VDCA recently held our year end event at Savannah and several National
Champions were crowned. Cars prepared in period correct configuration were
eligible for the Championships.
In a solid field of good Formula Vees, Mike Jackson came out ahead in his
1969 Shadowfax. Mike's car is a unique one-off design and consistently one
of the fastest Vintage Vees on the East Coast. Congratulations Mike.
Mike provided the following interesting facts and history of his unique
racer:
The Shadowfax was built by Harvey Templeton in the winter of '69. It was
a follow on to the first car he built, the Ringwraith. It is a one of a
kind car and groundbreaking for the class. It was one of the first
streamlined cars with a reclined driving position to lower the vertical
profile. The 3 pedals are hinged in the center of the car to further lower
the profile of the nose (with the drivers feet splayed to the sides instead
of straight up and down). It is so narrow that it has small protrusions
along the body at the firewall to meet the minimum width requirement of the
time. The rules didn't say the whole car had to be that wide! Most
importantly, Harvey invented what he called the "zero roll resistance" rear
suspension to eliminate tire lift and camber changes in turns. It was
widely protested because rules required that the rear have two springs and
two shocks. It does! The two shocks are epoxied back to back inside a piece
of muffler pipe (no lie) and it has two springs around the interesting hunk
of tube. And it's much lower than other cars of its time. To the point
that Harvey used to mount industrial roller casters to the frame to keep it
from bottoming if he drove over a curb. The mount points are still on the
frame, but I don't use the casters.
I'm the 5th owner and it was sold with several special tools Harvey had
made, original photos of the car being built and with Harvey in it, things
he wrote about various race tracks and engines he had in the car. The car is
legendary in FV circles, ever since my first out of town race with the car,
I've had Harvey's name on it instead of mine. People kept saying "that
looks just like the old FV that Harvey Templeton used to race". It clearly
just wasn't right to not have his name on it.
Thanks Mike!
To all the other Vintage Vee drivers: the standard has been set and the
gauntlet thrown. If anyone thinks they have a faster Vee, you'll have to
wait another year to come out and prove it at the Vintage National
Championships.
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