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Historic Allards in Australia |
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Text by Bill Hunter
- Photographs by Bill Hunter (Published on 22 Dec 2004) |
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Graham Smith is a racing driver who prepares cars for Classic and Historic events. Two cars which he currently owns are a blue March Formula 5000 in which he took fastest time of day at the Geelong speed trials in 2002, and the ex Stan Jones Allard J2 - a fiery and spectacular red sports car with an Australian history that dates back to the 1950s. |
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In both driving and and racecar preparation he has had to be familiar with every aspect of CAMS regulations, which specify that to gain a competition logbook, cars entered in competition as 'Historic' must be as they were at the time of their construction.
However, when these cars are capable of speeds of 140 mph, failure of components can have drastic consequences. As the many warnings state, "motor racing is dangerous," and old technologies and old componentry cannot always be relied upon.
When a rare and classic car is involved in a destructive accident, the obvious temptation when rebuilding is to 'improve on' original components and practice. Not only does this inevitably end in a CAMS refusal to issue a logbook, but buying and selling a car with suspect provenance is likely to end in costly litigation. Scrutineers earn their money through eagle-eyed inspection of every last detail.
It is because Graham has a high degree of integrity, competence and experience with historic machines and the law, he has been successful in campaigning one of Australia's rarest and most valuable sports cars - the ex Stan Jones Allard J2. And because of his success with the Australian J2, he has been commissioned to prepare a unique and valuable J2: the car built and owned by Sydney Allard for the Le Mans 24 hour race in 1950. Its present owner, visiting Australia from the United States, approached Graham after watching him race here, and asked him to prepare the car for the Phillip Island Historics in February 2005.
Along with the car that was shipped out from America came the complete set of factory working drawings and specifications. Amongst the files of certificates and race history was an old photo of Sydney driving the car. Graham held the photograph for me to photograph him holding the ...
I noticed that Sydney was not wearing flame-proofs, eye or head protection, nor safety harness. I guessed that he had set up the steering and suspension for old type uneven and bumpy circuits rather than for the flat tarmac tracks that cars race on today. The look on Sydney's face is a sight not to be forgotten.
Roll on Phillip Island. The Sydney Allard green car and the ex Stan Jones red car will compete in a feature race during the long weekend before the Australian Grand Prix. A galaxy of international stars will be at the Island there along with MotorSnippets.
A word about two other cars on which Graham is working, both of which are stored in the containers that brought them out here. The small yellow sports car is a Moretti from the 1950s. It uses a 750cc engine, and was built at the time when the Grand Prix Formula was 750cc blown or 1500cc unblown. In the same container is the raw aluminium body shell of the ex-Phil Hill Ferrari Monza. It was made before disc brakes became the norm, and Ferrari sought optimum brake efficiencey by using big diameter narrow drums. General opinion is that brakes were the Monza's biggest failing.
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