SCCA National (Washington & Susquehanna Regions)

Summit Point, 17 Aug 1975

All cars are 1.6-litre FB unless noted.

Notes on the cars:

1. Brabham BT40 [17] (Ken Duclos): New to Ken Duclos (Boxboro, MA) and raced in Formula B in 1973, winning the Northeast Division title, and the National title by winning the SCCA Runoffs at Road Atlanta in November. Retained for 1974, and again won both the Northeast title and the National title, and towards the end of that season was fitted with a Cosworth BDA for Formula Atlantic. Again retained for 1975, now with the BDA in Formula B, and Duclos won a third successive NEDiv title in the car, but this time retired at the Runoffs. In 1975, the car wore Falconer bodywork. Sold to Peter Gates (Claymont, DE) for 1976, fitted with a 1.1-litre Cosworth BDJ for Formula C, and finished third in the NEDiv FC title. To Jon Sley (Claymont, Delaware) for FC again in 1977, finishing fifth in NEDiv, and retained for 1978 and 1979. The car was next seen when advertised by Gates in 1992 as restored with a new tub. After that, it was next mentioned by Michael Rand in February 2018 as having been recently purchased. By April 2015, Rand had sold it to Bob Burnside (Dexter, MI).
2. March 75B [73B-7] (Eric Kerman): New to Ron Cohn (Modena, NY), and run as a two-car team with Bruce MacInnes in 1973, entered by DRC Formula Racing Inc in Players Canadian and SCCA Formula B races, running as #56. Retained for 1974, running in the Players Canadian Formula Atlantic series and in the US GP support race at Watkins Glen in October. To Eric Kerman (Hempstead, NY/Glen Cove, NY) for 1975 and updated with new orange bodywork, entered as #81 or #87, and running as a 75B. Raced by Kerman in SCCA Nationals from 1975 to 1979. Later to Oran Bushey (Huntingdon, NY) and raced until 1982. Subsequent history unknown, but this is a leading candidate for the car used by Cory Mayo with a Chevrolet V6 engine in the RCCA series in the 1980s. .
3. March 73B [17] (Joe Ostrowski): 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).
4. Brabham BT29 [2] (R Peter Gates): Fred Ashplant (Franklin Lakes, NJ) ordered a Brabham BT29 for 1969 but the car was not delivered until August and Ashplant had moved on to other projects. The car was not used during 1969 and was still in its crate when sold to Ken Duclos (Boxboro, MA) for use in NEDiv Formula B. Duclos won the title with a massive 48 pts from the similar BT29 of Bob Welch. After a quiet season with the black BT29 in 1971 he reclaimed his title in 1972, beating the newer March of Michael Rand. He bought a new Brabham BT40 for 1973 and won the divisional title again that season. The BT29 went in part exchange to Fred Opert and from him to Peter Gates (Wilmington, DE) who ran it in NEDiv FB for three more seasons. After him it went to Ken Valan (Wilmington, DE) for 1976, winning the FB class of the Mid-Atlantic Road Racing Series (MARRS) based at Summit Point, then to John Galson (Glen Mills, PA) and was then sold to the Midwest where it was expected to be converted into a sports racer. Subsequent history unknown.

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

The Straightpipe September 1975 p13.