{"id":499200,"date":"2021-03-15T12:02:07","date_gmt":"2021-03-15T19:02:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportscardigest.com\/\/?p=117394"},"modified":"2024-12-27T12:59:42","modified_gmt":"2024-12-27T12:59:42","slug":"1966-chaparral-2e-aerodynamics-made-visible","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.supercars.net\/blog\/1966-chaparral-2e-aerodynamics-made-visible\/","title":{"rendered":"1966 Chaparral 2E – Aerodynamics Made Visible"},"content":{"rendered":"

No racing car exemplified and exploited the admirable freedom of the Can-Am series rules more than the 1966 Chaparral 2E. It introduced new aerodynamic concepts that were game-changing, though it took a while for others to catch on.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

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David Kimble superbly captured the features of the Chaparral 2E, including the tubes that carried the wings with their hydraulic actuators hidden inside their aerofoil covers.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Jim Hall\u2019s Chaparrals were the cars to beat when the Can-Am series was born. In the SCCA\u2019s U.S. Road Racing Championship, the amateur series that predated and later paralleled the Can-Am, the Chaparral 2A had been almost unbeatable. Their outstanding success in 1964 and 1965 in the USRRC helped make them top Can-Am favorites. At that time Hap Sharp, a partner in their company Chaparral Cars in Midland, Texas, shared the driving in the two-car team with Jim. Older than Hall, Sharp was a source of good ideas, which, bounced against Jim\u2019s engineering education at Cal Tech, and produced results.<\/p>\n

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Chaparral 2A<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As an example of their pace, before the USRRC race at Watkins Glen, in 1965, Dic Van der Feen of the SCCA took Jim Hall aside and pleaded, \u201cCouldn\u2019t you just take it a little easy this time and not lap the cars behind you? It makes it look so bad when they\u2019re lapped.\u201d Jim allowed as how he\u2019d think about it, then went out and, under pressure from Hap, went so fast that the third-place car was triple-lapped! When he saw Van der Feen after the race Jim struck his forehead and rolled his eyes skyward: \u201cI\u2019m sorry, Dic. I forgot all about it!\u201d<\/p>\n

However, some forces were working against Jim Hall. In 1966, he was making his first big attempt to win races in Europe with Chaparral coupes, an effort that took far more time than he had expected. The 2D coupes were their USRRC roadsters, with glass-fibre tubs, rebuilt for long-distance racing. One of them won the N\u00fcrburgring 1,000 Kilometres with Phil Hill and Jo Bonnier driving and Hap Sharp the team chief.<\/p>\n

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Chaparral 2D<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Also, 1966 saw the maturing of the first attempts by the British to build cars to use the big American V-8 engines that were on offer. With these behind their drivers, both Lola and McLaren became major competitors for the first time. But they were entering a field that for several years had been dominated by American-built, mid-engined specials, high-horsepower cocktails mixing Cooper and Lotus chassis, built for smaller engines, with Chevy and Ford V-8s. The Chaparral was the best of the all-new American cars that followed this first experimental stage.<\/p>\n

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A couple of years earlier the Texans had forged a link with an arm of General Motors that was thrusting in new directions under the guidance of engineer Frank Winchell. This was Chevrolet\u2019s Research and Development arm, to which Jim and Hap had been introduced by Styling chief Bill Mitchell. With their Corvair bits and pieces the R&D people had been experimenting with mid-engined chassis. In 1963, in a project headed by young engineer Jim Musser, they built an aluminium monocoque with racing suspension, the latest wide t-res and tuned engine that they called the GS-IIb. Its panels were riveted and bonded with a 3M adhesive that was oven-cured.<\/p>\n

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\r\n GS-IIb\r\n <\/div><\/figure>
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\r\n GS-IIb\r\n <\/div><\/figure>\n

Weighing 1,450 pounds with ultra-thin GRP bodywork, the GS-IIb reached 198 mph at GM\u2019s Milford Proving Grounds. With a racing-type car needing a racing-type track for testing in secret\u2014not least from the eyes of GM\u2019s officials and informers\u2014R&D found the answer in Midland, Texas at Rattlesnake Raceway. This was a pear-shaped track that Hall and Sharp had built to test their cars. Hall saw eye to eye with Winchell, both preferring to work out of public view until they were ready to be judged by their creations.<\/p>\n