in briEF - Mundo Motorizado

Surtees became the inaugural can-Am champion in his chevrolet-powered Lola T70
competitive car. And in T70 and F1
Cooper T81-Maserati, he would
end 1966 as the pacesetter.
A week after a split bag tank had
prevented him taking the fight to
Ferrari at the Italian GP, he was at
swooping St Jovite in Quebec for
Can-Am’s opening 200-miler.
Having qualified on pole, he
fought a classic duel with Bruce
McLaren’s smaller but more
bulbous spaceframed M1B. Even
when the Kiwi waved through
team-mate Chris Amon, a lap
down and charging after an early
excursion, Surtees refused to be
ruffled and won by 6.5 seconds.
Over the next fortnight the
admirable Malone hauled their rig
to Long Island’s Bridgehampton
and then back to Mosport, where
Team Surtees was based in a
small garage owned by helper Ron
Mutton in nearby Bowmanville.
Malone’s reward? Two
retirements from two races.
Bridgehampton was notable for
the arrival of Hall’s sensational
flappy-winged Chaparral 2Es,
complete with exclusive
lightweight aluminium-blocked
V8s direct from GM’s back door.
DAYS OF THUNDER FOR SURTEES
By Paul Fearnley
The race, however, would provide
the only Can-Am victory for a Ford
engine, in the back of polesitter
Gurney’s T70. Surtees, who
started from the middle of the
front row, pitted early with
gear-selection bothers and was
stopped for good a few laps
later by a failed oil line.
At Mosport, he was not the only
fast man caught out by a quirky
qualifying procedure that allowed
times set during Thursday’s wet
session take precedence over those
recorded in the dry of Friday. As
the jumbled grid rumbled into
SURTEES’S 1966
CAN-AM RESULTS
ST JOviTE 1st
BRiDgEHAmpTON rtd (oil pipe)
mOSpORT rtd (accident)
LAgUNA SEcA rtd (accident)
RivERSiDE 1st
STARDUST 1st
Turn 1, scene of his 1965 crash, he
copped one in the driver’s door
and was forced to retire with a
crunched right-front corner. His
subsequent hospital visit was
thankfully short this time.
His bad luck continued seven
days later when, but for a tangle
with a backmarker, he might have
won the United States GP for
Cooper. Instead he left Watkins
Glen with a battling third position
and the race’s fastest lap.
Can-Am headed west for its
remaining three races.
Laguna Seca’s Monterey GP
January 17 2013 autosport.com 41