"Palmer, Robert L." wrote:
> . Also, I wouldn't characterize the parting of the ways between
> Ian Garrad and Shelby American as Shelby "not being allowed to continue
> development". I think it is clear that Lew Spencer in particular and Shelby
> American in general held the Tiger in low regard and were, I suspect, more
> than happy to terminate the contract. ................................
Tiger Team:
I'll bet that the relationship between Rootes and Shelby began to seriously
sour right after both Shelby "prepared" Tiger engines blew up during the Le
Mans race way back then.
I'm not implying anything (or am I?????) but why did Shelby insist those Tigers
use 260s while, unbeknownst to Rootes, his own cars would be running 289s? I've
always thought it was a real conflict of interest for Shelby to be preparing
the Tigers for racing while they were preparing their own cars to compete
against them,
often in the same races. Do we think it may have been possible (likely?) that
Shelby didn't put his best efforts into the Tigers so as to not create a self
made competitor?
I've read the same comments by Lew Spencer degrading the Tiger. Put it in
perspective, though. When Doan (and Ken Miles) got hold of the Tigers, they
started winning races, sometimes outright against all classes, against
"superior" cars. Maybe Spencer wasn't quite as good a driver, and Shelby not
quite as good a race shop, as
they thought they were! And Doan made his Tigers work on a shoestring, with
very little factory money, compared to the fortune (comparitively) that the
competing factories put into their programs. If something went wrong with a
Tiger motor during a race, Doan would sometimes pull the motor outside the
local motel they were
staying at, bring it into the motel room and rebuild it overnight right on the
floor. If he could get those kind of results with that kind of "budget", I'll
bet the Tigers would have been world beaters with a serious money from Rootes.
Finally, I had the thrill of spending almost an hour with Doan at Sunbeams
International I, and I remember clearly Doan saying how proud he was of the
Tigers, what a great car it was, and how those years were the most fun he'd
had. I also remember him saying that he repeatedly had offers from other
factory teams in those years
to dump the Tigers and go with them (for a lot more money) but he turned them
all down. He seemed to get a great kick out of talking about all the "trick"
improvements he had made to his Tigers to make them more than competitive with
any cars on the track.
Steve Sage
1967 MK1A
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