Ponca City Grand Prix (Oklahoma Region SCCA National)

Ponca City, 1 Jul 1973

All cars are 1.6-litre FB unless noted.

Notes on the cars:

1. Brabham BT29 (Norman Johnson): Norman Johnson (Simonton, TX) raced a Brabham BT29 in the two Mexican Formula B races in June 1971. Records of Southwest Division racing of very sketchy and little is known of Johnson's exploits in the car in 1971 or 1972. His next known outings in a Brabham were at Texas World Speedway in September 1971 then at Dallas International Motor Speedway in February 1972 where he crashed. He did not score points in Southwest Division in 1972, but won the Division in 1973 and appeared at the Runoffs, where his car was again described as a BT29. He then acquired a Brabham BT40, but it is unclear whether he continued to drive the BT29 through the 1974 SCCA Nationals season. Subsequent history unknown.
2. Merlyn Mk 21 [394/FB/72] (Porter Brownlee): New to Porter Brownlee (Little Rock, AR) in late 1972 for SCCA Formula B. Raced in Midwest Division FB in 1973, 1974 and 1975, qualifying for the Runoffs each season. To David Pence (Little Rock, AR) for FB in 1976 and 1977. Subsequent history unknown. A later advert for the car says that "by the early 1990s, chassis 394/FB/4 belonged to Chicago privateer John Mayes. He loaned it to British restorer James Denty, who fitted a 1600cc Cosworth BDA engine and raced the yellow Merlyn in Historic F2 in 2000. It was sold to an unknown owner in 2001, and raced by Peter Shaw in 2001 and 2002, and by John Dunham (Basingstoke, Hampshire) in 2003. It was offered for sale by H and H in 2004, and after this spent some time in Denmark before being acquired by Kurt Buess (Switzerland). When Buess retired from racing, he sold the car to Hans-Rudolf Howald (Heimenhausen, Switzerland) in 2010. Howald used the car in hillclimbs in Switzerland and France.
3. Brabham [BT9 F3-6-64] (Frank Dickerson): Identified by the Formula 1 Register as the car raced by Patrick Dal Bo in 1964 and by Jean Sage briefly at the end of 1965. Then sold back to England via Stephen Conlan and owned by David Wragg (Leeds) in early 1966 then to Malcolm Smith (Clitheroe, Lancashire) later that year. Sold by Smith via Fred Opert to the US, where dealer Pierre Phillips imported it into Portland, OR. He sold it to Win Casey, also of Portland, who raced it in ICSCC and SCCA FC in 1967 with a MAE engine. Then to another Portland driver, Neil Hansen, for NorPac FC in 1968 when it was described as a BT14. It was later owned by Chuck Grauel (Kansas City, KS) and raced in MWDiv Formula C in 1970 and 1971, then via midget racer Frank Dickerson (Wichita, KS), John Stokes and others to Jerry Strickfaden (Los Alamos, NM) 1987, during which time it was regarded as a BT15. Researched by Jerry Strickfaden and identified as a BT9. To Wayne Mitchell 1988. To Robs Lamplough (Hungerford, Berkshire) 2011.
4. March 703 [2] (Tom Watson): Described in March records as a Works F3 for Tom Walkinshaw, first run in early June 1970 and in Petonyer colours. Raced by Walkinshaw until he crashed it heavily at Brands Hatch at the end of August. Rebuilt on a new frame and presumably the car that Walkinshaw raced at Thruxton in November, his first race since the Thruxton accident. Almost certainly the car sold to Fred Ashplant (Wayne, NJ) and raced in SCCA Formula C in 1971, fitted with a 1000cc Lucas engine. However, at the Runoffs at Road Atlanta in November, Ashplant drove Walter Nelson's car, equipped with a 1100cc BDA built by Vegantune. In 1972, Tom Watson (Richardson, TX) acquired 703/2 and used it in Formula C at a few SCCA events in Southwest Division. He won the division in 1972, against minor opposition, and also qualified for the Runoffs in 1973. In 1974, the car was raced at least once in Nationals by "household engineer" Karen Watson (Richardson, TX), which was sufficient to qualify for the Runoffs. She placed 13th at Road Atlanta, the only woman out of the 440 qualifiers. In March 1975, the car went to David Carter (Tulsa, OK), and he won the Mid-Am Regional title in the car in 1975. He advertised it in December 1977 when it had a SCA engine, but still a Hewland Mk 8 gearbox. It was sold to Gerry Strickfaden (Los Alamos, NM) February 1978, who converted it to C Sports Racing specification with a Datsun engine. Acquired by Ben Treadway (Roswell, GA) from a friend in Atlanta, GA in 1984, and raced briefly as a CSR. In 1990, the car was restored to F3 specification for him by David Irwin, and raced once in SVRA in 1992. Sold in January 2005 to Patric Capon (Bickley, Kent). Sold by Capon in March 2009 to John Counsell (Coleby, Lincolnshire), who raced it in Historic F3 in 2010-2011. Counsell sold it in June 2012 to Simon Armer, who raced it in HF3 from 2013 onwards.
5. Brabham BT29 (John Bernadine): John Bernadine (Tulsa, OK) raced a #80 Brabham in Midwest Division Formula B in 1973. In the results of St Louis Region's Falstaff National Races in September 1973, the car was listed as a Brabham BT29. Bernadine upgraded to an ex-F2 Brabham BT38 for 1974, so the BT29 may have been traded back to Fred Opert. Nothing more known.

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.

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.

Individual sources for this event

SCCA Sanction 73-N-24S. Official results kindly provided by Rocky Entriken.