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This car is Gary West’s 2004 Australian Hillclimb Championship winning car and I took the opportunity to talk to Gary about his car on the last day of the 2004 Australian Hillclimb Championship and asked him what was the car’s history.
“This car is a 1988 F3000 Lola, from the factory team, that was originally purchased by Alan Hamilton in 1989”.
“Alan brought two of the F3000 Lola’s into the country with the
Cosworth V8 engines that were originally fitted. In one of the cars
(this one in fact) he replaced the Cosworth V8 with a Buick V6”. To me
this seemed like a strange thing to do, however as Gary explained “Alan
wanted torque for hillclimb events and he subsequently became the
Australian Hillclimb Champion in 1989”...so what do I know!
Gary also said that Alan Hamilton was never really very happy with the
car as he felt that it never really lived up to his expectation. Having
said that the car has had substantial changes made to it since then.
Gary has fitted a larger Buick engine that is a genuine, all alloy motorsport
engine. This means very substantial changes such that the Buick V6 has no parts in
common with a Holden Commodore engine!
The Engine has an alloy block, different heads/crankshaft and the heads
are held to the block by 14 head studs per side. Obviously the
induction for such a car is bespoke and you can see that the carbon
airbox and runners appear to have been adapted from the original
Cosworth to suit the Buick, though to be fair we did not check this
with Gary at the time as he had a run to complete on the track.
I did hear a comment in the pits about the use of tape to seal the
carbon fibre section to the cast aluminium manifold, however this is an
entirely practical solution for an item that may need to be removed and
replaced a number of occasions in an event.
The transaxle is a Hewland FGB units, that is almost at its torque
limit with the current 4.9l Buick engine. Gary reported that they have
on occasion stripped new second gear sets in the Hewland, though the
transaxle is generally reliable.
As with a lot of the other Hillclimb cars, Gary did not run or use
first gear in this event. First gear is often too short for some tracks
and it means another gear-change and lost time. In front of the head
you can see the mounting point.
Gary reported that there is an engine plate that goes around the front
of the engine. These tabs then bolt the power train to the composite
tub at hard-points installed during the construction of the tub.
Gary noted that the tub is of carbon fibre/aluminium honeycomb/carbon
fibre construction. The rest of the car is constructed of carbon/Nomex
honeycomb/carbon (floor and possibly engine cover) or carbon and foam
(side-pods).
The wings are made from carbon and have carbon tubes supporting the
full width of the aerofoil to the endplates. This carbon tube may seem
excessive, but these wings are very effective and one of the last thing
you would want to happen is to have a wing fold approaching or mid
corner (or anywhere for that matter)..
Gary noted that it has always been a Formula Libre car in Australia and has never been used for Formula Holden racing.
One thing that was immediately noticeable with this particular car was
the attention to detail as you looked at aspects of the layout.
All of the bodywork fitted well and the undertray/diffuser was well
sealed where the exhaust passed through, ensuring the maximum
effectiveness vital for good downforce.
The bottom wing also seems well placed to act as a ‘driver’ for the
diffuser. This is where the low pressure on the lower surface of the
wing adds to the low pressure at the back of the diffuser, increasing
its ability to draw air out from under the car. Naturally this increase
downforce.
Gary explained that he has had lots of contact with Simon McBeath
(author of a number of motorsport books). Gary said that Simon was very
approachable and always replied to questions asked, “everything we did
as a development we talked to him about and discussed the
advantages/disadvantages, he’s a very nice guy”
When I asked what is your work? Gary replied “All the floor area and
the engine cover, the side pods and the wing profile were done by the
previous owner”.
The composite work on the car such as the floor uses epoxy resin to hold the fibres together.
We’ve gone double wing (instead of the previously single plane wing)
mounted off the endplates which cuts out the mounting system, and then
we’ve changed all the front flap arrangement and endplates and we’ve
extended the engine cover to clean up the airflow to the rear wing”
We discussed the need to use good bodywork prior to the wings and Gary
explained that he has done some testing by filming wool tufts to try
and spot where the air was separating from the original bodywork. This
information was used to design the current engine cover.
Gary reported that “It’s a lot of work, the floor was probably the
biggest job, making a mould to do the whole floor and the diffuser”.
I asked if the ground effects were noticeable? And Gary’s response was
yes, particularly as the undertray/diffuser get closer to the ground,
the danger being that the car can bottom out due to the downforce.
Gary reported that they have tested sealing strips down either side of
the car, which sealed (or nearly so) the undertray to the road as the
ground effect F1 cars did a while back.
Gary noted that this was very effective and made “a huge difference”,
but that they cannot use them for competition so the investigation was
not followed up any longer.
The West team have different wing setups for different speeds.
A completely different setup is used at Barbagello, where the car hits
265KPH at the end of the straight (25 kph faster than a Supercar).
When asked if the aero package affected the gearing choices made, Gary
replied that what you do have to be very careful of was matching the
spring rates to the aero package run on the day.
Gary explained that he starts the lap in second gear, changes to third
at 8600-8800rpm just before the bridge, then over the rise and down to
the keyhole. During the previous run Gary had recorded a 165KPH entry
speed into the keyhole. Gary noted that he had to deal with some
understeer, then accelerating up the left hand sweeper, “arriving at
Skyline at 150KPH and then basically just rolling around the ‘S’ trying
to lose as little time as possible”.
Gary noted that the S was “generally a bit tight for what we are trying to do, but its the same for everybody”
Gary’s friendly manner typified the response we got from competitors at
the event and we are indebted to him for taking the time to speak to us
on the day he became the 2004 Australian Hillclimb Champion.
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