Tandy On New Judd-Powered Lola LMP1!

Here’s the first of a two-part story on a new build LMP1 car – A Lola B12/60 powered by a Judd V8 – built for historic race action in the Masters Endurance Legends Series (MEL).

Some of the specifics will have to wait for Part 2, when DSC caught up with the man behind the build. but in Part 1 car owner and racer Steve Tandy explains the genesis of the programme and shares some surprising details of what’s involved in racing these ‘modern historics’ in the MEL.

First and foremost though let’s get one thing out of the way straight away about Steve Tandy

“No I’m not Nick Tandy’s dad. And for those cruel ones, I’m not his granddad either!”

“When Masters Endurance Legends started we were already racing on the package, and had done for many years with our Lola T70, Jaguar E-Types and other cars.

“I was always attracted to racing modern prototypes in a historic environment. And this was really the first opportunity to do that.

“I’d done some prototype racing, some LMP3 races (here’s Steve – pictured right – after a podium in the UK LMP3 Cup in 2017 – some bloke called Chandhok is on the left!), I’d done a fair bit with Ginetta in the G57 and G58 in the Creventic two hour races.

“When this new series came along I scoured the market for a car and came up with the Dyson family Lola Mazda from America, a proper LMP1 car with a very verifiable history.
Obviously, it was Chris Dyson and Guy Smith’s car, very successful in period.

“So we brought it in from America, and went straight into the first round at Imola in 2018.
We were super competitive straight away. It was a fantastic car to run. Very enjoyable, we had a great 2018, ran that into 2019 and took a number of wins along the way.

“Then I sort of had slightly itchy feet. I’m always interested in doing projects. Whether they’re car projects, doing restorations and the like.

“My profession is in the construction industry and I always like to have a project on the go.
I said to Pete Chambers, who’s my preparer for many, many years that I fancied doing doing something different in this category.

“And so we did the research with Lola and found that in 2012, they offered to the market, the B12/60 with either the Mazda AER engine configuration, which is the Dyson car, the Toyota installation, which Rebellion ran, or the the Judd V8.

“And of course nobody took the Judd because I think the American Le Mans Series was sort of in its death throes, and there were no takers for that.

“So I said to Pete – why don’t we do that?

“And so I commissioned Pete to produce it for me over the winter of 2019/ 2020 with the intention of doing a full season in Masters Endurance Legends. But of course, we all know what happened then, we were all foiled by COVID. Practically nothing took place in in racing terms for us in the historic environment with the sole exception of Donington, which Masters put together and we ran here in July.

“So that was the first time in the car. We’d never tested it before. And we had a great weekend.”

So just exactly what has been done with this car?

“It has the 4.4 litre Judd V8 in the back – it’s around about 620-625 horsepower. The car is 900 kilogrammes. So it’s got some pep!

“It also has a fantastic aero package. Lola were very advanced in that area with very good wind tunnel and a top quality design team.

“Speaking to Guy and to Chris Dyson’, quite a few people drove that car in period. And they all said what a fantastic drivable car the Lola really was.

“So that’s what we’ve developed a little bit further now with a bit more poke in the back albeit slightly heavier than the Mazda turbo-powered car.”

This is not a rebuild of the ex Dyson car – that car is currently for sale – again more detail in Part 2!

What is the atmosphere like at a contemporary historic racing meeting, and particularly this Masters Endurances Legends package?

“Well, I’ve always enjoyed the historic racing scene, even when I was doing some of the more modern stuff, British GT and Lamborghini Super Trofeo in Europe, it was always good to come back to a historic paddock, there’s less pressure, there is generally a more convivial atmosphere. And the racing can also be super competitive.

“When Ron Maydon came up with the concept of bringing these cars into the package there was some scepticism.

“How can a car built in 2012 be classsed as historic? Well, it is, because it’s not eligible for racing in contemporary racing anymore.

“You’ve got to find a home for these things and Ron is facilitated this, and it has the potential to be absolutely fantastic, using fundamentally the four class structure that you get in sportscar racing, LMP1, LMP2 and the GT cars.

“Here, it’s not GT Pro and GT Am its split into age categories (for the cars!)

“It has the potential to be every bit as good as the modern series, albeit with older cars, and shorter races.”

We’ve seen the emergence of truly enormous historic race meetings and it seems that every circuit in the UK has got their own historic festival?

“Silverstone Classic is a fantastic example of just how big and how wide ranging a historic meeting can be.

“And it’s rather similar to the Old Timer at Nurburgring in August, and these sort of events are springing up all over Europe now.

“The Spa 6 Hours meeting that we regularly go to as a support event is massive and is a fantastic event, the Spa Spring Classic in May. And, we didn’t go to Xandvoort this year because of COVID but I think that Zandvoort Classic is going to be similar in size over the years to come.

It’s an experiential thing. But is the car also an investment?

“Yeah, absolutely. It’s a real commitment. I mean, the big positive with historic racing is that generally speaking, cars hold their value and in some areas, they even go up in value.

“I’m not sure what the landscape is going to be like going forward. But they have a home to race and once a historic car has a home to race, it has a value, which is way in excess of what it would have as a dormant out of date car sitting in a store somewhere in the world.

A lot of the cost attached to racing are the number of hours that are put on components, engines, tyres, etc?

One of the pluses in the historic racing scene is that we’re talking about relatively short races compared to, for instance, the Sebring 12 hours. That’s a lot miles, it’s a lot of components that will need to be swapped out at the end of a single race.

For a regular Masters Endurance Legends season it’s sort of one endurance race in terms of hours and miles isn’t it?

“Yes, with with the Masters configuration that we had in 2019, we turn up at a meeting on a Friday. And we have 2 x 40 minute sessions. Sometimes they’re classed as free practice in one and qualifying in the other, sometimes it’s two qualifying sessions, but they’re both the 40 minutes duration.

“And then we go into two races, one on the Saturday, one on the Sunday at 40 minutes duration. That 40 minutes is absolutely critical, in as much as all of the cars that compete can do that without a fuel stop, because basically in historic racing, fuel stops are verboten.
So adding that four times 40, you’re looking at something in the region of just under three hours total running over a weekend.

“And so then you look at the average season with six, maybe seven meetings, you’re looking at less than 24 hours running for a car that was designed to do a 24 hour race in a single go.
The beauty of these prototypes is that they operate well within their limits. And as people point out, and as we readily admit ourselves, we are gentleman drivers, not running them at Pro pace.

“If you put a top line Pro in one of our cars, he will embarrass us as a driver in terms of the lap times achieved, so therefore, the cars are running at a lot less stress than they would be would have been in their normal environment a few years earlier.

“And that, of course, has a consequential positive effect too on costs.

“In terms of the prep for the car, you crack test everything at the beginning of the year, which is just good practice anyway, so the car comes to pieces, then you don’t really need to touch it that much.

“We’re running carbon brake so you don’t even need to change the pads or disca during the year.

“We tend to run on one, maybe two sets of tyres per weekend. Nothing more than that, they are control Michelins, we know how much they’re going to cost and they’re pretty durable.
They’re a hell of a lot slower than a contemporary confidential Michelin but there’s still plenty of performance there.

The key factor in running a P1 car aside from, heaven forbid, accident damage, but we won’t talk about that, because hopefully it doesn’t happen that often, the key factor is engines. You’ve then got to factor in your engine rebuild.

“I’m running the Judd V8 that has a life of three and a half thousand kilometres approximately between rebuilds. And so you factor that in. And actually when you do the maths, you can just about squeeze two full seasons out of one engine rebuild.

“When you look at the P2 category, particularly the BRs that they’re running here today with us. I understand that that’s 7000 kilometres, and that’s on a very, very under stressed Nissan engine.

“So I don’t know what that cost to rebuild one of those but the engine rebuild cost is almost a factor you dismiss when you compare it to all of the other costs that you’ve got in any race meeting of transportation, hotels, staff, etc, etc. That’ certainly not the case with just about any other form of historic racing!”

And in a contemporary LMP context, we’re talking here about multiple rebuilds per season.

“Absolutely. Yeah.

“Remember this is a series firmly targeted to amateur drivers. It’s not cheap. But compared to Group C that I’ve raced over the years in a number of cars, it’s significantly cheaper than Group C. And when we’re honest with ourselves, it’s a lot safer as well. There’s a certain certain reassurance in sitting in a car with a carbon tub, compared to the earlier stuff that I’ve raced.

Let’s talk about the experiential side of it – just what are these car like to drive?

“Well, it’s absolutely fantastic. If you’re into prototypes, and you’re into learning about ground effects, because I never had any sort of upbringing in ground effects, you just learn it.
“And when you first drive these cars, you just don’t get enough out of it, you’re actually not working them enough. It’s all about tyre temperature on these cars. It’s always worthwhile having a pro sit alongside you doing the data on test days. So that if you’re new to this, as an amateur, you can really start to understand what these cars will do.

“I always say to people, go and drive a prototype on a really safe circuit like Silverstone. You just keep throwing it into the corner. And you know that, if you’re going to overcook it, you’re not going to hit a barrier, you’re not even going into a gravel trap, you’re just going to go into a load of an expansive tarmac,

“And learn, learn, learn what these cars can do. That’s the fascinating thing with them as an amateur driver, is the level you can apply to it.”

What’s the most surprising part of the capabilities of these cars?

“Just how easy they are to drive.

“You’ve got power steering, and you’ve got a paddleshift gearbox.  I’m not the fittest specimen and I’m certainly not the youngest specimen around. And I always say to people when I drive my Group C cars, and I’ve had the Nissan and I’ve had the Porsche 962 and still have the Spice Chevy, you get out of those cars after a 40-45 minute race, and I’m pretty knackered because you’ve got a manual gearbox and no power steering.

“You jump into this P1 car here and do a 40 minute race at slightly higher speeds and you get out and say – okay, let’s go and do that again.

“Physically, they’re so much more easy on the body and the mind, I find.”

Are you finding that there’s interest from some of your friends that have done Group C in the past?

“Absolutely, but people tend to sort of follow rather than lead, and they want to see that the series is going to grow and that it has sufficient quality of cars and drivers, and is professionally run before they commit.

“And that’s what we’re finding at the moment It’s early days – but with very positive signs.”

The post Tandy On New Judd-Powered Lola LMP1! first appeared on dailysportscar.com.