Buckeye Sprints (NEOhio Region SCCA National)

Mid-Ohio, 13 Sep 1970

All cars are 1.6-litre FB unless noted.

Notes on the cars:

1. Brabham BT29 [42] (Chet Freeman): Chester T 'Chet' Freeman (Columbus, OH) had been one of the first BT29 owners in August 1969 and had won the CenDiv FB title but his car had been sold to Fred Opert by November. In June 1970, he took delivery of a second BT29, blue again like his first car, but too late this time to retain his title. He appeared in only one Pro race, the Road America race on 18 Jul 1970. The Brabham was sold to Chuck Dietrich for 1971 and Dietrich easily won the 1971 CenDiv FB title in this car. Then unknown until the 1990s when it was being raced by an "R Cooke" in the US north west. This car with Asa Candler (Naples, FL) by about 1994 and raced in historics until sold to Chris Rose (San Francisco, CA) in 2007. Rose crashed the car in 2008 and part of the frame was replaced. History then unclear until advertised by Fantasy Junction in 2014.
2. Brabham BT29 [33] (Mike Hall): This Brabham BT29, believed to be chassis BT29-33, was bought new by Michael F. Hall (Chicago, IL) and used in SCCA racing where Hall won the 1970 CenDiv FB title. He also raced it in the Pro series in the latter half of the season. Hall retained the red-and-yellow BT29 for the first half of 1971 but replaced it with a new BT35 in August and sold the BT29 to Phil Geraldi (Valley Stream, NY), who had previously raced a LeGrand in NEDiv FB. Geraldi raced it for the rest of 1971 and in 1972 then sold it to Charles J. Derbes III (Metairie, LA) in the spring of 1973. Derbes won the SWDiv Formula B title in this car in 1974 and attended the Run-Offs, finishing 12th. He was second in the Division in 1975 and tied with Warren Pauge for the 1976 title. Chaz Derbes has retained the BT29 ever since, still owning it in 2012.
3. Brabham BT29 (Steve Harris): Stephen T. Harris (Fort Wayne, Indiana) raced a #45 Brabham BT29 (of unknown colour) in Central Division in 1970, scoring 18 pts for eighth place in the highly competitive division. He also raced in the Pro race at Road America in July, qualifying up in 15th out of 43 runners. Like many other Road America entrants, he also appears on the Mont Tremblant entry list but it seems the Canadian organisers had copied much of the Road America entry list. He bought a BT35 for 1971 so the BT29 is likely to have been traded back to Fred Opert. Nothing more is known of his BT29.
4. Brabham BT21B (Russell Freed): Russell Freed (McKees Rock, PA) raced a Brabham in SCCA Formula C from 1970 to 1975. In 1972, he had moved to Coraopolis, PA and was entered by Bonnie Freed. He qualified for the Runoffs in 1970, where his car was identified on the entry list as a Brabham BT21B.

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

+++ NEOhio Region newsletter "The Blower" at IMRRC may contain results for this event. Competition Press & Autoweek 3 Oct 1970 p22. Official results not held in the SCCA Archive at the IMRRC.