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George Follmer in the Prophet at Road America in 1978.  Copyright Glenn Snyder 2009.  Used with permission.

Can-Am 1978

Can-Am became a little more competitive in 1978 with the emergence of U.S. Racing's Prophet and the Newman-Freeman Racing team's Spyder, both highly professional conversions of the ageing Lola T332 design.

Alan Jones had taken over the Haas car and was dominant, starting from pole at all nine races he attended and winning five races. Lola customers took the next championship places, Warwick Brown in the VDS Lola and Al Holbert in the Hogan car, but Elliot Forbes-Robinson won two races in the Spyder and George Follmer won one in the Prophet. The veteran Follmer even took pole at Laguna Seca, the one race Jones didn't attend, but crashed and could not start the race. These five were well ahead of the rest but John Morton's progress with an increasingly modified Lola T333 warranted some attention.

Much was expected of Shadow's DN10, a conversion of a F1 car, but it was entirely uncompetitive. Vern Schuppan's Elfin also disappointed.

The races

14 May 1978 > Road Atlanta

27 May 1978 > Charlotte Motor Speedway

11 Jun 1978 > Mid-Ohio

25 Jun 1978 > Mont-Tremblant

09 Jul 1978 > Watkins Glen

23 Jul 1978 > Road America

20 Aug 1978 > Mosport Park

03 Sep 1978 > Grand Prix de Trois-Rivières

08 Oct 1978 > Laguna Seca

15 Oct 1978 > Riverside

1978 Can-Am Championship table

1Alan JonesLola T333CS2712 pts5 wins
2Warwick BrownLola T333CS2548 pts1 win
3Al HolbertLola T3331674 pts1 win
4Elliot Forbes-RobinsonSpyder NF-101537 pts2 wins
5George FollmerProphet1088 pts1 win
6John Gunn"GG4" (Lola T332)700 pts 
7Michael L. AllenLola T332CS596 pts 
8Rocky MoranLola T333460 pts 
9Bill TemperoChevron B78C375 pts 
10Vern SchuppanElfin MR8A302 pts 

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