Sigma Series for Formula Atlantic Cars Race

Aldo Scribante, 25 Jul 1981

Notes on the cars:

1. Ralt RT2/79 [152] (Roy Klomfass): New to Toleman Group Motorsport for Brian Henton to drive in the 1979 Formula 2 championship. Henton won at Mugello in this car but used chassis 154 later in the season. The sister cars 153 and 154 were sold for the 1981 season, but 152 is believed to have been retained as a test car. Sold to Mel Lahner for 1981, and entered by his Rackrite Shelving team for Bernard Tilanus to drive in Formula South Africa. Tilanus scored three wins and two second places in the first five races, but Mel Lahner then "relegated" Tilanus to the team's 722/77B and drove the Ralt himself. Wayne Taylor also drove it once at Kyalami in May after damaging his March 77B in practice, and then Roy Klomfass drove the Ralt at Aldo Scribante in August, where he won both races, and at two later races. The car was later dismantled and the tub panels flattened out to provide templates for a series of Ralt copies commissioned by Lahner, built in South Africa and called Lants.
2. Maurer MM80 [03?] (Tony Martin): New for Eje Elgh to drive for the MM Mampe Racing Team in Formula 2 in 1980. After Markus Höttinger's death at Hockenheim, Elgh was the team's only driver at the next two races, but was then injured when testing a F2 Tiga F280 at Silverstone. His car was taken over by Patrick Gaillard at Pau in late May and at Silverstone two weeks later. He was then replaced by Beppe Gabbiani, who is believed to have driven MM80-03 for the remainder of the 1980 season. This car is likely to be the "ex-Gabbiani" car sold to Tony Martin in South Africa. Raced by Martin through the 1981 Sigma Series. Martin acquired a newer Maurer MM81 for 1982 and the MM80 was not seen in 1982 or early 1983. It was used by Clive Cooke in the latter part of the 1983 season, and then sold to Keith Horwood later in 1984 for Dermot Leslie to race in 1985, alongside Horwood racing his ex-DAW MM81. The MM80 was exported from South Africa to England at the end of 1986, and was one of the two MM80s acquired by Stuart Ridge in 1988. One of Ridge's cars, used in Historic F2 in 1993, was noted as 'MM80-03'.
3. March 77B [8] (Bernard Tilanus): New to Eddie Pinto and Team Gunston for Roy Klomfass to race in South African Formula Atlantic in 1977, using Swindon BDA engines. Retained by Team Gunston in 1978 for new driver Trevor van Rooyen. Retained again by Team Gunston for the 1978/79 season, when it was a spare car to Van Rooyen's new March 79B and was driven that season by Basil Van Rooyen at Kyalami in October 1978 (when Trevor was unwell), by Dave Charlton at Killarney later that month, and then by Trevor at two races. Later in 1979, it was raced twice by John Love. It was unused in 1980, then sold to Jeff Waberski after his DAW Supplies team's ex-Ian Scheckter March 78B was destroyed in a transporter fire. The 77B was fitted with a Mazda engine and raced by Bernard Tilanus for DAW Supplies from June 1981 onwards. It was raced by Dave Charlton for DAW around March/April 1982, then by Billy Maloney as a DAW entry later in 1982. Maloney crashed the car at some point, and acquired a March 782 to replace it in April 1983. The 77B was sold to Klaus Grogor's House of Sports Cars team for Grogor to drive in the 1983 season, and then retained by Grogor unused through 1984 and 1985. It was then sold to Gary Harrison who intended to convert it into a sports car for the 'Can-Am' series that absorbed Formula SA in 1986, but he only used in single seater form. The car was acquired by Dorino Treccani during the 1990s and sold to Andrew and Stuart Thompson in 2000.
4. March 77B [18] (Trevor van Rooyen): New to Alex Blignaut for Nols Nieman to race in the South African Formula Atlantic series in early 1977, with Benson & Hedges sponsorship. Retained by Blignaut's Benson & Hedges team for Nieman again in 1978. Raced for Blignaut by Derek Bell in November 1978, then by Sarel van der Merwe in May 1979, after which it was given by Blignaut to Tony Martin's South Coast Motors team as a spare car. It was entered for Billy Scheepers in January, then rented to Roy Moss for the Goldfields race in February. Bernard Tilanus then borrowed it for the Killarney race in March after his DAW March 78B had been destroyed in a transporter fire. In July 1980, it was sold to Jeff Waberski's DAW Supplies team for Wayne Taylor to drive. Then in October 1980, it was sold on to Mel Lahner's Rackrite Racing. Taylor moved with the car, and raced it at Kyalami on 4 October and then in the first few months of the 1981 season. It was then taken over by Trevor van Rooyen who found the weight penalty on his ground-effect March 802 was too great. He raced the 77B for the rest of the 1981 season. It was retained for 1982, when Rackrite ran the car for Andre du Plessis and Mike Domingo. It was retained again for 1983, when driven by Gavin Lahner and Kevin Heath. It was not used again after that, but was retained by Mel Lahner until sold to Andrew Thompson in 1984. It was later restored for Ian Schofield.
5. March 77B ['AT'] (Graham Duxbury): Built by Andrew Thompson in South Africa in 1978 using an unused monocoque that had been supplied as a spare for Ian Scheckter's March 77B/7. Thompson acquired the tub and all the other 77B spares from Ken Howes before 77B/7 was sold back to the UK. He built all these into a new car using the Hewland FT200 gearbox from the ex-Dave Charlton/Alex Blignaut March 76B/19. The resulting car was raced by Bobby Scott through the 1978/79 season, sponsored by Rembrandt through its Sportsman Lager and then Kronenbräu 1308 Lager brands. It was rented from Thompson by Graham Duxbury for a race in October 1979, still with its BDA engine, and then sold to Hagen Wulf and Ivor Raasch who fitted a Mazda engine for the 1980 season. It was also raced by Allan McDonald that season. It was then sold to Graham Duxbury who raced it very successfully in 1981. Retained for the first few races of 1982 until Duxbury's new March 82A arrived and then sold to Ivan Moavero who used it for the rest of that season. Sold to Steve Herbst for 1983, but in August he swapped it for Roy Moss's March 792. Raced by Moss until the end of 1984. He then sold it to Terry Moss, who was unrelated, for the 1985 season, but Moss crashed the car at Kyalami in April, destroying the front of the monocoque. Moss built up a March 782 using parts salvaged from the 77B, but the tub was scrapped. The 77B effectively ceased to exist at this point.
6. Maurer MM80 ["02"] (Vernon Bricknell): Vernon Bricknell acquired a Maurer MM80 for the South African Sigma Series in 1981. The car was identified in at least five different entry lists in early 1981 as "Maurer MM80-02", indicating that it was chassis MM80-02, but the car is believed in South Africa to have been chassis MM80-04. Raced by Bricknell through the 1981 season, and raced again at some events in 1982. The car was then retained by Bricknell in his aircraft hanger until being sold in the mid 1990s to his friend Neil Watson-Smith in Durban, and then on to Gordon Capper. The car was restored by Duncan Thersby. The car was later acquired from Capper by Graham Vos (Johannesburg, Gauteng), and sold by him to Reg Anderson (Cape Town, Western Cape) at some point before 2006.
7. March 722 [11] (John McNicol): New to Brett Lunger, and entered by Space Racing for him in F2 in 1972. Bob Sparshott's partner John 'Ace' Woodington was in charge of the F1 team, with ex-Surtees mechanic Roger Flynn. Lunger also raced the car in the Torneio do Brasil in October and November 1972. March records show that this car was sold to Guy Tunmer in December 1972, although press reports at the time said Tunmer had bought the ex-Ronnie Peterson car. Tunmer (Sandton, South Africa) had acquired the 722 for the new "F2" class of the South African national championship, and had it fitted with an 1800cc Cosworth FVC and raced it through 1973. The car was not seen in 1974, but is believed to have been kept as a spare to Tunmer's new Chevron. In 1975, it was sold to André Verwey (Johannesburg, South Africa) who planned to rebuild it with a BMW F2 engine and Hewland FG400 gearbox, but when Formula Atlantic was announced, he updated it with bright red 74B bodywork and a Nicholson BDA engine. Used in this form by Verwey in two races late 1975, and then into 1976. Sold back to the Tunmers in mid-1976 for Mervyn Tunmer to use, when it was reclothed in March 76B bodywork. Unused in 1977, but then sold to Andrew Thompson in 1978, converted to a Ford V6 engine for the new formula, and raced in that form by Bobby Scott in 1979. At this time it had mostly 77B bodywork but with a front radiator and 79B sidepods, and was sponsored by Rembrandt through its Kronenbräu 1308 Lager brand. After Rembrandt's withdrawal, it was sold to Mel Lahner's Rackrite team for 1980, and raced by Derek Ziman and John McNicol. It was rebuilt with a Mazda engine mid-season. Retained by Rackrite for 1981, when it was entered for McNicol, Ziman and Lahner, then raced by Bernard Tilanus for a few races before he left the team, then by his replacement Trevor van Rooyen, and finally McNicol took it over again. Both Tilanus and van Rooyen won races in it that season. It was retained again for 1982, when Lahner's son Wayne drove it, and by this time it was in standard March 77B bodywork, but with a 79B rear wing. It was retained by the Lahner family until 2004, when it was sold back to Andrew and Stuart Thompson.

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.

The Formula South Africa race results from 1979 to 1986 have been compiled by Allen Brown and Ian Hebblethwaite using many official results sheets from Ian's archive, as well as race reports in Autosport and Motoring News until their reports stopped in 1979, and then in the Rand Daily Mail and other South African publications. Adri Bezuidenhout's 'Wheels' yearbook, which listed the surnames of the top six finishers at each race but gave no other details, has been useful for races at Aldo Scribante and Goldfields Raceway where it has proved more difficult to find information. Articles in Formula South Africa race programmes have also proved very useful. Please help us complete that collection of scans.

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

Entry list needed. Adri Bezuidenhout's 'Wheels' yearbook gave aggregate position for the two races: Klomfass, Martin, Duxbury, Tilanus, Bricknell, McNicol. However, Rand Daily Mail 27 Jul 1981 reported that Tilanus was third in both heats.