mickmini wrote:
If i recall correctly, Bob picked the best engine from the three cars and swapped it into 13C.
The story as Bob told me is that he convinced Evan Green to let him take the car home and with the help of the guys from Lynx engineering they took the engine out, stripped it, weighed all the major components, chose matching balanced conrods, pistons, etc, completely built the engine by hand, making sure tolerances were all as close to perfect as could be, refitted the engine and returned it to BMC - all in one night. The following night he got the car from BMC and ran it in by driving it to Goulburn (I think) and back (although Carol Shaw - Bob's ex-wife - recalls running the car in at Oran Park).
When they got to Bathurst, Bob was concerned that if his car was faster than either of the others then it would have been taken from him and allocated to Paddy Hopkirk as the lead international driver, and Brian Foley. He said he and Rauno were considered the number-three car in the team (true or not, that's his recollection). So, he convinced Rauno to time the car's laps in practice from the top of Mt Panorama - doing a slow half lap, then a fast lap from the top of the mountain, then a slower half lap back to the pits - so that their times taken from the pits to the pits would not be so fast.
Rauno confirmed this story and said it went against his competitive nature, but Bob convinced him to do it. He also said that Bob was a brilliant strategist and that went a long way toward them winning the race. Take into account that Bob, with Tony Fall, was also the first Mini home in 1967, finishing 5th outright and first in class.
I do not recall any story about taking the best engine from the three cars for 13C. In fact, quite the opposite - Bob said they had to convince the rest of the BMC team that their car was the slowest and actually knocked back the timing a couple of degrees, then after practice re-adjusted the timing back to where it should have been.
The folklore I have heard is that prior to the race, Bob drove to Canberra as part of the running in process. Col Ogilvie and Bob tuned the thing to be the fastest. But when the UK heavies made it clear that the best car would be given to Paddy, Bob or Col de-tuned it back to what the factory mechanics were using.
Can't vouch for the veracity of the story...but sounds more plausible for this era of production-based race.
