CASC North American Formula Atlantic Series Race

Mosport Park, 12 Sep 1982

All cars are 1.6-litre F/Atl unless noted.

Notes on the cars:

1. March 73B [17] (Seann Burgess): New to Bruce MacInnes (Sharon, CT) and raced as part of a two-car team with Ron Cohn. Raced in the Players Canadian FB series and in the SCCA Pro FB races at Road America and Watkins Glen. Retained for 1974, and raced in the Players Canadian series again, and in the US GP support race at Watkins Glen in October. Sold to Joe Ostrowski (Trenton, NJ), and raced in NEDiv SCCA Nationals in 1975 and 1976. Presumably the March he raced in NEDiv in 1977 and 1978. Retained by Ostrowski until early 1982 when it was bought by Seann Burgess (Caledon, Ontario). Burgess won the CASC Ontario Formula Atlantic championship and the BARC Drivers Championship in 1982 as well as appearing in 'pro' events. After two more seasons of Atlantic, he converted the car to Can-Am specification at the end of 1985 and then fitted a McLaren M1B body and a Mazda 13B rotary engine for 1986. This "March RX10-B" was raced through the 1986 season. Burgess kept the Can-Am body after the car was retired from racing and sold the March to Richard Smith (Barrie, Ontario) who raced it in 1989 and 1990, still with the Mazda engine, and fitting 1975 bodywork for 1990. He sold it to Chuck Sieber (McLean, VA) who imported it back to the US in January 1991. He raced it in Solo events in 1991, and maybe in one or two more seasons until selling it back to Seann Burgess. Burgess initially restored it to MacInnes' 1973 livery, but at the request of the Villeneuve Museum traded his 73B bodywork to Marchives for a set of 1975 bodywork, and rebuilt the car to resemble Gilles Villeneuve's Skiroule March 75B. By May 2010, it was on display in the Musée Gilles Villeneuve (Berthierville, Quebec).
2. March 76B/77B [76B-11] (Ron Levanduski): New to Isola Racing for Seb Barone (Portland, CT or Dilliner, PA) to drive as the team's #28 entry in 1976, but run by Doug Shierson Racing. Barone crashed the car at Trois-Rivières in September and was not seen in it again. According to former Ecurie Canada/James Morgan mechanic Graham Scott, this car was rebuilt, updated to Ecurie Canada specification and sold to James Morgan for the 1977 season, together with the ex-Gilles Villeneuve spare car. Exactly how these two cars were used is unknown, but it is assumed here that Morgan himself raced the ex-Villeneuve car in early 1977 SCCA Nationals, entered as #56, and the ex-Barone car was fielded as the #65 for Bill Prout to use at first, then taken over by Bobby Rahal. Rahal then took over the #56 car for the Pro series, leaving the ex-Barone car as a spare car, presumably the one raced by Terry Visger at Halifax in August (#55) and by Morgan at Lime Rock in September (#65). This car is unknown in 1978 and 1979, but was acquired in 1980 by Ron Levanduski (Elmira, NY), who drove a March "773" in SCCA Regional and National Formula Atlantic races at his local Watkins Glen in 1980. He retained the car for 1981, when he also used the "76B/77B" in the CASC Formula Atlantic series race at Montréal in September. He appeared in it again a few times in 1982. An advert described the car as being both ex-Villeneuve and ex-Rahal, indicating it was one of the James Morgan team cars in 1977, but it was also described in a press report as the car used by James Hunt at Trois-Rivières. In June 1988, Levanduski mentioned in his 'Trackside' column in the Elmire Star-Gazette that the ex-Villeneuve 76B, which he still owned, had been restored to its 1976 Direct Film livery and was due to go on display at the Gilles Villeneuve Museum which was opening on 24 June. In May 2012, Levanduski mentioned the car again in his column, saying he had owned it since 1980, that it was chassis 11, and that Villeneuve had driven it just once in a race, at Westwood in 1976. In 2014, a feature on Levanduski mentioned that he had once a race at Watkins Glen in a 76B that was "later driven by James Hunt of the move 'Rush' fame to a third place finish at Trois-Rivières"! The chassis plate on the car in the museum confirms that it is chassis 76B-11, so the ex-Barone car.

Sources

Note that the identification of individual cars in these results is based on the material presented elsewhere in this site and may in some cases contradict the organisers' published results.

North American Formula Atlantic race results have been compiled by Chris Townsend based on material in Formula and On Track, information drawn from Canadian newspapers and results sheets where available.

All comments, clarifications, corrections and additions are most welcome. Please email Allen (allen@oldracingcars.com) if you can help in any way with our research.