Car Week, 2012

Allards have been conspicuous by their absence at Laguna Seca for the past two years. So it was great to again see two veteran Allards from the Monterey Historic days running in the 2012 Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion (RMMR). Steve Schuler brought his beautiful and famous J2 1578 – the 3rd place finisher of the 1950 Le Mans. He was joined in the Group 5B (1947-1955 Sports Racing and GT Cars) by Jim Degnan’s friend, Jon Le Carner at the wheel of Jim’s red 1952 K2 3035. Both cars attracted a good amount of attention from vintage racing fans throughout the weekend.

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Public Service Announcement

This is an Allard J2:

This is an Allard J2 on drugs:

This is Jim and Sheila Tiller's J2-1784, affectionately known as "The Old Fella". This car is fast, seriously fast. It nearly hit 200 mph on the Bonneville Salt Flats and it regularly dominates the Brighton Speed Trials. Jim's run at Brighton this past weekend started off great with a practice run of 10.44s (@133 mph), but his first official timed run was hurt by mechanical issues.

Photo: www.ukpix.com

Allards @ Le Mans Classic

Special thanks to Patrice Cosseau for writing to tell us how the Le Mans Classic went this year…

The Le Mans Classic was very wet this year, which put a small damper on the party. The car (J2 1557), without rain tires - did not like the rainy weather so much, neither did I! In the first race we had two spins : first in Dunlop curve and second at Playstation in the sand. Sunday was sunnier and the car was much easier to drive we were much more comfortable. Patric was joined by Michel Lorielle and Francois Cointreau.

Race 1: 44, Raining
Race 2: 59, Many competitors spun, two laps only behind safety car
Race 3: 32, Sunshine!
Overall: 42 with 97 laps completed

A very good progression indeed ! The car perfectly work in all the races and practices. Very easy to drift on the dry. With more time we could have got a better ranking.

Thanks Patrice and keep racing!

PS: Bob Francis from Canada also competed in J2 1971. Bob and team mate John Thompson finished 40^th overall, also with 97 laps completed.

Everybodies favorite Allard Racer, Bill Pollack

Here's a few video clips of Bill Pollack promoting his racing memoirs, Red Wheels and White Sidewalls with Bob Schmitt. Bill has led a long and full life...with that he has accumulated many stories, most of which are true (we think).

Red Wheels and White Sidewalls - Reviewed

In honor of the reprinting of Bill Pollacks racing memoirs, Red Wheels and White Sidewalls, we are reprinting our review of the book from issue #40 (Spring 2004). To buy a copy of the book, you can go to Amazon or to Bill's publisher, Brown Fox Books. Enjoy!

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Many Allard enthusiasts got their initial inspiration from Tom Carsten’s immaculate white-walled, Cad-powered J2. Bill Pollack had the honor of piloting that imposing mass of adrenalin, testosterone, and charisma to outright victories in each of its five outings in 1951 and 1952. Bill continued his amateur racing activities for another 5 years after that car was destroyed in a post-race accident at Pebble Beach in 1953. During those years, he earned 18 more “podium” (in F1 parlance) finishes in 44 races.

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Bill Pollack Presides as Grand Marshal at Sonoma

 

More than 340 historic cars ran in 15 racing groups at the 3^rd annual Sonoma Historic Motorsports Festival at Infineon Raceway on the first weekend of June. This year’s theme was “Moments in Time: a Celebration of the History of Motorsports”. Bill Pollack, winner of the 1952 Golden Gate Park Road Races driving a Cadillac-Allard J2, was honored as Grand Marshal.

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R&T Misc. Ramblings: Allard J2 Cornering

An excerpt from the August 1951 issue of Road & Track...which was an excerpt from  the Jan-Feb 1951 issue of Sports Car magazine...

"In a recent regional news letter, the cornering powers of our 'J.2' are compared with another make and the fact that the 'J.2' holds the road like a leech up to certain speeds when it slides without warning, is mentioned.

Mr. Allard asks me to say that this is well known, but the speed at which this sliding occurs is greatly above the speed at which the other make mentioned starts to break away. At the speed where this breakaway occurs on other makes, the 'J.2' is rock steady and, if it is desired to corner at the maximum speed possible with our car, this must be done in the usual Grand Prix manner, in a four-wheel drift. The required angle of drift being maintained by conjuctive manipulation of steering and throttle.

When this technique is mastered we doubt if there is a faster sports car through corners extant than the 'J.2' Allard"

-H.J. Biggs, Technical Assistant, Allard Motor Co.

P.S. The photo above is from the March '80 issue of the Old Motor with Jim Tiller showing us how to corner his J2 at Goodwood in '69.

In the News...

The July 2012 issue of Classic Motorsports magazine has a large story on Martin Stickley's Ford Cobra engined J2#2121. Cheers.

Video: Racing in Monaco!

Here's some great video of Patrick Watt's showing us mortals how to get around the streets of Monaco in his amaznigly fast J2. Enjoy!

2012 Monaco Historique Race Report

 

From Massimo Bettati…

It was a sunny weekend for the 8th Gran Prix de Monaco Historique. Our Allard was one of 24 cars entered in the Series C, for pre 1953 sport and sports prototypes cars.

Our class had 3 Allards. Our Allard, J2X 3053 is British Racing Green RHD, reg ORL 320. Next up was the always competitive Patrick Watts (an ex pro driver) in the black J2 1965, reg MTA 635. Finally, the American, Alan Patterson (still racing at 80 years old!) with his red J2X #3072.

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