Formula Ford Photos

Cars

The shape of the earliest Formula Junior and Formula Ford cars closely resembled earlier Formula One and American "Championship" cars. Mickey Thompson built his first Indianapolis car in his California shops for the 1962 500. It was sponsored by Harvey Aluminum, powered by an aluminum Buick V-8 and driven by the great Dan Gurney who qualified it 7th.

Lotus 51C

Alexis Mk14

Crossle 20F The 20F of 1972 followed after John Crossle's first FF1600 car, the 16F built in late 1968.

The Lola 340/342 series was designed by Eric Broadley and Bob Marston in 1973. This photo is from the original sales brochure for the American version which was distributed by Carl Haas.

These two beautiful - and damn fast - Lola 342s were raced throughout the northeast in the 1980's and '90's!

Macon MR-7B - a clone of the Crossle 16/25 series.

The Zink Z-10 was designed by Ed Zink and was known as a quick, reliable and sturdy machine.
In the hands of a number of top flight American drivers, Z-10's achieved many significant race victories and championships well onto the mid-70's.

VanDiemen's challenger for the 1984 season - the VD84 - looked a little chunky and was no match for the SWIFT which was winning everything following on its 1983 victory at the SCCA Runoffs.

The slim, stylish, sexy Citation 94F of Scott Rubenzer is shown here at the 40th Anniversary of Formula Ford held at Road America in the summer of 2009.
Steve Lathrop, the prolific American designer and builder of a long line of FF1600 cars, continues to turn out chassis that can run up front in any National Championship races.

	This 2010 Piper is a superb example of the most advanced FF chassis currently available.
The highly sophisticated aerodynamic body design combined with state-of-the art suspension systems and an extremely rigid chassis make it the car to beat. A similar machine won the 2010 RunOffs.

Tracks

Lime Rock Park

The world famous "road racing center of the east" has been the scene of many great races from SCCA Regionals to Trans-Am, Grand-Am and ALMS events. The Formula Libre races run at this Connecticut venue in the mid-1950s showcased all of the great American racing teams of that era. At one such event Roger Ward vanquished all of them in his Kurtis-Offy midget!

Without exception, Formula Ford races here are highly competitive events. In fields of 20 to 30 cars the wheel-to-wheel racing is unequaled. Currently top rank Formula Fords cover the 1.53 mile track in under 54 seconds - for an average speed of well over 100 MPH.

Sebring

	Mario Andretti's younger son Jeff is shown at speed at Sebring in 1984 driving the dominant chassis, the SWIFT DB-1. The early January National race at the world famous central Florida venue always brought out a good field of cars.
The great Harvey Templeton is seen here at Sebring in a car he designed and built. The car number matches Harvey's age at the time!!

Bridgehampton

Circa 1984 - A combined EMRA / RCCA Formula Ford / Club Ford race group on a pace lap up through Echo Valley at the fabulous 2.8 mile eastern Long Island track that Stirling Moss called "the greatest circuit in North America."

Sadly after many years of controversy, the track was bulldozed to make way for a condominium and golf course development. In the 80's RCCA and EMRA ran there regularly and in both directions ( counterclockwise it was called "LAGUNA BAYS" )

It was not only a superb track but, since it ran through sand dunes, in most cases if you left the road at speed, your greatest worry was how to clean all the sand out of the car!

Occasionally, an "off" at Bridgehampton resulted in damage beyond sand in the radiators. This chassis was considerably deranged during a quick trip into the dunes. But, as they say....."the driver walked away....."