USAC comes to Britain

Reviving memories ot the Monza 500 races of the late 1950s when front-engincd USAC roadsters came to the Italian circuit to race against their European counterparts, Motor. Circuit Developments will be bringing the latest breed of turbocharged USAC single-seaters to race in Britain this autumn.

The races, which will both be rounds of the United States Automobile Club Championship, will take place at Silverstone on September 30th and at Brands Hatch on October 7th, will both field sixteen USAC machines, and Dick King, USAC’s President, recently visited London with a group of his colleagues to finalise the race details with MCD.

Qualifying for the races will take place at Michigan Speedway on July t 4th and King estimal es that there will be around thirty USAC regulars attempting to qualify for the two British races. Full USAC regulations will control the format of the two events and they will both be preceded by two days of testing and Indianapolis-style qualifying right down to the “yellow flag” procedure and even “Gentlemen start your engines”. Interestingly, McLaren designer Gordon Coppuck estimates that “pole’ time” at Silverstone will be 1 min. 19 sec. and at Brands Hatch 1 min. 23 sec., comparing more or less exactly with current 3-litre Formula One times at the two circuits!