SEPTEMBER 25, 1976

AUTOWEEK

PAGE 11

More On:

Italian GP
Continued From Preceding Page Two weeks before his announced target for a comeback in Canada, the World Champion qualified an amazing fifth .on the grid, fastest of the three Ferrari drivers. In the race he never relaxed from racing-speed the whole way through, and three laps from the end he still had the fastest time of the race until Peterson, pressed by Regga, took it away finally. Niki beat J ody into fourth place by a tenth of a second at the flag. It is said that when he took off his helmet his fireproof balaclava was soaked in blood where his healing burns had opened up. His reward was an increase from two points to five in his title lead over James Hunt-who had gone off the road disputing a corner with Tom Pryce. Both cars of the McLaren team as well as the Penske car had been forced to start from the back of the grid after an extraordinary series of examinations and confrontations during practice and culminated in the Italian scruitineers deciding both the English teams were using

Ex-Brabham driver Carlos Reutemann attempted to come to to terms with his ride for the rest of this year and for next year, the Ferrari 312/T2. as Ferrari regular Clay Regazzoni and one of the Brabham/Alfas trail him.

gasoline of too high an octane number. The trio of Hunt. Jochen Mass and John Watson only started at all because other teams withdrew. 1t was this sort of thing, plus the weather, that made it a long, long weekend. Oh yes, the weather: I didn't tell you, did I, that partway through the race the officials tried to stop the race so that everybody could change to rain tires. Only three drivers recognized the signal and came in, all the rest kept on racing obliviously! After the race, I thought to ask one of the hierarchy of the Fl Association if anything was going to come either of the Scheckter yellow-flag incident or the failure of the whole field to stop the race when ordered to. "Now shush! " was the nervous response. "We're devoutly hoping to get out of this place before anybody brings that up! Be quiet!" Any more events like the Italian GP 1976 and the outside world, which is already looking askance at the World's Premier Form of The Sport, will start falling about laughing.

Pre- Race Inspection:

An Italian Comedy
Continued From Preceding Page Rather than argue about it, Team Lotus carried out tests with alternative "legal" configurations and elected to race without skirts and with airboxes fitted. But when the CitibankPenske PC4 was declared i lle$al because its airbox openings are down the sides of the engine cover, thus making the "dome-up" of the airbox higher than that magic 5 extra cm., the scene became really silly. "Then we asked them to have a look at the Ferraris," laughed one of the Britons, "and they went white and asked if Penske would like to come back for another measurement and this time it was all right!" "What we actually did," said Penske manager Heinz Hofer, "was take a drill and make a little hole in the engine Gover so that we had a legal air box opening five centimetres below the top." It was as a result of another careful measurement that Ronnie Peterson's rear wing was discovered to be about a cm too high on Friday evening, and his Friday (wet) times were thrown out. Then Clay Regazzoni's car was measured, and it's wing was about a cm too far back! Consternation! "They tried it every which way," laughed the same Brit who had so enjoyed the airbox episode, "They measured it with a man in the cockpit and everything else they could think of, but the wing was still too far back. Once they measured it by unrolling the tape slowly from the wheel center back, while one of the Ferrari blokes tried to roll the car forward, but we stopped him. Then I spotted the bloke at the wheel end of the tape pulling the tape forward, so I stopped him. There .wasn't anything they could do, and they had to throw out Regga's Friday time as well." With their little tins of fuel samples the same officials went to a place where they could be tested by Gaseous Spectroscopy. Back came the result on Saturday evening: The Penske's fuel tested out at 105.8 Octane, the McLarens' at 101.6. This, the officials announced, meant disqualification. The maximum allowed was but 101. There was a lot of discussion on the subject and at one stage John Watson was to be allowed to start from his regular grid place because his team had filed an appeal. Then that wasn't allowed. Eventually on Sunday morning he, and both the Continued On Next Page
THE RACE: Formula One world Championship of Drivers-15th of 16 Grands Prix around the world in '76 .. . DRIVERS: Include Lauda, Hunt, Scheckter, Andretti, Peterson, Regazzoni, Depailler, Fittipaldi, Watson ... CARS: Include Ferrari, McLaren, Tyrrell , Penske, Shadow, Brabham, Lotus, March .... ACTIVITIES: Include Toyota
Celebrity Match Race, vintage sports car races, Bosch Gold cup, Kodak Camera Day and Photo Contest, U .S. Navy parachute exhibitions, nightly movie festivals and other entertainment, garage tours, Goodyear Motorsports Paddock, etc ... CAMPING: In both infield and outfield ... WEEKEND SCHEDULE: Oct. 8-qualifying 8:30 to 5; Oct. 9-Qualifying, camera day, Gold Cup, vintage races, 8:30to 5; Oct. 10-Pre-race festivites start 10:15, Formula One warmup at noon, Toyota race at 1:05, Grand Prix at 2:15 ... TICKETS: General admission all weekend $20 on advance sales (saving $3); Sunday only $12 on advance sales (saving $3); Advance sale general admission tickets available at Glen ticket office and at Eastern U.S. and Canadian Ticketron outlets. Special advance sale money saving "Super Tickets " available at participating U.S. Toyota dealers ... FUTHER INFORMATION AND DETAILS: For general admission and all seating tickets, further details on race weekend , free subscription to "Glen Racing News," write or call : Grand Prix, P.O . Box 1, Watkins Glen, New York, 1489J ... (607) 535-4701 or (607) 535-4500. Telephone ticket orders accepted on BankAmericard and Mastercharge .