car with the most Horsepower...

 

I think after years of dominance by McLaren, and then the all-vanquishing Porsche 917/30 it came down to budget inequities and organizational infighting (nothing new or old there). The series began as an unlimited exercise, breeding innovation and profound development, and that sort of candle can only burn so long. They tried to keep the series on life support for a decade after that, but it never revived. The thread was picked up by IMSA GTP in the US and never looked back. Seeing them at vintage meets is the closest you get nowadays, and a big field of them at a track like Laguna Seca, Road America is impressive. I was too young, but the cars images were all over my dad's garage and in my consciousness. I would have loved to watch that series grow up.

 

Kinda sez it all:

 

I think you are correct. This car has been described as basically a dragster that also went around corners. The horsepower was astonishing. I was fortunate enough to stand on the Champion Spark Plug bridge of the long straightaway at Riverside to view this car. As it exited Turn 8, it would look like a big, wide, blue dragster as it approached...and then WOOSH, it was gone and into the Turn 9 sweeper....stunning and expensive

 

This one belongs to a freind of mine. One of my all time favorite cars, bar none!

 

Up to 1300 gross HP with the boost switch cranked to "11"

 

Someone correct my memory if I'm off a bit...

I read in a book about euro, english and american post-war cars that the 917s at their zenith had some insane HP numbers. How about 920HP, 90" wheelbase, and 1600#. Yeah, that probably killed the series. I have the book somewhere and I'll have to find it tonite.

 

There is an alloy 427 under there behind the "martian bra" and 2-stroke snowmobile fan motor...

 

Some team drivers refused to race the 917 after a few laps of testing, it was just that hairy. My kinda race car!

 

I read somewhere it was 1580HP in '73.


Edit.

" Reputedly producing up to 1580HP (1178kW) in qualifying form and a reliable 1100HP (820kW) in race trim, the spectacular Porsche 917/30 with its 5.4 litre turbocharged 12 cylinder air-cooled engine could accelerate from 0-100km/h in 1.9 seconds, 0-160km/h in 3.9 seconds and 0-320km/h in 10.9 seconds, on to a top speed of 400km/h. "

 

The turboe'd flat 12 is vast, you could put a ping pong table on it!

 

WHAT. As a former tennis brat once said...YOU CAN'T BE SERIOUS?

 

Unfortunatly it's in French, but there's a gazillion pics of Can Am cars here:
http://www.autodiva.fr/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=177&sid=3ab71b2f2036ed71aa19e0d62009a94f

 

what.

 

I think it was in the March issue of Car and Driver that they asked this very question to different racing groups. Gave them a blank slate and said design a CanAm car for today, was a pretty interesting couple of pages to read.

 

The first car race I ever went to was the 1972 Can-Am at Riverside. I watched from the inside of Turn 6 at the top of the hill, almost a mile from Start/Finish. It's permanently burned into my brain the sound and the feeling of that field of cars all hitting the loud pedal at the same time when the green flag dropped. You heard it and felt it. It came up through the ground and resonated in your bones.

The SCCA couldn't run a professional racing series to save it's life. They created the Can-Am and screwed it up. They created the Trans-Am and F5000 series and screwed them up too.

Kurt O.

 

A raceclass with the same freedom of rules would be completely different today.

It would have Drivers in G-Suits, and still passing out...

 

The "panzerwagen" as it was referred to back then...

 

A real shame.

3 of the best racing classes, ever...

 

In an age of monocque chassis the 917 had an aluminum tube frame, and if you ever saw German aluminum welding you would never get into one of these monsters. They would pressurize the frame with nitrogen and use a gage to see if it leaked down as an indication of a crack in the frame. Mark Donoheu crashed one and when it came to a stop the car was gone from the front wheels forward and Mark's legs were dragging on the pavement! The motor was awesume and the chassis was junk.

Rex

 

If these cars were putting out so much power what was the attrition rate like.
Also, how long was the race distance? I'm guessing fuel stops were common.

 

Kinda sez it all: <!-- / message --> <!-- attachments --> <fieldset class="fieldset"> <legend>Attached Thumbnails</legend>
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Take a good look at this car. One of the most innovative designs ever. It's the original AVS Shadow designed by Trevor Harris and built by Don Nichols. It is probably the ultimate exercise in a low drag race car. The front wheels are 10" in diameter. The radiators are at the rear and air is ducted to them with vertical fences. The part with the dollar sign is one of those vertical fences. That's the car at it's first test at Riverside.

Kurt O