From Autoweek © John Black 1975.

As has been explained on these pages, for some racing teams 1974 was a year of victory and triumph, for others a year of unresolved problems. The Autoweek staff, as befits its sophisticated image, focuses on the grand, the opulent and the successful while ignoring the hopes and aspirations of the lesser spear carriers. This is a tale of intrigue and lofty dreams which by sweat and tears were turned into decisive failure. The story concerns the efforts of John Black, owner and driver of a Titan Mk6 and Michael Heyer, the Crew Chief, to blow all other Formula Fords into the weeds in 1974.

At one of the semi-weekly team executive meetings in December 1973 the attack was launched. Starting with a clean bar napkin, all parameters in the design equation were considered and evaluated. At some vague point in the evening the unanimous conclusion was reached that the average Formula Ford is an aerodynamic disaster. From a dark recess of the mind an astonishing fact was resurrected. A 1% improvement in drag is equivalent to a 3% improvement in horse power. We had glimpsed the Unfair Advantage. The beer flowed.

In the harsh light of the following day a number of unsolved realities became apparent. Foremost was the problem of designing an aerodynamically efficient body for the car. The Ford Motor Company used a wind tunnel when they were designing the Le Mans winning GT40. Derek Gardner in the design stages of construction of the Tyrrell 007 used a wind tunnel. Anyone with aspirations to great things seems to use a wind tunnel. Obviously it was desireable to buy, beg, borrow or steal a wind tunnel. First, however, one must locate the object of one's desire. A negative on that item left us with the task of building one, guided by the old racing dictum that ignorance solves all problems. We indeed constructed a 1/12th scale, low turbulence wind tunnel to NASA specifications. With a wind velocity in the working section of 55mph, the Reynolds Number was above the critical level therefore scale designs could be evaluated according to the law of dynamic similarity. The Bull Shit potential alone is clearly fantastic irrespective of any actual real benefit on the race track. There are in fact, widely recognized problems in automotive wind tunnel applications. When working with models there is always the possibility of peculiar scale effects which either appear or disappear after the design is translated into full size. A wind tunnel also tests a stationary model on a stationary surface in a moving air stream whereas on the race circuit the car moves and the surface and air stream are stationary. That the two situations are related is a debatable assumption.

Meanwhile, December was a distant memory in the warm sunlight of May. We postponed introduction of the new model while losing a couple of Nationals by a wide margin to lull the opposition into a false sense of security. A mid-season respite in July allowed an abbreviated design program. The original concept of a completely new body was rejected as impractical within the time available. Tests were restricted to modifications at the front and rear of the car. A Chevron type nose piece gave no increase in drag but did generate substantial downforce. In combination with a deck spoiler at the rear, drag was 5% less than the original model. The 1 to 3 ratio of drag to horsepower discussed above translated this into a 120 horsepower Formula Ford. With everybody else struggling with 105-107 horses this would literally be out-of-sight. The taste of victory, champagne and the lusty race queen was too real to be imagination.

Rendering the balsa and modelling clay into full-scale fiberglass and aluminium took another two weeks. A new exhaust system had to be built since the tunnel test showed that the stock exhaust disrupted air flow to the rear spoiler and prevented maximum drag reduction. At the beginning of August we were finally ready to track test the completed design. In the approved fashion we established baseline performance with the original body. Addition of the front end confirmed the data from the wind tunnel. The rpm obtained at the end of the straight was the same as with the basic car therefore there was no increase in drag and as predicted there was a large increase in downforce at the front. We added the paraphernalia at the rear which was to produce the miracle and watched the tachometer register 200rpm below the previous reading. This was equivalent to 118mph instead of the previous 120mph. Adjustments to the angle of attack at the rear made the problem worse. The inescapable, bitter conclusion was that the altered rear end increased drag.

The next and last race of the year was the $15,000 Pepsi Pro in Canada. After a dismal qualifying session it was evident that some demon tweak was in order if victory was to be snatched from the jaws of defeat. In the first wet heat on the following morning the modified front end alone was tried since it didn't increase drag and surely more traction at the front couldn't be bad. It could. The rear end displayed an alarming tendency to overtake the front which is inconsistent with any sort of rapid forward motion. Somehow, in spite of a couple of scenic excursions we qualified for the final. The weather was drying and under the illusion that we knew the suspension settings with slicks we perservered with the set-up. On the tenth lap in the high speed Esses the rear drew level with the front, the tires got a bite and after the dust settled the rest of the race was viewed from a choice vantage point in the undergrowth.

1974 proved to be a bad year for innovative world beaters. As the Titan Mk6D joins the Lotus 76 in oblivion the thought that we are in prestigious company is small consolation. Formula Ford drivers on the West Coast can breath a collective sigh of relief at what might have been. However be warned, the team is back in the design studio toasting success in 1975.