Rate this article:
Speed Addicts: Grand Prix Racing
Speed Addicts is the complete and definitive illustrated book of grand prix motor racing, told in the form of a human story.
Our Price: $34.99 ON SALE!
Mickey Thompson: The Fast Life and Tragic Death of a Racing Legend
The complete story of this true American legend is one worth slowing down for.
Our Price: $25.00
Victory By Design: Ferrari DVD
Alain de Cadenet, a long-time Ferrari enthusiast and aficionado, drives some of the great sports racers and sports cars.
Our Price: $24.95
Written by:
Marshall Pruett
03/27/2008 - 02:26 PM
Hayward, CA
Geoff Brabham got used to holding trophies aloft with four consecutive IMSA GTP driver championships. (Photo: Marshall Pruett) » More Photos
Two years in the making, SPEEDtv.com and the American Le Mans Series have partnered to reach back into the classic American sportscar racing archives and bring the golden era of prototypes and GT cars to the web. After you've finished the article, click on this link to enjoy 42 minutes of IMSA GTP heaven.
With so many classic seasons of intense battles to choose from, I picked an event to kick off the IMSA Memories series that has a special meaning to me and a few others. For SPEED’s F1 host Bob Varsha (and host of the ’89 IMSA season), he can still recall each round in vivid detail. For the race’s winner, Geoff Brabham, the triumph of Sears Point stands out nearly twenty years after it finished.
“The battles Nissan had with Jaguar really made the racing hard but exciting, plus the cars were awesome to drive. I did that race solo and that gave me the edge at the critical moment just after the pit stops and the Jaguar driver change. The track was a challenge in a car like the Nissan but it was also a track you did not want to make a mistake on.”
Brabham’s Nissan carried him to consecutive driver championships in 1988 and 1989; his Electromotive team used this first generation chassis and engine to rewrite the books on prototype technology and performance after years of Porsche’s GTP domination. “In 1988 and 1989 we had the best car and as a team, we did a very good job getting the most out of the car. Also our electronics package was very good which made the car very easy to drive. The power was good enough but the way it was transferred to the ground was the cars strong point. The downforce from the tunnels was not what it should have been but it was better than the Porsches & Jaguars at that time.
The Nissan’s superiority was also due in part to better engine packaging from the single turbo V-6 and the improved downforce that it allowed the team to exploit. “The problem with the Porsche was the flat-6 engine made their tunnels too narrow and they never had enough downforce to compete with the Nissan and Jaguar. As far as the Jaguar was concerned I am not really sure what their problem was, other than the V12 was too big and heavy and the Turbo car was never as strong as I thought it should have been.
As Mike Fuller, director of the popular technical sportscar racing website ‘Mulsanne’s Corner’ offered, the power and downforce available to Brabham in ’88 and ’89 put them a cut above the rest. “According to Electromotive’s John Knepp, Nissan had 850 hp in '88, around 750 hp in '89. IMSA implemented inlet restrictors starting in '88 (57 mm) and the decreased the size 3 mm further in '89 (54 mm). Efforts went away from producing maximum power and concentrated on the development of torque. Nissan had led the way in electronic waste gate controls so when the inlet restrictors came into effect, Nissan had a further leg up on the competition.”
Compare the staggering amount of downforce the Nissan ZX-T, the dominant car of its time, made in sprint racing trim, “Around 8000 lbs,” according to Fuller, to the 5500 lbs of downforce the all-conquering Audi R8’s made, and with gobs of extra horsepower and thousands of pounds of extra downforce over modern LMP cars, champions like Geoff Brabham dealt with cornering, braking, and accelerative forces we haven’t seen in prototype racing for many years.
Brabham also cites the special bond with Electromotive’s designer and engineer Trevor Harris as the secret to both his success, and that of the team. “My relationship with Trevor was very good and together we were always trying to improve even when we were the fastest. I made a lot of calls on strategy which I think was better than Jaguars who seemed not to allow the drivers much input, so I think we reacted quicker when needed.” Four straight driver championships from 1988 to 1991 would mark Brabham as the most successful driver of the GTP era, and the Japanese-American cars he drove the benchmark for ingenuity and execution.
For Bob Varsha, announcing the 1989 IMSA GTP season was a launching pad for a long and distinguished career. “It was a big year for me professionally. After a one-off at the Austrian Grand Prix two years earlier, I succeeded Chris Economaki alongside David Hobbs and John Bisignano on the ESPN Formula One broadcasts. But whenever F1 conflicted with the Camel GT schedule I usually covered the latter event, because back then IMSA’s premiere series was considered at least as important to the network as the World Championship.
The scream of the V-12 Jaguars still echo for those that heard them race twenty years ago. (Photo: Marshall Pruett) » More Photos
“And rightly so. After all, this was the heyday of the awesome, big-horsepower prototype sports cars. The Porsche 962 was still an effective weapon for a fleet of privateer teams, giving them a strong chance of winning against the factory Nissan ZX-Ts, the TWR Jaguars (running both the 12-cylinder and 6-hole turbos that year) and the new blood from Toyota, who had won everything in GT and were joining the top class with Dan Gurney’s All American Racers team.
“All this plus Chevy
Like Brabham, this particular race stands the test of time for Varsha. “The race at Sears Point, now Infineon Raceway, was late in the year. Geoff Braham and teammate Chip Robinson were in the running for the drivers’ championship, and it was a hard-fought thing: the two had collided with one another in the previous race at San Antonio. Brabham’s engine failed later in the race, and perhaps only Robinson’s winning saved the two from the wrath of team boss Kas Kastner. The Sears Point race featured a great drive from behind by Brabham against a superstar field of drivers. I’ll say no more. Enjoy!”
For my own race recollections, the ’89 Sears Point GTP event started off miserably and never improved. As a mechanic for the Sears Point-based Pfeiffer Ridge Racing team, my first weekend on the job for Pfeiffer Ridge would see me as the mechanic in charge of Tom Blackaller’s Swift DB2 Sports 2000 racecar. Blackaller, a semi-regular IMSA driver, ESPN broadcaster, and winning captain of the America’s Cup yachting entry, had a long history with the team. For me, as a nineteen year old racing mechanic, I was both honored and in awe of the famous skipper.
Belting him into the car for the opening practice session on Thursday morning, Blackaller was anxious to get out on the track and said very few words as he pulled on his crash helmet. Other than telling him I’d signal him to pit after five laps to double check everything was OK, he pulled out onto the track and never made it around to complete his first lap.
We didn’t have car-to-pit radios yet, so I had no way of asking him what was wrong; I’d assumed something had broken—likely something stupid, and likely something that was my fault. The Sports 2000 session was halted a few minutes later without mention of the reason, and it seemed likely that Tom’s car was blocking the track. I prepared for a thrashing by my boss, and was embarrassed to have done something to rob our high profile client of precious track time.
An ambulance was soon dispatched towards turn seven, and by that time, I’d resigned myself to being fired after less than two hours on the job. The next thing I remember was being back in our shop. Pfeiffer Ridge’s owner, Bob Lesnett, called all of us into his office and told us that Tom had suffered a massive coronary failure coming our of turn six, the ‘Carousel’ turn, and in his last moments, pulled the car to a halt on the left side of the road near turn seven.
Corner workers reported seeing him pull over and stop, but after failing to move or attempt to get out of the car, they ran to his aid. By that time, Tom had already passed—it took less than ten seconds according to the doctors.
I was shell shocked. Blackaller was the first driver to have died in a car I was in charge of, and at nineteen, I’d never imagined such a thing happening. In the annals of rough first days on the job, this one still ranks right up there. Lesnett would find out later that Blackaller had gone to get his mandatory physical as a part of the IMSA driver licensing process, but when the physician found his arteries and heart to be in such dire shape, his failed physical test barred him from being granted an IMSA license.
With that road block in place, Blackaller rang Lesnett to ask about driving one of the team’s Swifts without mentioning the failed physical. For reasons I do not understand, Blackaller was granted an SCCA competition license and allowed to take part in the Sports 2000 support race against the strict advisement of his doctor, and without passing physical test results.
I’ve forgotten most of the rest of the weekend, except for the wicked on-track battle between the Nissan’s and Jag’s in the Camel GT race on Sunday. GTP racing had always been the tonic to raise the spirits, and as I hope you’ll enjoy in our first IMSA Memories web video feature, the long tradition of exciting prototype racing in the GTP series, and today’s modern version of IMSA, the American Le Mans Series.
Nissan vs. Jag. Peugeot vs. Audi. Toyota vs. Porsche. Porsche vs. Acura.
LMP. GTP. LMP2. Camel Lights…does it get any better?
Many thanks to Geoff Brabham, Bob Varsha, and Mike Fuller of MulsannesCorner.com for their help with this story.
(Got old races on VHS or converted to DVD? Our collection is by no means complete—especially the pre-’86 races. Email me if you have complete, quality versions of IMSA GTP, GTO/GTU, and ALMS races we can duplicate. We’ll credit you for your help in the story that accompanies the video.)
Commenting is not allowed in this article.
- Press Releases | Advertising | Jobs | Feedback | Terms & Conditions | Privacy | Site Map
Fox Sports | FUEL TV | FX Network | FOXReality | National Geographic - © Copyright 2008 Speed Channel, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
