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Marcos at Nurburgring 1964 |
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Wednesday, 05 December 2007 |
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John Fuller
Marcos History
NURBURGRING 500 Km. RACE 1964
By John Fuller
For the second year running, Robert Cook and I were asked by John Sutton to be his mechanics for the 500km, race at Nurburgring in Germany.
We left Dover on Tuesday night for Ostend and then by road through Belgium to Germany, arriving at Nurburg in time for lunch on Wednesday.
The Marcos was the same one which had been entered in 1963 gaining a second place in its class. The Marcos is of unusual construction the chassis being made of box sections of plywood that has the advantage of light weight combined with stiffness. The engine is the Ford 105E 1000 cc. unit tuned to formula junior standard.
Official practice did not start until Friday but the circuit is open to the public on payment of a small sum. This enabled John to get in a few laps of the circuit on Thursday to learn his way round the 14 miles of bends and hills. Practising on public days can be dangerous since all types of vehicles are allowed on the circuit at the same time, anything from coaches to autocycles. A Mini Cooper was virtually written off avoiding two army lorries that were completely filling the road, forcing the Mini into the ditch. The driver was unhurt but his passenger broke his arms and spent the rest of the day in hospital.
John confined his practice to circulating steadily gaining experience as to the best way round the many corners. Most of this practice was carried out in a Cortina GT that proved itself well able to cope with the tortuous parts of the circuit although the gap between second and third gears was found to be too wide for second gear to be used to advantage.
During official practice on Friday, the Marcos was found to be bottoming on its rear springs round some corners, especially the banked Karussel which was bumpy. Rubber spring helpers were fitted and the car taken out for practice once more. However, the spring rate had been increased too much and the rear wheels tended to lift off the ground inducing wheel spin when accelerating down the straight. The car was eventually returned to its previous condition which gave first class road holding, and it was decided to live with the rear springs bottoming on a few corners. Sunday, the day of the race, was wet and misty. This was the cause of discussion between drivers since the practice had taken place in perfect conditions with no one being able to practice in the wet. The cars were lined up ready for the Le Mans type start in order of practice times. John was about one-third of the way down the field of eighty-six starters. This starting position was not particularly important in a race of over 300 miles.
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| Video of Race |
The cars were divided into several classes:
| Touring cars |
up to 600cc - 601cc to 700cc - 701cc to 850cc - 851cc to 1000cc - 1001cc to 1300cc |
| Grand Touring cars |
up to 1000cc - 1001cc to 1300cc |
| Prototypes |
up to 850cc - 851cc to 1000cc - 1001cc to 1300cc |
| Production GT cars |
Including Fiat Abarth, 4 Marcos, Honda sports car 600cc |
John was entered in the class for Production GT cars up to 1000 cc. This class included a Fiat Abarth, three other Marcoses and the Honda sports car (600 cc. which looks rather like a Sprite.
The fastest car in the class in practice had been the works-entered Fiat Abarth, followed by the Marcoses and the Honda, that had trouble with its rear axle.
The rain eased just before the start of the race but it was still damp and overcast. At the fall of the flag the drivers raced across the track to their cars. Because the engine stalled John was a little slow getting away although still about half-way down the field. For the whole race, Fiat and Simca Abarths were in the lead, althoughFitzpatrick in a Mini Cooper 'S' 1275 cc. was second for a few laps after the start, but was soon to retire with ignition trouble. We were more concerned with the position in the class, and after the first lap John was fourth behind Geiss (Fiat Abarth), Nash (Marcos) and McLaren. These positions were only to last for a few laps before breakdowns began to occur. Chris McLaren stopped out on the circuit with ignition trouble and had to retire. He was on the train home before the race was over leaving his mechanic to collect the car. Nash was having trouble with his dynamo which was not charging and made several pit stops one of which was prolonged because his starter motor would not turn the engine, due to a nearly flat battery. This left the positions as Fiat Abarth, Honda (D. Hulme), Marcos (Sutton), Marcos (Nash), Marcos (Forsdyke). As half distance came closer, the pits grew more active as the cars stopped to refuel. We made quite a quick refuelling stop despite the fuel line being shut off and having to move to another supply line. Oil and fuel were checked and found to be O.K. and John was off once more.The Honda and the Abarth arrived at the pits almost together but the Honda was away first and now led the class. After the race the Abarth driver was very upset to find he was behind the Honda, not having seen it get in front of him at the pit-stop. Now it was John's turn to have ignition trouble when a lead dropped off the distributor, but he was able to trace the fault and continue.
We learnt after the race that McLaren's trouble was very similar, but because he knew very little about the working of the car he was unable to do anything about it.
Nash was circulating very quickly and steadily, catching up his lost time, but to no avail. Another pit stop had to be made, this time for oil.The order remained the same until the finish, with Honda first, Fiat Abarth second, and John third in the class. The overall winner was Hans Herrman (Abarth Simca 1300). We were more than satisfied with the result, since to finish in such a long event is a good effort especially in the bad conditions. The most remarkable thing about the results was the performance of the Honda 600 driven by Denny Hulme which was able to hold off the challenge from the 1000 cc. cars although perhaps aided by the wet conditions.
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 06 December 2007 )
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