Can-Am Racing

Wickedly Fast
The 1977 Can-Am (officially the Canadian-American Challenge) was sponsored by Citicorp and started at St. Jovite in Canada, where Tom Klauser emerged the winner driving a Schkee-Chevy. Lolas filled most of the grid. The new cars proved wickedly fast and the racing was close and exciting. Most of the races (and the championship) were won by Frenchman Patrick Tambay, driving a Lola T332CS for Lola importer Carl Haas. Tambay was the first young lion showcased in the "new" Can-Am, and he began racing in F-1 that season.


The 1978 races were just about split between beginning F-1 driver Alan Jones (in the Haas Lola), Warwick Brown, Al Holbert and Elliot Forbes-Robinson. Jones took the title with Brown second. Two years later Jones would win the F-1 World Championship, continuing the tradition of Can-Am champs moving up the ladder. The next year more well-known drivers joined the series, with F-1 stars Jacky Ickx and Keke Rosberg winning races. In addition to the new stars, former F-1 greats like Ickx dropped in for track time and extra money. The 1979 champ was Ickx in a Lola.


Patrick Tambay returned to the seat of a Haas Lola for 1980 and carried away six of the 10 races. Lolas were still the dominant cars, but other chassis designs such as Bobby Rahal's Prophet and Al Holbert's CAC-1 were also competitive. The all-new Lola T530 was a purpose-built Can-Am car, not a converted F-5000 car.


In 1981 rising star Geoff Brabham won the championship in one, followed by Teo Fabi in a March 817. Third was Porsche superstar Al Holbert, with then-rookie Danny Sullivan in fourth. Brabham would later win the IMSA GTP Championship four years in a row, as well as the Sebring endurance race.


Sullivan was just getting his feet wet in pro racing, and the lessons he learned in the Can-Am stood him well. His first car proved to be a total failure, which made Sullivan look bad until he finally got a decent Lola late in the season. Suddenly, he was a frontrunner and, before the season was up, Sullivan was marked for greater things. Two years later he was in Formula 1, and in 1985 he won the Indy 500.