Buckeye Sprints (NEOhio Region SCCA National)

Mid-Ohio, 8 Sep 1968

All cars are 1.6-litre FB unless noted.

Notes on the cars:

1. McLaren M4B [200-27B] (Chuck Dietrich): For Chuck Dietrich (Sandusky, OH) in Formula B in 1968, replacing the similar 200-10B that he had raced in 1967. Subsequent history unknown until bought from Joe Zuniga (St. Paul, Minnesota) by James Harayda (Bloomington, Minnesota) in April 1978 as a FB car. Harayda raced it in FB in 1978 then converted it to FC for 1979. Traded to Scott Livingston (St Louis, MO) in 1980 then on to Jon Rhodes (Webster Grove, MO) 1981 who converted it to CSR with an Alfa engine and qualified for the Run-Offs in 1982. Sold to Scott Holman (Frederick, MD) July 1983 and continued in CSR until 1989 when sold to Henry Alexander and Wes McNay. Rebuilt with a new Marc Bahner tub which was modelled on Jim Brown's 1967 monocoque. Restored to Formula B specification and sold to Harry Mathews (Arvada, CO) March 1996 for his Mathews Collection of McLarens. Sold to Shigeru Motohashi (Japan) 2004 and raced in the Japanese Interclub Historic Car event at Tsukuba in 2009.
2. Brabham BT23F [1] (Bill Gubelmann): Sold to Bill Gubelmann (Oyster Bay, NY) and fitted with a Vegantune Ford twin cam engine for SCCA 'Pro' and NEDiv Formula B. Raced through 1968 and retained for a few races in 1969 as Gubelmann's BT29 was late arriving. Sold to Al Justason (Toronto, Ontario, Canada) who used it in both the Canadian and US Pro series in 1970 and again in the Canadian FB series in 1971. Sold to Michael Houselander who appeared at two Canadian national events in 1972, Later sold to ‘Dino Delousis’ who fitted a turbocharged 2-litre Ford Pinto engine for libre events but found the car to be undrivable and stored it from about 1974 to 2004 when sold to Dave Darrow (Mississauga, Ontario) and fully restored. Retained until 2007 when sold via race-cars.com to Murray Bryden (Melbourne, Australia). Sold to David Kloster (Kinglake, Victoria) September 2011.
3. Chevron B14 [FB-68-8] (Tom Tufts): Bought new by Tom Tufts (Milwaukee, WI) and raced in Formula B in 1968, starting at Road America on 27 July 1968, at the Buckeye Sprints at Mid-Ohio two weeks later and then at Donnybrooke (Brainerd) on 22 September 1968. Identified from an invoice as chassis FB-68-8. Sold to Tom Gelb (Mequon, WI) for 1969, replacing an ancient Brabham BT2, and raced in Pro and CenDiv FB until crashed at Mosport Park in August 1969. The car was repaired and sold in 1970 but its subsequent history is unknown. However, it may well be the car raced by fellow Central Division racer Jim Trueman (Amlin, OH) in 1970.
4. Brabham BT15 (Harry Reynolds): Harry Reynolds (Pottstown, PA) drove a FC Brabham in 1968 which was identified in the Lime Rock 7 Jul 1968 results sheet as a BT15 and in the Mid-Ohio 21 Jul 1968 results sheet as having a MAE engine. Reynolds told Candian researcher Rupert Lloyd Thomas that it came from Fred Opert and was virtually new. He believed it may have been driven by Bobby Brown at some point and may originally have been bought for Ford of France. He recalls the chassis number as "3". The car went from Reynolds to Randy Neiman (Pottstown, PA), who converted it to Formula Ford. Neiman drove it in a Regional at Cumberland in July 1971. Subsequent history unknown.
5. Brabham BT15 (Dave Dours): Dick Leppla (Gates Mills, OH) raced a Brabham BT15 with Cosworth MAE engine in Central Division Formula C in 1968. He raced as either #14 or #44 so this would be the same car driven by Dave Dours (Hudson, OH) at Mid-Ohio in September. Leppla (then Cleveland Heights, OH) advertised the car in CP&A 7 Dec 1968 as a Brabham BT15 with rebuilt MAE engine and Hewland Mark 6 six-speed gearbox. This may be the same car as the "BT16" raced by Dours for Leppla in 1969 and may even be the BT18 raced by Leppla in late 1970.
6. Lotus 22/31 (Thomas Richmond): Thomas G. Richmond finished third in CenDiv FB in 1968 in a Lotus. In May 1970 he advertised his car as a Lotus 22/31, noting that it didn't race during 1969.
7. Brabham BT10 [F2-5-64] (Allen Treuhaft): Bought by Frenchman Jacques Maglia for F2 in 1964 but Maglia did not like the car and in September, he swapped it for David Prophet's Lotus 32. Prophet had also bought a BT10 so kept F2-5-64 as a rental car; it was driven by Syd Fox at Snetteron in late September and then by Bill Bradley, Bruno Deserti and Peter Sutcliffe in F2 in 1965. Raced again by Bradley in early 1966, but last seen in F2 in July 1966. Sold via Fred Opert to Eva H Kirk (Toledo, Ohio), and raced for her by Allen Treuhaft (Toledo, Ohio) in Central Division Formula C from 1967 to 1969, still using its SCA engine. Treuhaft recalls that the car was bought late 1966 or early 1967 from Opert to replace a Cooper that had become obsolete since the arrival of the ex-F2 SCA engines. Treuhaft ran the car in Opert's colours of yellow with a wide blue stripe. When raced by Treuhaft, the car was fitted with one of two special Cosworth SCA engines built for Team Lotus with Lucas fuel injection. History then unknown until 1972 when its SCCA Log Book shows that it was sold by Harry C. Kahn to F. Nelson Petrey and raced at Lime Rock, Bryar and Watkins Glen. It was later purchased from the Franklin Institute (Philadelphia Transportation museum) by Ian Carpenter who sold it to Rafael Costa. The car was maintained by David Irwin (Evergreen, CO) for Costa but at the time believed to be a BT16. Later acquired by Irwin. Sold to Mark Shillingburg (Evergreen, CO) late 2007.
8. Elva 300 (Bill Sargeant): Bill Sargeant (Adrian, Michigan) raced an Elva in CenDiv Formula C in 1968. A photograph of the car taken at Steel Cities Raceway in Sep 1968 shows that it was a Elva 300, a 1961 Formula Junior.
9. McLaren M4B [200-26B?] (Martin Sellers): Sold to Martin Sellers (Columbus, OH) for Formula B in 1968. The sale was arranged by Chuck Dietrich (Sandusky, OH) who had run a M4A in 1967 and was now buying a new car for himself as well. Dietrich and Sellers ran together as a team in 1968. Retained by Sellers for 1969 but he had engine troubles through that season and after that only raced the car rarely. In the 1990s, he brought the car out again for historic racing and ran at Sears Point with the SCCA in 1997. More recently a member of the CSRG. Chassis 200-26 is a very rare 1960s racing car that has only had one owner from new.
10. Forjay (Formcar) (Joe Gillespie): Joe Gillespie (Dayton, OH) drove a 'Forjay' Formula B special in 1968, built from an improved Formcar chassis and what Gillespie described in an advert in CP&A 28 Dec 1969 as a Porsche 912 engine. He kept the car for 1969.
11. Brabham BT21C (Howard Brown): From May 1968 to September 1969, Howard Brown (Paoli, PA or Malvern, PA) raced in Pro Formula B and in NEDiv in a Brabham, identified by the Sep 1968 Lime Rock entry list as a BT21C. Brown ran as #76 in 1968 and #69 in 1969 but the colour and identity of the Brabham are not yet known.
12. Cooper T76 [T75 F2-4-65] (John R Babchek): New to Tyrrell Racing Organisation for John Surtees to race in F2 in 1965. Raced later in the season by Bob Bondurant and Chris Amon. To Reg Howell (Dayton, OH) May 1966 to be used in SCCA racing. Sold to Dick Leppla (Cleveland Hgts, OH), fitted with a Cosworth twin cam and Colotti T46 5-speed gearbox and entered in Formula B events for David Dours (Hudson, OH) in 1967, but described by them as a T76. It was one of the quickest FB cars in the east of the US at the start of 1967 and Dours won at Cumberland in May but it was no match for Chuck Dietrich's brand new McLaren M4A in Central Division. Later fitted with a Vegantune engine and won at Mid-Ohio in September. To John R. Babchek (Romulus, MI) for CenDiv Formula B from 1968 to 1970. He advertised the car in June 1970 as an "ex-Surtees team car" with Vegantune engine, and again in April 1974 when it was just described as a T76 rolling chassis . History unknown until bought by Murray Batson (Australia) in 1979. Then via Bruce Sutton 1981 and Murray Richards (Murrumbeena, Victoria) 1992 to Bob Harborow (Camberwell, Victoria) 1994.

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

Results sheet provided by Bryan Miller and by Richard Page of the Formula One Register .