ROUND 5: MCLAREN BEATS CHAPPARAL BY 3.3"

The Los Angeles Times Grand Prix at Riverside is contested one week after the last F1 Grand Prix of the season. The race was won by Jim Clark, already his fourth victory this season, but the title goes to Denis Hulme who finished third. Since Jack Brabham failed to win, and since Hulme won more than 2 points, Denis is the new world champion.
Since last year the circuit has a bad reputation. It's here that on August 17 of last year Ken Miles had his fatal accident at the wheel of the 7.0 Ford J prototype. And this year Billy Foster had here his deadly accident during practice for the Riverside 500 miles.
But the show must go on and we find 39 entrants at round 5 of the 1967 CANAM Series. Contrarly to the four former rounds the two McLarens M6A are no longer without competition. Several teams succeeded to undo their technical arears on both Kiwi cars. At the qualifications Dan Gurney, using a 5.3-litre Weslake headed Ford motor in his #36 AAR Lola T70 Mk3B, realises the best time: 1'39"3, that is 0.3 secs faster than Bruce McLa-ren and 1"3 secs faster than Denis Hulme realising the third best time. Then follows Jim Hall at the wheel of his Chaparral 2G, now 20 kgs lighter tan at his last show. Ford fans are happy to see that the Honker II Ford of Mario Andretti is at last competitive. With 1'41"6 he clocks the fifth time. Another Ford engined car, Parnelli Jones's Lola T70 Mk2, equipped with the 5-litre Ford Indy motor, is sixth. That means that we find 3 Fords and 3 Chevrolets in the top-6 on the grid. For the first time this year we'll have at least a thrilling race. The fourth ray on the grid is for both Dana cars, the Lolas T70 Mk2 Chevrolet of Peter Revson and Lothar Motschen-bacher. Another candidate on victory could be John Surtees, but his Lola T70 Mk3B, now powered with a 5.8-litre Chevrolet prepaired by Traco, continues suffering from its suspension problems. He's 9th on the grid, followed by the two Roger Penske Lolas T70 Chevrolet of Mark Donohue and George Follmer, themselves split by the excellent ex-Amon McLaren M1C entered by Canada's Eustache Soucy for Mike Spence.
A newcomer at Riverside is the since long expected Shelby King Cobra Ford, driven by Transam champion Jerry Titus. Body design is from Len Terry and improvement by Phil Remington. It's an official FoMoCo entry. With a weight of 675 kgs it is the lightest car on the grid. Motor is a 6,183cc Gurney-Weslake headed Ford, developing 520bhp. Alimentation by four inverse double Webers. Transmission by ZF gearbox. In hands of a better driver - concludes Gérard Crombac of the French Sport Auto magazine - the car could certainly have done better than Titus's 1'44"0, good for a 13th place on the grid, ahead of the Chris Amon Ferrari 350P4 weighting 75 kgs more and developing 35 bhp less.
Of the private entries not the Lola T70 Mk2 Chevrolet of Roger McClusky but the McLaren M1B Chevrolet of Chuck Parsons is the fastest at the qualifications. The similar car #91 of Canada's George Eaton disappoints.
Another newcomer at Riverside is the four years old Genie Mk10 Ford of Doug Hooper, superbly painted, but except for two the slowest car on the grid, 15 seconds per lap slower than Dan Gurney's Lola T70 Mk3B Ford. There is also an old Hamill SR2 Chevrolet at the qualifications, even slower than the Genie Mk10, and thus retired before the race.
Tony Settember, is present with a Matich SR3 where the Braham-Repco engine was replaced by an Oldsmobile. The car is 10 secs per lap slower than the fastest cars. [JPVR]

At Riverside we found for the first time this year an extremely competitive Chaparral 2G, able to fight with equal arms the two McLarens M6A.

At Riverside Dan Gurney clocked the fastest time at the qualifications with his AAR Lola T70 Mk3B Ford. Unfortunately he failed for the fifth consecu-tive time to reach the finish line.

Peter Revson qualified his Dana Lola T70 Mk2 at the 7th place on the grid.

At Riverside we find at least a competitive Honker II Ford. Mario Andretti clocked this time the 5th best time of the 39 cars at the start. A deficient gear selection fork will cause his retirement after 10 laps. Picture of the Honker's cockpit as published by the French magazine Sport Auto (n°71, December 1967, p. 65).

fac simili of article in Autosport, November 3, 1967, p. 762.

1.