29 November 2010

Messrs. Miller, Riley and Taylor Join

 

Part Three of an abridged look at Riley Technologies’ Bob Riley.

MESSRS. MILLER, RILEY AND TAYLOR JOIN

Perhaps hard to imagine today, there was a time when Wayne Taylor, 2010Wayne Taylor (left, today) hardly mattered in the grand scheme of U.S. professional motorsports.

With Roush Protofab and Ford’s 1980’s domination of Trans-Am and IMSA GTO racing, Bob Riley and “brilliant” were frequently mentioned in the same breath by those of that period’s racing world.

At the same time but with somewhat less frequency, Taylor's name was just emerging from one of racing's faraway but notable corners, South Africa. Yet, it wouldn't be long before "Riley & Taylor" would be just about as synonymous as Proctor & Gamble, Pratt & Miller or Taylor and Burton - that is “Elizabeth and Richard” and, some might say, ending much the same way.

Driving a Ralt RT4 in a come-from-behind points surge that literally concluded the 1986 South African season's last-chance race at Kyalami in Cape Town, Taylor overtook a spinning Bernard Tilanus in the race’s waning lap to win the South African National Racing Championship.

With an eye firmly fixed on building his racing future into international recognition, Taylor in 1987 made a second trip in three years to France's Circuit de la Sarthe, joining fellow South African racing icon George Fouché and Austrian Franz Konrad in a Kremer Porsche 962 for the 1987 24 heures du Mans.

The three drivers would finish fourth overall and, combined with his previous 10th-place overall effort in the '85 Le Mans, Taylor in two attempts had managed to score two top-10s in a race characteristically known to whittle the race’s field with each passing hour.

Gaining the notice of Spice Engineering, it wasn't long before Taylor joined the English-based manufacturer's factory driving corps and, a couple of years later in 1989, was sent to the U.S. so as show the Americans how to really wheel a Spice.

With a SE89P-Pontiac "Firebird" GTP underfoot for that season's final three IMSA races, Taylor closed the stretch run with a pole in the season finalé at the Del Mar Fairgrounds north of San Diego, Calif. - a track he'd not even previously seen.

By besting the time of a second-fast and fellow Spice SE89P-Chevrolet driver Bob Earl, who finished the season 8th in 1989 IMSA GTP points and was on his way to a 1990 Electramotive Nissan ZX-T ride, Taylor's Del Mar qualifying performance caught the eye of Earl's co-driver and team owner, Jim Miller, who sought Taylor after the race.

"Jim Miller's car (Spice) was second to me in Del Mar (qualifying) and after the race he said 'We should talk,'" Taylor recently recalled.

"I told him I was literally on my way back to South Africa, that I'd already shipped all my personal effects back and that I had a plane to catch right after the race and that we'd have to talk another time. So off I went."

"We had no contact whatsoever until he called me in South Africa over Christmastime and said, 'Come race for me.' I landed on U.S. soil on January 20th, 1990," Taylor proudly said, adding the arrival would prove long lived.

Joining Miller Racing (aka, "MTI Racing") for the 1990 season and driving the No. 64 Spice SE89P-Chevrolet that Taylor bested a few months earlier at Del Mar, a lack of preparation time dissuaded the team from attempting that year's Rolex 24.

Paired as co-drivers for the remainder of the 1990 season, Taylor and Miller campaigned a car that often posted top-five qualifying times - Taylor scoring a pole at San Antonio - yet was vexed by a mixture of mechanical woes, accounting for eight of the team's DNFs that season.

When the mechanical ghosts and goblins were absent the Spice and its drivers often performed well, but not good enough to overcome the negatives, leading to 1990 GTP championship points finishes of 13th and 19th, respectively, for Taylor and Miller.

With Spice Engineering on the front-end of a multi-year, downward spiral caused mostly by a fast-changing rules landscape that ultimately led to its demise (but not before combining with Acura and Parker Johnstone to win the 1991, 1992 and 1993 GTP Lights championships), Miller looked to leave his Spice behind and start the 1991 season with a clean slate.
 

AN INTREPID ENDEAVOR


Pratt and Miller Chevy Intrepid, T Kendall, W Taylor, 1991"I got a call to discuss the possibility of a new project so we decided to meet over coffee. Gary (Pratt), Jim (Miller) and I were sitting in a restaurant when Jim asked what we might be able to put together, so I sketched a design I'd been batting around for a few years," Riley said.

And there you have it, ladies and gentlemen; springing forth from a ubiquitous restaurant napkin was the birth of one of the 20th century's more iconic GTPs, the Intrepid RM-1 (left, with Tommy Kendall and Wayne Taylor, L-R).

"Then we talked about some figures and Jim said if Gary and I would take care of building the car, he'd take care of finding the sponsor," Riley said.

"We'd originally wanted to put a 1,000-horsepower Judd in but Jim walked into the shop one day and said, 'I've got a sponsor and they're funding two cars!'"

"The sponsor Jim brought in was Chevrolet and, of course, Chevrolet wasn't going to have anything but a Chevrolet in a car it sponsored, but by comparison it only made about 800 h.p."

Tommy Kendall, by then under contract to General Motors after piloting a Mazda RX-7 to the 1986, 1987 and 1988 IMSA GTU driving championships, came with the two-car Chevrolet deal.

With Miller again opting from the endurance races, the Rolex 24 serving as the season opener then as it does to this day, and inasmuch as Taylor helped develop and was most familiar with the Intrepid, Taylor wasn’t displaced in favor of Kendall, who got the team's existing Spice SE90P Chevrolet while awaiting a months-away second Intrepid.

Riley didn't fault Miller’s decision to forego the endurance races, which included Sebring.(interestingly, Road America’s long straights evidently later being “okay”).

"The Intrepid was designed for the short, bumpy tracks we had at that time," Riley said.

"Even though Daytona's got a reputation for a few bumps - something that is soon changing, I hear - back then it was still smoother than most other tracks we competed on. But the Intrepid just wasn't designed to go down long straights because there weren't many of those in the U.S., especially as compared to what they had in Europe.

"It wasn't designed to be an endurance car, either, so that meant races like Le Mans were out, too, and not only for the Mulsanne straight (Ligne Droite des Hunaudières)."

Producing downforce by the bushel, on long-enough straights the Intrepid and its 800-h.p. engine would meet an atmospheric wall so impossible to overcome that even sound barrier-breaker Chuck Yeager hisownself wouldn't have been able to push through it had he been at the car's controls.

Given sufficient straightaway length, the Intrepid's roughly 180 mph top-end speed was often 20 to 30 mph below that of competitors, which in top gear easily blew past, but which the Intrepid would soon handsomely reel in, braking deeply into following turns and easily throttling past as Riley's aerodynamic wizardry keep the car squarely on otherwise unseen railroad tracks.

With the longest races and straightaways all but completely ruled out and a time-shortened but successful Firebird International Raceway test completed, the Intrepid officially announced itself in the Mar. 3, 1991, Toyota Grand Prix of Palm Beach with an out-of-the-box, in-your-face debut.

The second venue of  that year's IMSA 1991 GTP schedule brought the debut of the brand-new but relatively unknown Chevrolet Intrepid RM-1, which Taylor promptly qualified sixth then continued to surprise the paddock still further with a second-place race finish after going toe-to-toe with the day's goliaths: just behind Davy Jones' first-place TWR XJR-10 and ahead of a third-place and reigning GTP points champ Geoff Brabham's Nissan NPT-90.

"Of course, a win would've made it all that much better," Riley said, "But never underestimate the fun to be had in watching jaws drop, too."

Evidently, enough did.

"Before the race we'd gotten a lot of attention from fans when we rolled it off the truck," Riley said, "But car owners started queuing up after the West Palm race. Right away there was a lot of interest in that car."

 Next: “All in All, We’re All Just Bolts in the Armco”

Later,

DC

27 November 2010

PUTTING ON A PAIR OF CAPRIS

 

PART DUEX of an abridged look at Bob Riley’s contributions to sportscar racing . . .

 

Gaining Ford’s blessing for a full-on 1984 SCCA Budweiser Trans-Am Championship effort, “Roush Protofab” – the combined efforts of Jack Roush, Gary Pratt (now Pratt & Miller Engineering) and the late Charles Selix – fielded a Mercury Capri (aka, the Riley MkI chassis) which for most of that season was driven by Tom Gloy, Greg Pickett and Willy T. Ribbs.

(Note: Ribbs, qualified a DeAtley Motorsports Chevrolet Corvette as second fastest for 1984’s first race at Road Atlanta but did not start the race – wasn’t even an entrant for the next three Trans-Am races – but showed up as a Roush driver for Race 5. When it comes to Willy T, one can’t help but wonder “exactly what happened with all that?”)

In the first race of the 1984 season at Road Atlanta, the two Capris first appearance put on a decent show with Pickett starting ninth (finished 19) while Gloy started third (finished 25), the cars being respectively felled with overheating and gearbox problems.

As one can imagine when it comes to Roush’s mentality, with that race came an end to the relatively poor finishes.

Gaining momentum, the two Capri drivers then pulled top-5 finishes in the season’s second race (Gloy, third; Pickett, fifth) and swept the top-two spots (Pickett in first; Gloy, second) by only the season’s third race at Sears Point International Raceway (now Infineon Raceway or, alternately, O. Bruton Smith’s Left Coast Palace).

The 1984 Trans-Am paddock had no clue as to what thereafter awaited, but by the third race just about everyone wearing a bow tie or an Obwandiyag badge (the Pontiac “Chief”) could’ve saved effort, money and embarrassment by folding the tent and head home for the rest of the season. Indeed, even for approximately the next five seasons.

For that 1984 Roush opening-salvo season no more than four Roush Mercury Capris faced no fewer than 18 GM pony cars (at Texas’ Green Valley Raceway) and as many as 30 of ‘em (at Road America). Introducing the Mustang GTP

Logic tells one the competition’s sheer numbers should’ve more frequently ground down the Mercury Capris, but by ‘84’s end the combination of Riley’s chassis, Roush’s engines, talented drivers and able crews combined to that year collectively claim 11 wins (Pickett 5; Gloy 3; Ribbs 3); nine top-2 sweeps and 33 top-5 finishes.

With Bob Riley spearheading an adept engineering team – that grew to include others like present-day Grand-Am consultant Don Hayward – the Ford Mustang, Mercury Capri, Merkur XRT4i and Mercury Cougar – would flat-out dominate production-based SCCA and IMSA GTO sportscar racing unlike any other team or manufacturer before or since.

THE NEED OF FIRING ON ALL CYLINDERS

An important if not successful part of building the Ford SVO (Special Vehicle Operations) as successful long-term program was the preceding 1983 Team Zakspeed Roush Ford Mustang GTP team’s failures.

Built in Roush’s Lavonia, Mich., facilities, Bob Riley likewise toiled on the blazingly quick front-engined car that most often included Klaus Ludwig (15 races) and Bobby Rahal (7 races) in its driving pool, at times joined by Geoff Brabham, Bob Wollek, Tim Coconis and Tom Gloy.

“The Mustang GTP was fast – we set a fair share of qualifying and fast-lap records with them – but they sure did go through a lot of engines,” Riley said, referring to the GTP car’s Achilles Heel.

“(Zakspeed founder) Erich Zakowski came from European touring car racing and was accustomed to relatively short race distances.

“They brought over a 2.1 liter, 4-cylinder Ford motor they used there, put a turbocharger on it that developed ungodly pressure and it all combined to make for an engine that was fast but just didn’t have the endurance for races over here.”

“The Mustang GTP was a really cool car,” said present-day Grand-Am competition chief Mark Raffauf, who as an IMSA official watched the Mustang GTP finish only 20-percent of the races in which it competed.

“But it, especially at Daytona, tended to run out of engine long before it ran out of straightaway.”

The Mustang GTP’s first race and sole win, Ludwig and Coconis sharing the steering wheel, came during its on Aug. 21, 1983 debut race, a slightly shortened, wet (460 of 500 miles) Pabst 500 at Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wis.

Ford Mustang GTP Ad, 1983“If it hadn’t been for the rainwater channeled into the engine compartment through the hood scoop, I doubt it would’ve finished even that race,” Riley said of a car whose aerodynamic efficiency was so great that the Mustang’s engine, turbocharger and gearbox lacked sufficient cooling, even with two radiators, because air resistance was so effectively channeled into a helpful tool.

“One of the problems with that engine wasn’t related as much to the engine itself as it was in keeping it cool,” Riley said.

“Blowing those engines got so bad that Mid-Ohio’s firemen, when they’d see me come in for a race, would shout, ‘Hey, did you bring The Torch with you!?’”

“Those motors weren’t built or rebuilt in the U.S. We sent ‘em back to Europe and the turnaround time was so tight that I believe they sometimes only cleaned the outside of the engines to make ‘em look pretty before sending ‘em back.”

“I suggested they put a Roush 8-cylinder in there but they (Ford Racing) were getting pretty short on the patience end. There was a lot of money going to something that wasn’t producing much return so it wasn’t really much of a surprise when they went to the rear-engined Probe.

“The way things were going Ford’s way in Trans-Am and GTO, for marketing reasons I think, Ford was more interested in connecting those cars to the public and the Probe eventually went away. But I wasn’t really involved in that project so it didn’t much matter to me.”

“(Zakspeed’s) Zakowski eventually gravitated toward Formula 1, where he really wanted to be anyway, and Jack (Roush) decided to go to NASCAR.”

Next: Mr. Riley, Meet Mr. Taylor 

Later,

DC

25 November 2010

BRILLIANCE

Just in time for Turkey Day – in the Nov. 26 proclamation of which U.S. President No. 1 George Washington mentioned "God” in the first, second and third person no fewer than 13 times, by the way, but which did not become a true national holiday until Franklin Delano Roosevelt “assumed the position” (nice ring to it, huh?) in the 20th century – below comes the first installment of what went far beyond what this author thought it might be.

As Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana y Borrás once noted and this person since took seriously, “history” is an important part of present life. (Um, no, Tom, “Santana” would be the guitar player.)

When this author got into researching the last four-or-so decades of a guy Grand-Am competition director Mark Raffauf (who was first lieutenant to John and Peggy Bishop and later solely oversaw that period of sportscar racing known as the sports’ “Golden Period”) once characterized as “the most brilliant, prolific sportscar designer of all time,” Bob Riley and his accomplishments shined even more so than even this ardent sportscar fan had known, especially when chronologically placed.

The first installment and those to come isn’t Riley’s complete biography, a true rendering of such being so great that it can only be told in a large book.

For now, enjoy the turkey, ham, roast , vegan dinner or a bit of the ol’ fish and chips (don’t worry, old chaps, most Americans don’t “get” Guy Fawkes Day, either) mixed with a little history in helping give thanks to those who came before.

 

MOORESVILLE, N.C. – Inasmuch as Bob Riley’s father specialized in quickly moving crude oil from wellhead to refinery – being basic to eventual facilitation of car movement – it seems only appropriate that Riley would later specialize in moving refined petroleum through quick cars.

Born in Texas and first schooled in southern Louisiana, Riley traveled widely with his father throughout the regional heart U.S. oil production, as an adult Riley since has continued his traveling ways enmeshed in motorsports, traveling the world in pursuit of building and running even Bob Riley, DP Chassis, 09Oct2010-2faster cars before he most recently settled in Mooresville, N.C.

Riley can scarcely believe time has so swiftly passed in his four years there.

“It just doesn’t seem like we’ve been here that long,” the Riley Technologies patriarch said as he led a reporter through the company’s 46,000 sq. ft. inner sanctums.

Race-car designer, builder, constructor and chassis fine-tuner, Riley Technologies – to most just “Riley” – in 2006 departed its historic 19-year Indianapolis home (wherein Pratt & Whitney previously built World War II-era aircraft engines) and moved to its newer, custom-constructed Mooresville facility within which various shops have capabilities covering just about every aspect of race car design, fabrication, construction and repair.

“It’s a beautiful area,” Riley said of the relatively tranquil Mooresville area, located about 25-miles north of Charlotte.

A particular race form rarely mattering, many of those in need of a fast race car have long sought Riley, above with a Riley MkXI Grand-Am Daytona Prototype chassis, for outside-of-the-box engineering skills which have conceived a variety of winning prototypical solutions that recently even included a unique, stand-alone generator having nothing to do whatsoever with racing, except possibly that which involves the pursuit of energy’s better mousetrap.

Though Riley has met a wide range of unique engineering challenges over its many years, the company’s “first love” remains its primary focus: motorsports.

In a career that got its first big break when Riley answered a simple classified Car Craft magazine want-ad that would send him to Europe with the now legendary 1960’s Ford GT40 program, the “give-or-take” octogenarian has for decades since played an integral role in one race car running roughshod over another.

Nowadays, along with son Bill Riley – who Bob Riley himself characterized as “the best designer I’ve ever seen, and not just because he’s my son” – Riley Technologies is expert in race-car construction, race-team management and race-day engineering.

Making like a tire and rolling down the road, Bob and Bill Riley, respectively the company’s corporate director and president, have over the years stayed enmeshed in the automotive racing culture by moving with it, figuratively and physically.

The Charlotte area today is home to a bevy race teams, especially those in NASCAR’s Sprint Cup, Nationwide and Truck series, but also include those like 2010 Rolex 24 At Daytona winner Action Express Racing – accomplished in a “Riley,” of course – and a gaggle of support industries that have grown up around them.

“Before we even moved here we were doing chassis work for folks like Robert Yates and Richard Childress. It just seemed logical to move closer to what already was a good customer base,” was Bob Riley’s response when spied on an administrative hallway wall was a photograph one might consider out of character in a facility more often connected with sportscar racing than stock cars: Yates Racing’s No. 28 Havoline Ford at Infineon Raceway.

Proudly hanging but only to be seen by those who escape the entrance lobby’s guest seating are dozens of photographs that line the company’s first and second-floor administrative hallways and mark decades of accomplishment, each screaming thousands of words about Riley’s varied and successful racing history.

“Oh, we’ve had some failures, too,” Bob Riley chuckled.

THE FASTEST RILEYLessman Racing Lucas Streamliner

Nearly each Riley Technologies’ hallway step yielded an image that helped encapsulate a phase in the Riley family’s nearly 50 years of professional labor around, atop, in and underneath race cars of all descriptions, including a Bonneville Salt Flats wheel-driven, flying-mile land speed record-chaser, Lessman Racing's Riley MkIV AA Streamliner.

Thus far falling just short of a record-setting (roughly) 460 mph top speed and a 420 mph average that would etch team-owner and driver put Ron Lessman among the Salt Flat’s speediest, the Riley designed AA Streamliner runs a compressed natural gas-fueled Ford V8 power plant.

“I believe Roger (Lessman) could get that record if he’d just use a RoushYates engine,” Riley insisted, ever a “Roush Man.”

MARK-ING TIME

Given the Rileys’ almost golden touch in race-car design one might fairly wonder just how many times they haven’t been successful, especially when considering the stunning numbers posted by Bob Riley’s most notable renderings, among which include various pole- and race-winning AJ Foyt Coyote Indy Cars and the MkI sports coupe chassis – the underpinnings for Jack Roush’s irrefutable “Monster of the Midway” – which dominated the Sports Car Club of America’s 1980’s Trans-Am decade.

“Well, it could be said that David Hobbs inspired that Trans-Am program,” Riley said,

“When he was awarded the 1983 Trans-Am championship trophy in Las Vegas he had some pretty uncomplimentary things to say about Ford.”

“A couple of us Ford guys were sitting at a table and about to fall asleep – you know how banquets are – when he (Hobbs), who drove a Chevrolet for DeAtley (Motorsports), just blistered Ford in his acceptance speech.

“So, we kind of looked at each other and it wasn’t long before (Ford Racing head) Michael Kranefuss secured the funding to put a competitive product on the track.”

Next: “Putting On A Pair of Capris”

For now, it’s time to start on the first of many turkey sandwiches, the likes of which no “sub” place will ever match.

Later,

DC