Triumph TR4 Race Car
The factory's TR4 hardtops at the Sebring 12 Hours in 1963, prepared in Kas Kastner's garage and placed 1st, 2nd and 4th in their class, and the TR4As that finished 1st to 3rd in 1966.
About the pictureThe town sign at Sebring in 2007, not a photograph of the race or of a Triumph
On 23 March 1963 the Standard-Triumph Motor Company, Triumph's importer in the United States, entered three TR4 hardtops in the Sebring 12 Hours, in the GT class for cars up to 2.5 litres. Its owners' newsletter called them "the first Triumph factory team to appear at Sebring since 1960". They had been prepared by Kas Kastner, then Triumph's service supervisor on the West Coast, and his shop foreman, Joe Valdes, in Kastner's garage at home in Manhattan Beach, California, and they won their class. Three years later Kastner took a team of TR4As back to Sebring and won the class again. No source read gives the commission numbers of any of these cars; the results below give each car's place.source 1source 2source 3source 4
Sebring 1963: the cars and their preparation
Kastner's memo on the cars, which the newsletter printed in February 1963, set out what had been done to them. The engines were built from Standard-Triumph's own parts, as he put it:
All parts used in the engine construction are Standard-Triumph parts derived, and to replace any broken or damaged part it will be necessary only to duplicate the existing unit.
The crankshafts and connecting rods were lightened, polished, crack-tested and balanced, the pistons checked, plated and balanced, and the heads fully ported, with a "D" camshaft, headers from SAH Accessories, an aluminium sump and a lightened flywheel. The cars had competition springs and dampers, an anti-roll bar and Traction Masters, a limited-slip differential, Alfin brake drums, a high-output generator and a mechanical control for the overdrive in case of electrical failure, and wide-base wheels, with aluminium strips added to the wings (fenders) to cover them as the FIA's rules required.
Bob Tullius, Triumph's national E Production champion, led one of the crews. In the first hour a Cobra ran into the back of No. 38 and broke every one of its exhaust hangers; Mike Cook, the company's advertising manager, gave the pit signals; and the newsletter's reporter saw the three cars come round together on the first lap: "They roar by as if joined by an invisible thread." The team won the class and took 2nd and 4th places, and the newsletter added that "had there been a Team Prize this year, the company would have taken this also".
A fourth TR4 ran in the same class. George Waltman, the service representative of Genser-Forman, the north-eastern distributor, drove his near-standard car through the whole race alone, finished 5th in the class and won the first Hayden Williams Sportsmanship Award. "Well done George, and see you next year!" the newsletter wrote. It called him the only man to have driven the race alone two years running, but its own report of the 1962 race had named a co-driver, Nick Coné.
The race changed Kastner's job. By the late summer of 1963 he was the company's competitions manager, at the head of a new American competition department, and Tullius, given one of the Sebring cars, won the D Production national championship in it that year, Ate Up With Motor writes. Car No. 38 stood on a stand of its own at the New York Auto Show in April, and a film of the race was lent to clubs.
Sebring 1966: the TR4A team
For 1966 Kastner's department planned four TR4A hardtops, three in the GT category and one in the Prototype category, which the newsletter promised would be "the fastest TR you have ever laid eyes on". Most of the drivers were picked from successful Triumph drivers in the national races of the Sports Car Club of America, where the company's racing assistance programme, then in its fifth year, paid their expenses: among them Steve Froines, the 1965 national D Production champion, Bill Pendleton, the West Coast champion, Charlie Gates, aged 52, Ludwig Heimrath, a former Canadian champion, and Craig Hill, a Triumph dealer who had won his class in Canada in 1965. The cars were prepared to GT rules and shipped from Los Angeles after Kastner had tested them.
On 26 March Kastner was the team's captain and Joe Valdez, as the newsletter now spelt him, its crew chief. Their stops often took less than a minute, and Mike Rothschild built a refuelling rig that worked by gravity on the spot. The three GT cars filled the top of their class, as the results below show; the prototype, with Tullius and Gates, caught fire in the engine bay and was out after 47 laps. Motor Sport noted only "a Triumph team of TR4s, one of which was running as a prototype due to minor engine modifications". The team took the team trophy too, and the importer's newsletter, not a neutral observer, summed up its race:
But endurance was another thing. The TR-4As as a group did better than any other team.
Results
A yellow year marks a win.
- 1963
- 1963
- 1963
Sebring 12 Hours 1963
23 March 1963, Sebring, USA. No. 37, Bob Tullius, Bruce Kellner and Jim Spencer: 35th overall, 4th in GT2.5source 2source 5
- 1966
- 1966
- 1966
- 1966
Sebring 12 Hours 1966
26 March 1966, Sebring, USA. No. 39, Bob Tullius and Charlie Gates: retired: engine-bay firesource 3source 14
Sources
Every source the site cites is on the sources page.
- Primarymade at the time, by the maker or by people who were there
- Referenceserious later work: clubs, specialists, magazines, books
- Databaseresults and listings, entry by entry
- Triumph Sports Owners Association, Triumph Sports Owners Association Newsletter, February 1963, Feb 1963 (vol. 9 no. 2), "Sebring '63": the entry, "the first Triumph factory team to appear at Sebring since 1960"; Kastner and Valdes; Kastner's memo and the preparation list; Alfin drums; the wings widened for the wheels; the crews announced. vintagetriumphregister.org/tsoa/TSOA0263.pdf Primary
- racingsportscars.com, Sebring 12 Hours 1963, results, results; results: the entrant; Waltman alone; results, 22nd; results, 24th; results, 35th. racingsportscars.com/results/Sebring-1963-03-23.html Database
- racingsportscars.com, Sebring 12 Hours 1966, results, results; results; the prototype out after 47 laps; results, 19th; results, 23rd; results, 26th; DNF, 47 laps, engine. racingsportscars.com/results/Sebring-1966-03-26.html Database
- Aaron Severson, "Grandfather's Ax: The Many Evolutions of the Triumph TR4, Part 1: TR4 and TR4A", Ate Up With Motor, 22 Oct 2012, Kastner's home garage; Tullius's 1963 title in one of the Sebring cars. ateupwithmotor.com/model-histories/triumph-tr4-tr4a/view-all Reference
- Triumph Sports Owners Association, Triumph Sports Owners Association Newsletter, March–April 1963 ("Sebring '63 Souvenir Issue"), Mar–Apr 1963 (vol. 9 no. 3), the race: the Cobra and No. 38, "They roar by …", Mike Cook's signals, the trophies, the team prize remark, Waltman, "Well done George …". vintagetriumphregister.org/tsoa/TSOA030463.pdf Primary
- Triumph Sports Owners Association, Triumph Sports Owners Association Newsletter, March 1962, Mar 1962, Waltman's co-driver in 1962, Nick Coné. vintagetriumphregister.org/tsoa/aTSOA0362.pdf Primary
- Triumph Sports Owners Association, Triumph Sports Owners Association Newsletter, May 1963, May 1963 (vol. 9 no. 4), No. 38 at the New York Auto Show. vintagetriumphregister.org/tsoa/TSOA0563.pdf Primary
- Triumph Sports Owners Association, Triumph Sports Owners Association Newsletter, August 1963, Aug 1963 (vol. 9 no. 7), Kastner, competitions manager. vintagetriumphregister.org/tsoa/TSOA0863.pdf Primary
- Triumph Sports Owners Association, Triumph Sports Owners Association Newsletter, September 1963, Sep 1963 (vol. 9 no. 8), Competitions Manager, Standard-Triumph Motor Company. vintagetriumphregister.org/tsoa/TSOA0963.pdf Primary
- Triumph Sports Owners Association, Triumph Sports Owners Association Newsletter, November 1963, Nov 1963 (vol. 9 no. 10), the film of the race lent to clubs. vintagetriumphregister.org/tsoa/TSOA1163.pdf Primary
- Moss Motoring, "Bob Tullius, Group 44 Inc.", 5 Apr 2009, the Sebring TR4 given to Tullius. mossmotoring.com Reference
- Triumph Sports Owners Association, Triumph Sports Owners Association Newsletter, February 1966, Feb 1966 (vol. 12 no. 2), four entries; "the fastest TR you have ever laid eyes on"; how the drivers were chosen; the hardtops in preparation. vintagetriumphregister.org/tsoa/TSOA0266.pdf Primary
- Triumph Sports Owners Association, Triumph Sports Owners Association Newsletter, March 1966, Mar 1966 (vol. 12 no. 3), the drivers and how they were chosen; the cars shipped from Los Angeles. vintagetriumphregister.org/tsoa/TSOA0366.pdf Primary
- Triumph Sports Owners Association, Triumph Sports Owners Association Newsletter, April 1966, Apr 1966 (vol. 12 no. 4), the race: Kastner and Valdez, the stops, Rothschild's rig, the fire, the team trophy, "But endurance was another thing …"; a fire after four hours. vintagetriumphregister.org/tsoa/TSOA0466.pdf Primary
- Road & Track, "Multi-Purpose Triumph", Dec 1966, pp. 92–94, GT preparation; the team prize. kaskastner.com/roadtrack2.pdf Primary
- Motor Sport, "Sebring 12-hour Race", May 1966, p. 51, p. 51, "one of which was running as a prototype". motorsportmagazine.com/archive/article/may-1966/51/sebring-12-hour-race Primary