McRae GM2 history
Graham McRae in the McRae GM2 at Ontario Motor Speedway in September 1974. Image issued by Corel. Copyright Corel. Used with permission.
Designed, built and raced by Graham McRae, the Formula 5000 McRae GM2 won the Australian Grand Prix in November 1973 and also won the Lady Wigram Trophy in early 1975 before being wrecked in a testing accident a few weeks later.
Fashions in racing car design had moved a long way between the completion of the Leda LT27/McRae GM1 in late 1971 and the design of its replacement, the McRae GM2, in late 1973. The GM2 was a square, slab-sided car with twin radiators located behind its front suspension, similar to the template used by the Eagle 72 Indy car that McRae had driven at the Indy 500 earlier in 1973. The car's front suspension used rocker arms and inboard coil spring/damper units, and at the rear it had twin parallel lower links with top links and radius arms. This marked the end of racing car production at McRae's Poole factory, which had now been sold to Roger Penske's Indycar team. Graham also sold the rights to the GM2 design to Jack McCormack, who built them in the US as Talon MR-1s.
The new car's first race was the Rothmans British F5000 round at Brands Hatch on 21 October, where reports noted that it was turning a wheel for the first time. After a late start to practice, Graham had to start from the back of the grid but came through to seventh place before his shock absorbers failed. He then shipped the car 'down under' for the Australian Grand Prix at Sandown Park on 4 November. With more time to debug the GM2, Graham set a time of 62.5 seconds after only a small number of laps in practice. He improved to 61.8s to take fourth on the grid behind Gold Star leader John McCormack in his Elfin MR5 and the two Lola T330s of John Walker and Kevin Bartlett. When rain started to fall, McRae passed Walker and then Bartlett, and started closing on McCormack. McRae took the lead when a bolt came out of McCormack's suspension, but somehow the Elfin held together and the pair duelled until the finish, the McRae taking a narrow win. The following weekend he dominated a round of the New Zealand Gold Star at Pukekohe, winning from pole.
Graham then drove the GM2 in the 1974 Tasman series, retiring from the first three races but taking second places at Teretonga Park and Sandown Park. He then moved back to America to race one of McCormack's new Talons in the US F5000 series, but the relationship quickly fell apart, and Graham drove his own McRae GM2 in the last few races of the series. He then took the GM2 back to New Zealand for the start of the 1975 Tasman series, where it ran a Ferrari-style front aerofoil. Graham was fastest in practice at all four New Zealand races. He led comfortably at Levin until a suspension breakage and led briefly at Pukekohe before running out of tyres and then quitting the series as he had run out of finance. The Wigram Trophy organisers arranged a deal for him to compete, and he duly dominated the race, winning by nearly 30 seconds. He failed to start at Teretonga due to a wheel bearing failure. Moving to Australia for the second leg of the series, he was completely off the pace at Oran Park, and his season finished when a wheel locked up under braking in practice for Surfers Paradise and the GM2 ploughed into the barrier, badly distorting the monocoque. Graham sold the GM2 and used a Lola T332 for the 1975 US F5000 series.
If you can add to our understanding of these cars, or have photographs that we can use, please email Allen at allen@oldracingcars.com.
The McRae GM2 waits to practice at Sandown Park in February 1974. Copyright Stewart Clark 2016. Used with permission.
New for Graham McRae to race in the Rothmans F5000 round at Brands Hatch on 21 October, before being shipped to Australia for the Australian Grand Prix at Sandown Park on 4 November, which he won. Then taken to New Zealand for a New Zealand Gold Star race at Pukekohe the following weekend. He then used the car in the 1974 Tasman series in New Zealand and Australia. Later in 1974, he took the car to the US for three high-profile rounds of the US F5000 series, but was off the pace. He was then back to New Zealand for the 1975 Tasman series and took pole position at each of the four New Zealand rounds, winning the Lady Wigram Trophy. He then moved to Australia for the second leg of the series but crashed while testing on the Thursday before the Surfers Paradise race and the car was damaged beyond immediate repair. It was bought from Graham by Mike Brayton, and retained by him for many years. Still reportedly with Brayton in 2009 but there has been no further news of the car since then.
Driven by: Graham McRae. First race: Brands Hatch (UK R18), 21 Oct 1973. Total of 18 recorded races.
Acknowledgements
My thanks to Mike Brayton and to Michael Clark. It is worth adding that Graham McRae told Michael Clark that nothing remained of the GM2, but he may have been thinking of the way the later GM3 was completely consumed in the creation of the GM9.
Note that Graham Vercoe's impressive book The Golden Era of New Zealand Motor Racing (Reed Books, 1993) shows the GM2 having its first race at Pukekohe in New Zealand on 11 October. The dates for the first three Gold Star rounds are wrong in Vercoe's book: all three were in November, not October. My thanks to Andrew Horrox for that correction.
If you can add to our understanding of these cars, or have photographs that we can use, please email Allen at allen@oldracingcars.com.
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