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AVTOWEEK

VOLUME 26

NUMBER

All About-OHroad

Page 10

Driving The

Aston Martin ' 8 "Page 18

.

AtlantaS p o r t s m ~ n 300

Page 22

75 CENTS

Old Dominion 500 Falls To Cale IMSA's YearBy Al Pearce . . So Far, How If I

MARTINSVILLE, Va.-They fmally

found away to stop Cale Yarborough. Not Be Next Yeareat him, mind you-just stop him. Al l

you do is order up a late-afternoon

downpour, wave th e Old Dominion 500 toa half after 340 of it s 500 laps, and go home

tw o hours early.That's th e wa y it wa s here at the

Martinsville Speedway where Yarborough wo n his eighth NASCAR Grand

National race of the year in th e No. 11

Junior Johnson Chevrolet. Rain forced anearly stop in th e $100,000 event but itmade little difference.

"We were going to win it rain or shine,"

British GP To LaudaPARIS, France-Defending World

Driving Champion Niki Lauda · wa sawarded victory in the British GP by the

International Sports Commission (CSI)

Sept. 24 here.The ruling, which vacates Lauda chal

langer James Hunt's controversial win inth e British GP after a first-lap crash in th eJuly 18 race wa s called by Hunt, "adisaster. They've just written off th eWorld Championship."

Th e ruling, which followed an appeal

by SEFACFerrari , the team for whichLauda drives, gave the Austrian champion a 17-point lead over the British Hunt.Before the ruling the pair ha d been fivepoints apart, with three points races, th eGrands Prix of Canada, th e United Statesand Japan, remaining.

The controversy surrounding the Britis h GP stemmed from a first-lap crash inthat event, triggered by Lauda's Ferrariteammate Clay Regazzoni. Th e crashseriously damaged Hunt's McLaren M23Formula On e racer an d it wa s unable tocomplete that first lap. According to theFIA rule book that meant Hunt shouldhave been inelegible fo r the restart, butofficials on the scene ruled in Hunt's

favor; he restarted in his spare ca r an dwent on to win. It was th e decision thatallowed Hunt to restart that wa s overtu

ned.

Yarborough said of th e 500-lap, 262-mile

race. "I don't think anybody could havetouched us th e wa y we were going. Sure,

I'd like to wi n it by running 500 laps bu t a

wi n is a win and we'll take 'em the wa ythey come to us."

Although it didn't look like it fromwhere most of th e 30,000 sa t an d watched.Yarborough was having troubles with hi sHolly Farms Chevrolet. On lap eight ofthe race he an d pole-sitter Darrell Waltripslapped sheet metal as they raced sideby-side through the tight third and fourth

turns."When I got down on the curb the left

front tie rod wa s bent about an inch and ahalf," Yarborough said later. "The front

en d was all out of whack. It took a turn anda half of th e wheel to get it working like itwas supposed to be. I wa s working hardou t there."

I f he was, hardly anyone noticed. Aftertrailing Waltrip fo r the first few laps,Yarborough moved up an d tried to passthe GatoradeChevrolet. Waltrip, wh o wa s

to lead the first 16 laps, held off Yarbor-

Continued On Page 17

"Move over, son," Cale Yarborough says as he shoulders his r a c ~ r in ahead of that of leader Darrell Waltrip.After capturing the lead from Waltrip Yarborough never relinquished it and thus won a rain-shortened OldDominion 500 in Martinsville, Virginia. Dick Conway

Chrysler Hit With Giant Law SuitThe United States Justice Department

ha s filed a $91 million suit againstChrysler Corporation that involves th e

us e of noncertified emission controldevices on 9185 Plymouth an d Dodge

cars.The suit, filed Sept, 27, charges Chrys

le r with a violation of the Clean Air Act,

which prohibits the sale of an y ne wvehicle unless it is covered by a certificate of conformity issued by the administrator of the Environmental ProtectionAgency signifying that design specifica

tions of the vehicle will meet federal

emissions standards.Th e suit says Chrysler equipped its

EPA test vehicles with a different emissions device than those used by the carsactually delivered into commerce. JusticeDept. officials asked the court "to restrainand prevent future violations by thedefendant and for civil penalties of$10,000 for each vehicle that did no tconform to the EPA certification.

The problem specifically"is that Chrysle r engineers equipped those 9000-plus

Dodges and Plymouths, all with th e225cid six-cylinder engine and standardtransmission, with one of two exhaustga s recirculation amplifiers. The differ

ence between th e proper part an d th eimproper part, according to Chrysler

spokesmen, is that the improper part ha sa slightdelay feature called a delay dump

built in , and the proper part does not.

Said a spokesman for the ChryslerCorp., "The justice Dept.'s action isincredible. It seeks to punish Chrysler for

a simple, unintentional human errormade in reports to the EnvironmentalProtection agency. This mistake had zeroeffect on ai r quality. In fact Chrysler testsshow that th e cars involved beat government standards by a good margin.

"Nevertheless, when Chrysler dis

covered the error it notified the EPA,straightened out the problem in produc

tion, recalled the cars an d corrected themto conform to reports made to th e EPA.

The problem simply is that the part usedwa s not the part described in a report to

the EPA. The tw o parts ar e virtually

identical. It's beyond all reason for th eJustice Dept., knowing all the facts, to ac t

so unjustly.""We decided to us e part A insteadof part

B," said th e Chrysler spokesman, "and

nobody got around to correcting the pap

erwork."

Chris Rice, a spokesman for the EPA,

said, "it's no t the same part. They did no tus e the part they said they would an dtherein lies the problem. The problem isth e integrity of the certification system."

The cars involved were sold during theperiod between Aug. 26, 1975 an d Dec. 2,1975. The EPA referred the case to theJustice Dept. on Au g . 3 of this year.

LATE NEWS• Jochen Mass took the Porsche 936 to its sixth victory in seven

races September 19 by winning the Salzburgring edition of theWorld Sportscar Championship. Following Mass in second placewa s Reinhold J oest in his Porsche 908, with Dieter Quester third in

an Oscella/BMW two liter. Vittorio Brambilla led briefly in th eAlfa 33TS12 but dropped out early with a broken oil scavengepump drive. Continued On Page 3

By Bruce Czaja

The dominant force in Camel GT racing

so far in 1976 ha s been the Chevy Monza

Al l American GT. After laying dormantfor almost a year, various teams took the

AAGT rules to heart, applied soundprinciples of ca r preparation and developed a ca r which uiltil now, had only

been good on paper. In the hands of AlHolbert and Michael Keyser, with development by DeKon Engineering, the Mon

za has become the ca r to have to wi n the

series.Others have had their share of the spot

light, however. Both Porsche and BMWhave been around to keep the AAGT's

honest and in being there have provided

one of the better seasons in the history ofGT racing.

Th e ke y to the Monza's upswing came atRoad Atlanta, when both Al Holbert an dMichael Keyser, long Porsche proponents, unveiled their new American carsfo r the first time. They had read thehandwriting on the wall, the fact that therules gave the AAGT cars an advantagefor the 1976 1MSA season, an d reacted

accordingly. Holbert won the first RoadAtlanta round, with Keyser a strongsecond. Just before that, the two ha d badea nn e farewell to Porsche, with a victoryin the Sebring 12Hours as they shared the

ride in Holbert's car.With the new car's first victory under

it s belt, the IMSA contingent headed westfo r the first time. Holbert showed that the

Road Atlanta victory wasn't a fluke byscoring his third victory in a. row atLaguna Seca, with Gregg in the BMW an dKeyser's Monza trailing, after their well

publicized bumping routine.The Monzas came up empty th e next

two times out, but go t back on th e righttrack at Mid-Ohio where they were againone-two, with Keyser edging Holbert by acouple of feet, following another bumping

Continued On Page 8

BRITISH LEYLAND DRIVERSWIN ELEVEN RACES IN

SEASON'S FINAL EVENTS

Bridgehampton, Sept.l9:GP 1st Dave BeldenFP 1st Dave WeinrothDP 1st Ken SlagleCS 1st Gary Nagy

IRP, Sept. 19GP 1st Bob BooherFP 1st John KellyEP 1st Brian fuerstenauDP 1st John McComb

Savannah, Sept. 19

HP 1st Vivian CreightonGP 1st Dave McNeilFP 1st Rick Capono

SpitfireSpitfireTR7

Mini

SpitfireMG MidgetMGBTR7

SpriteSpitfireSpitfire

FLASH! Canadian National Champions declaredSept. 26th : OF,

DP John SchubergEP Graham VickersFP Tom TuttleGP Neil Young

CONGRATULATIONS!

TR7

MGBMG MidgetMG Midget

BRITISH LEYlAND COMPETITION DEPARTMENT