<\/a><\/p>\n

As promised in the last post, I have a story to tell regarding chassis 288 from Tom Walkinshaw Racing, it was put together by Kerry Morse a few years back when we ran SportsCarPros together. Typical of Kerry’s work, it is too good to\u00a0molder\u00a0in the archives of a dormant website. Why now? Well the car was one of the stars of the Retromobile on the Hall & Hall stand, more on that topic later.<\/em><\/p>\n

Kerry and I both have a personal connection to the story and 288. I was shooting with Keith and Mark Sutton at the time and had introduced them to Castrol, which led to work with Jaguar and Silk Cut, so we were busy at Le Mans in 1990. If you have five minutes visit their archive\u00a0HERE<\/a>\u00a0you will soon lose an hour or two with all the amazing photography. It is with their permission that I use these images. Kerry’s connection is that he arranged the purchase of this car for a client a few years back. Plus we both hold Tony Dowe in high regard, this is really his tale……………<\/em><\/p>\n

John Brooks, February 2013<\/strong><\/p>\n

There are winners and there are WINNERS. Tony Dowe obviously belongs to that<\/em>
\nsecond group of selected individuals. John Brooks and I want to thank Tony for all<\/em>\u00a0his efforts over the years of getting great performances from the teams he has<\/em>\u00a0been involved with. He makes our job a lot more interesting. What was it that<\/em>\u00a0mean old Ron Dennis once said to a gathered group of hacks. I think it was<\/em>\u00a0something along the lines of \u201c We make the history, you only report it\u201d. Tony Dowe<\/em>\u00a0has made and continues to make history.<\/em><\/p>\n

Kerry Morse, February 2005<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

What it takes\u2026 Tony Dowe on winning at Le Mans with Jaguar<\/strong><\/p>\n

I worked for Tom Walkinshaw Racing from 1987 until 1998 as Managing Director of TWR USA.\u00a0During this period one of my \u201cduties\u201d was to supply a couple of cars as part of the\u00a0massive TWR\/Jaguar effort at Le Mans. Unfortunately it was always made clear,\u00a0never by Tom Walkinshaw of course, that the \u201cAmerican\u201d cars were only there to\u00a0support the real effort that was run from Kiddlington. Obviously this became a bit\u00a0\u201csecond hand\u201d and so after being the supporting act in 1988 and 1989 I gave\u00a0some serious thought as to how to:<\/p>\n

a) Win the race
\nb) Circumvent the restrictions placed on my U.S. team because of the\u00a0supporting role we were expected to play.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

The Rules of the Game<\/strong>
\nLet me say here that you should only undertake such an action if you\u2019re sure that\u00a0you can carry it off! Because to achieve anything less than the win is to open one\u2019s\u00a0self up for a very long period looking for a new job! Of course, if you win, then most\u00a0of your sins are forgiven!<\/p>\n

I always felt that TWR USA were a better race team than the UK team for no other\u00a0reason than by the time Le Mans came around we had done a 24 hour race, a 12\u00a0hour race and a couple of sprint races. The Group \u201cC\u201d team had probably only\u00a0done a single race and some testing. We were very sharp by 1990. We had\u00a0finished 1st and 2nd at the Daytona 24 Hours that year, 1990, and had had such a\u00a0better team we had each car race each other the whole 24 hours. It was a\u00a0fantastic race.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

TWR USA also had a couple of very good engineers, Ian Reed, recently head of development at Penske, and Dave Benbow, recently with Prodrive. Ian and Dave\u00a0were very good in their respective areas. Both were and are lateral thinkers and\u00a0complemented each other very well. Ian was, as now, very good with the\u00a0suspension and we were running dampers, for example, that were much ahead\u00a0of the ones used by the UK team. We had briefly used a pair on the rear of the car\u00a0in 1989 when Davy Jones led the race in the early stages.\u00a0The biggest problem that had to be overcome was that, along with most of the\u00a0other team cars, we were only allowed a single engine for both practice and the\u00a0race. The only team car that had a qualifying engine was the one that was lead by\u00a0Martin Brundle.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

As we were now running the V-6 turbo cars on a regular basis in the IMSA series,\u00a0we were able to take one of our V-12 cars out of the mix and prepare it with a lot of\u00a0love and care. We used chassis 288, which had won our first ever IMSA race in\u00a0the USA back at the 1988 Daytona 24 Hours. The lead mechanic was Winston\u00a0Bush, still in Indianapolis, and he did a super job of building a car to the exact\u00a0same specification as the UK cars!<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Dowe Chemicals<\/strong>
\nNow we get to the interesting bit!<\/p>\n

The week before we had to leave for Le Mans we were racing at Lime Rock Park.\u00a0Super place and made better when John Nielsen and Price Cobb won with a\u00a0turbo car for the first time, exactly a year after we had d\u00e9but of the first TWR Jaguar\u00a0turbo. There to see the car win was the head of TWR engines, Allen Scott. Allen is\u00a0now back in New Zealand enjoying his retirement and rallying a Mazda. After the\u00a0race we had a super night at a very nice local restaurant run by an English guy\u00a0called Terry. Lots of drink, etc. After the meal I took Allen to one side and asked\u00a0him why \u201cmy\u201d car could not have a qualifying engine for Le Mans? Allen, now very\u00a0\u201cmellow\u201d told me to use common sense, \u201cIt\u2019s just not going to happen\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

I then asked what would happen if we had a mis-fire at the end of qualifying that
\ncould not be found. Allen said, \u201cobviously there would be spare engines for such
\nan eventuality.\u201d Allen was booked on a flight from Kennedy the next morning back
\nto the UK. I then played the trump card. I produced an envelope from inside my
\njacket and told Allen that inside was a ticket for the next morning’s Concorde flight
\nto London. It was his if he found a problem with our engine after Le Mans\u00a0qualifying. After a moment of hesitation Allen looked around and then took the\u00a0envelope and put it in his jacket pocket. The game was on! Only Ian Reed was\u00a0aware of what I was planning. And he was like a kid when I told him the bait had\u00a0been taken. The now finished \u201cvanilla\u201d 288 chassis was sent to the UK for\u00a0painting and, I suppose inspection to see that we had built the car to the decreed\u00a0spec.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

We then set about putting together a \u201ccare package\u201d of our IMSA \u201cgoodies\u201d for\u00a0fitting when we got to Le Mans. We had different roll bars, front and rear. Different\u00a0shock absorbers front and rear. But the biggest item were some very special one\u00a0piece (Billet) brake calipers that Ian had designed and we had built here in\u00a0Atlanta. They were made to accept a much thicker brake pad than standard,\u00a0Performance Friction made the pads for us. So now we could also go further than\u00a0the UK cousins without a pad change.\u00a0We had also had \u201cRabbit\u201d (A legendary fabricator who still lives in the Georgia\u00a0mountains) build us some really trick pad changing tools. The gearbox was built\u00a0with a limited slip differential. This was quite different from the UK cars because the thinking was that with a \u201cspool\u201d fitted if a drive shaft failed you could get back to the pits! Well, unbeknown to the guys in England, we had Kenny Hill of Metalore (they now make most of the F1 world\u2019s hubs\/drive shafts and axles) make us some super strong F1 type drive shafts.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Can you hear me Major Tom ?<\/strong>
\nOne further item that would prove very useful was the use of the American radios.
\nEvery year we had gone to Le Mans the circuit length meant that the European\u00a0radios supplied by a guy called \u201cCrackly Ken\u201d. They usually gave up when the cars\u00a0left the pits! The last thing that we had changed at TWR USA was the rear wing.\u00a0With the additions of the chicanes along the Mulsanne straight, Le Mans was now\u00a0the same aero level as Daytona, things were just going our way.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Lock, stock and two smoking barrels\u2026<\/strong>
\nSo now the fun started.<\/p>\n

We started practice with \u201cjust a few bits\u201d changed, radios etc, so there was not\u00a0much notice taken of what we were doing. There was a bit more interest when the\u00a0brakes went on and the roll bars were changed, but at the early morning meetings\u00a0the comments were mainly directed towards us in the manner of \u201cSo what silly<\/em>\u00a0things have the you Americans changed now?\u201d<\/em>
\nRoger Silman, the UK Team Manager, was more concerned with why Jan\u00a0Lammers could not match Brundle\u2019s practice times. He did not like drivers, or\u00a0anyone else for that matter, to think for themselves about how the race should be\u00a0run. I\u2019m sure that Tom had some idea of what we were doing as he was a regular\u00a0visitor to IMSA races and was aware of our development items, but he never said anything to me about what we were up to.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Our driver lineup was pretty good, \u201cBig\u201d John Nielsen, Price Cobb and Eliseo\u00a0Salazar. Obviously John and Price knew what we had fitted and were very happy\u00a0because it brought the car to the same specification as they had been used to\u00a0racing. Unfortunately after the end of practice, guess what? Allan Scott found the\u00a0\u201cmis-fire\u201d and we had to change engines! Another hurdle crossed, because if\u00a0Allan had gone back on the \u201cdeal\u201d then the whole plan would have probably sunk\u00a0out of sight!<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Friday\u2019s pre race preparation brought to light another small problem. The\u00a0gearbox \u201cdog rings\u201d were being used by one of the drivers in a way that was too heavy on the gear changes. As we had lots of experience of John and Price it was\u00a0obvious that Eliseo was the problem. I went and found Julian Randles, then of\u00a0Spice Engineering, who Eliseo drove for sometimes in IMSA and had a\u00a0\u201cdiscussion\u201d about his experiences with Eliseo and his use of the gearbox. Julian\u00a0confirmed that Eliseo\u2019s style of gear changing was quite heavy on the dog rings. I\u00a0had a long day of thinking about how to deal with this problem, and it was a\u00a0problem, because with a dog box we were going to probably lose 3rd and maybe\u00a04th gear if history was any guide.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

I went to dinner with Tom, his lady Martine, and a\u00a0guy from Jaguar who I honestly can\u2019t remember who he was. During dinner I told\u00a0Tom of my concerns and suggested that it might be a good strategy if I kept Eliseo\u00a0out of the car for as long as possible in order to keep a seat free should one of the other \u201cfavourite \u201cdrivers had a problem. Tom agreed and so at our race morning\u00a0briefing I told the drivers that we were going to use \u201cBig John\u201d and Price through\u00a0the evening and night until Sunday morning, when Eliseo would be \u201cfresh\u201d for the\u00a0remainder of the race.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Sex Pistols and the holiday on the grid<\/strong>
\nRace day: Just as we parked the car on the \u201cdummy\u201d grid, JJ found a small fuel\u00a0leak from one of the fuel pump unions… Now, as it is today, there can be no work\u00a0done on the car on the dummy grid. So what were we to do?<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Well one of our XJR-12 design features was that the whole fuel system, pumps,\u00a0filters etc, were mounted in the left-hand side pod on quick release clips. So it\u00a0would only take moments to change them. The problem was how to make the\u00a0change with the whole ACO \u201cpolice\u201d walking up and down the grid!<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Fortunately we had made some very nice mock leather \u201cpouches\u201d to protect the\u00a0spare pump assemblies in. While the whole team posed in front of the car with,\u00a0what else, the Hawaiian Tropic girls, JJ slid inside and changed the leaking pump\u00a0assembly for a new one! Honestly! I think that in another life JJ would have made\u00a0a great David Copperfield.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

The numbers added up for a very Goodyear\u2026<\/strong>
\nThe race its-self was quite easy.<\/p>\n

One of the big race advantages we had was that having run at Daytona we knew\u00a0that the \u201cstandard\u201d 480 compound rear Goodyear tires would not double stint on\u00a0the Jaguars at Le Mans. So back in February at Daytona we had run a much\u00a0harder 600 compound tire during the heat of the day. When we arrived at Le Mans\u00a0I found that Goodyear Europe had no 600 compound tires available! Our tire guy\u00a0for this event was the great American Airlines guy, Kenny Szymanski. I called back\u00a0to the States and had 10 sets of 600 compound tires shipped in without anyone\u00a0knowing, thanks to Ken Moore of Rapid Movements. Kenny S. did his bit by\u00a0removing the tire coding from each tire and hiding the tires inside the old pit\u00a0tunnels.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

When we started double stinting the tires and beating the UK team \u201chands\u00a0down\u201d in the pits, I had a very \u201cuptight\u201d meeting with Tom as to what was going\u00a0on!!! I had to come clean as to what was going on and we were forced into giving\u00a0some of our rear tires to Brundle\u2019s car. All of this while trying to run the race! One\u00a0of the other \u201cfun\u201d bits happened around 10:00 PM. A car had caught fire at the\u00a0Porsche curves and the ACO had put out the\u00a0Safety Car. John Nielsen had just been in for fuel a couple of laps earlier and he\u00a0called in and told me it would take a bit of time to clean up. Just like we would over\u00a0here. Good US radios at work. I called him straight into the pits to top off the fuel,\u00a0as you would! Boy, did that move unleash a load of trouble. I had Tom right in my\u00a0face about giving up track position. Obviously the UK team cars continued running\u00a0around under a caution flag while we topped off the car, so they then had to pit\u00a0under a green when we went back to racing! About an hour later we went into the\u00a0lead after everyone else had had to pit for fuel, etc under a green. This was a lead\u00a0we never gave up.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Big Bad John<\/strong>
\nThe next bit of drama was that Price was slowly dehydrating, remember, these\u00a0cars had no power steering, little ventilation and no drink bottles, and over 5000\u00a0lbs. of downforce in those days. So during the middle of the night we had to ask\u00a0\u201cBig John\u201d to triple stint (!!) while Price recovered. A star then, still a star now. Then\u00a0the Brundle car, which had been fighting a slow water leak, finally called it a day.\u00a0Tom came and asked me if I thought the car would be able to last until the finish\u00a0(!) You can imagine my reply.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

TW took Eliseo off our team and told him he was not going to drive and\u00a0he was putting Brundle in instead. You can imagine how heartbroken Eliseo was\u00a0with this decision. So around 8:00 am Brundle got in the car.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

The Mechanics of the Isle of Sodor<\/strong>
\nThe only thing we now had to deal with was the 3rd gear had decided it had\u00a0enough of the chicanes and gave up. This meant that the drivers had to change\u00a0from 2nd to 4th, not a great problem, but enough to get some very dirty looks from\u00a0TW! The final drama was a couple of stops from the end we had a scheduled\u00a0brake pad change and JJ (John Jackson, our regular chief mechanic, ex Williams\u00a0F1) found a couple of caliper pistons leaking! So we had to change one of our\u00a0mega expensive calipers. Now they were a bit tight on the studs, so Pete \u201cHodge\u201d\u00a0(Peter Hodgkinson, a New Zealander and now the new car build manager at BAR)\u00a0took a very big hammer to our beautiful machined caliper to quickly remove it! Job\u00a0done and not too much time lost.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Then politics started to take over. The \u201cManagement\u201d wanted to have the UK team suddenly involved so they would look part of the effort. No way.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

The Day of the Jackal<\/strong>
\nSo we won. Very satisfying.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Mike Dale, then MD of Jaguar North America and a true racer, had supported us\u00a0all the way and was terrific as the laps wound down. Our car was the only chassis\u00a0that had won both the 24 hours of Daytona and Le Mans as far as I\u2019m aware of.\u00a0Now it was lots of celebrating. I remember taking TW back to the airport and he\u00a0told me I had \u201cdone good\u201d I then had to find my way back to the chateau where we\u00a0were staying. Now that was a trip. I was so tired, and a bit the worse for Champagne. I can\u2019t remember how many times I went off the road. And all the\u00a0while driving Tom\u2019s personal Jaguar.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

The next morning we went back to the circuit to see the car and it was very\u00a0emotional for us when we untapped the engine cover and lifted the rear deck off.\u00a0Never lifted it in the whole race. A couple of weeks later the whole team who had\u00a0been at Le Mans went to New Jersey and had dinner with Mike Dale and Bob\u00a0Burden, another super Jaguar person, in a small restaurant a few miles from the\u00a0Jaguar Headquarters. Very nice.<\/p>\n

There are very few people that knew of the lengths that we had all gone to get\u00a0this result, so this is the first time I\u2019ve told the whole story. Thanks to all of the\u00a0\u201cvillains\u201d that took part, it is something to tell the kids when you grow up. I hope\u00a0that we will be forgiven, but only ever do this if you are sure your going to win.<\/p>\n

Tony Dowe, February 2005<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As promised in the last post, I have a story to tell regarding chassis 288 from Tom Walkinshaw Racing, it was put together by Kerry Morse a few years back when we ran SportsCarPros together. Typical of Kerry’s work, it is too good to\u00a0molder\u00a0in the archives of a dormant website. Why now? Well the car […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[54,12],"tags":[528,526,527,181,342,101,529,404,239],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.doubledeclutch.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5985"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.doubledeclutch.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.doubledeclutch.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.doubledeclutch.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.doubledeclutch.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5985"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"http:\/\/www.doubledeclutch.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5985\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20688,"href":"http:\/\/www.doubledeclutch.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5985\/revisions\/20688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.doubledeclutch.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.doubledeclutch.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.doubledeclutch.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}