Letters: Aston Martin, the Canadian GP 1977 and lidar

In John Dickson’s letter (October) there was a small error regarding the year I beat the reigning NHRA world champion Don Garlits. It was 1976, not 1967. This was at Santa Pod’s 10th Anniversary Easter meeting. My record run of 5.97sec for the quarter mile (beating Garlits) was the first in the world outside North America. The meeting was recorded and can be seen on YouTube (Santa Pod – Easter 1976).

I have followed a lot of your coverage of Carroll Shelby and the Mustangs and Cobras, as I worked for him in 1965 on the GT350 production line and then on 427 Cobra assembly. Many happy memories.

Peter Crane, Ferndown, Dorset

I enjoyed the November edition of Motor Sport and was pleased to read in Andrew Frankel’s article of the much improved Vantage and how Aston Martin was going from strength to strength [A driver’s best friend]. One day later (The Telegraph, October 1), I read that £370m has been wiped off the value of Aston Martin after new chief executive Adrian Hallmark gave a profit warning and announced that the company will cut back production by 1000 units this year! Ouch!

Murray Walker would have called it “commentators curse”. Great magazine.

Richard Pugh, Falmouth

Although Jody Scheckter’s victory in the Wolf at the 1977 Canadian GP was popular and well-earned, I was there and would not describe it as “convincing” [Start as you mean to go on…, October]. Andretti (Lotus) and Hunt (McLaren) pulled away from the field. This was the infamous race where Hunt had a miscommunication with his team-mate Mass, crashed and then punched a marshal. Andretti led conclusively after that contretemps only to have his engine blow a few laps from the end.

Of course any other driver could have been in second place but Scheckter was the one to benefit.

Dave Walker, Ontario, Canada

I am nearly at the end of the October issue, reading it as always from cover to cover. At the same time a news bulletin crops up on TV about Mr Al-Fayed. It strikes me that the ups and downs of the market for cars owned by famous – or infamous – people might be thrown into the spotlight by a topical entry on page 120 [Dealer News].

I wonder how the value of the Ferrari 512 BB mentioned on that page (previously owned by Mr Al-Fayed) has been affected by recent events?

Dave Bradshaw, Guernsey

I’d like to point out a small error in the review of the Volvo EX90 EV [A work in progress?, November]. Mr Frankel says that it was delivered with “no lidar long-distance radar”; but radar and lidar are two different things. Radar relies on sending out radio waves and detecting their return, a technology known since WW2. Lidar uses light from a laser to do the same thing, although there are a couple of different techniques of doing it – one which works very much like radar, waiting for a signal return and measuring time of flight, and a second which works more like a bat’s chirp, sending out a range of frequencies, waiting for the return, and then doing some clever processing. Some systems in cars use a combination of radar and lidar, because they are affected by different things, and if one fails, you can rely on the other.

Nevertheless, the magazine has been an enjoyable read as ever!

Darren Galpin, Bristol

Having just received November’s Motor Sport magazine I was pleased to see the feature on Jan Lammers.

In 2000 I was working for Judd (Engine Developments) as a race engine builder and was tasked with building Jan’s race engine for the 2002 Le Mans race. I built a few engines beforehand which he used for testing.

He collected one of the GV4 engines direct from the factory one weekend and I opened up the workshop to load his engine directly onto his race truck. My young son helped load the engine and received a hat from Jan for his efforts.

Of course I watched the race with interest to see how the Dome S101 Racing for Holland car performed. It did rather well finishing eighth overall.

Towards the end of 2002 Jan delivered some Racing for Holland yearbooks for the Judd employees, which was very nice. Even better was my signed copy from Jan himself, thanking me for making the team go the distance. (See the photo above).

One of the gentlemen of motor racing.

Alan McGee via email

Contact Us

Write to Motor Sport, 18-20 Rosemont Road, London, NW3 6NE or email, [email protected]