|
|
Canada's First And Only GP Car?
[Authors] Mattijs Diepraam, Felix Muelas
Who? - Peter Broeker - What? - Stebro-Ford MkIV - Where? Watkins Glen - When? 1963 US GP
 Today, Canada is among the premier single-seater motorsport countries in the world.
On the North American continent Canadian drivers have been far more successful than
their United States counterparts climbing the career ladder from Toyota Atlantic and
Indy Lights to Champ Cars. Paul Tracy, Greg Moore and Patrick Carpentier are the finest
crop from a rich harvest of fast Canucks, all profiting from a well thought-out driver
promotion scheme by tobacco giant Player's. Recently the programme successfully paved
the way for Canadian racers such as Lee Bentham and Alexandre Tagliani. In Formula 1,
we even have a Canadian World Champion.
But the emphasis is all on drivers. What about Canadian race car constructors?
Well, sorry to disappoint you there, but the result is zilch. That is, practically zilch.
Discounting the Wolf, which was actually designed and built in Britain, we have on
record that a Canadian F1 car once took part in the World Championship.
Once. In the sense of one occasion. It finished 22 laps down. Nevertheless, it finished.
And in 7th place, tantalizingly close to a Championship point! But again, twenty-two laps
down. That's it really. So is it? No, it's not. Peter Broeker's one-time F1 adventure was
actually quite an achievement in a time when Canada belonged to the underdeveloped
part of the world as far as motor racing tradition goes. Then again, who noticed?
His performance was as marginal as you can get and Broeker and Stebro were in and
out of F1 hearts before they gave another beat.
But then we received mail from Mr Dan Petschenig, Chairman of the Canadian
Stebro SS Exhaust Company. From today's Stebro boss we learn that the company is
indeed the very same that was "used" (Petschenig's words) by Broeker - the 'bro' in Stebro
to "finance his racing passion".
So now we know Stebro was an exhaust company - the link with motor racing is obvious,
but what were the cars under that name actually like? Quite ordinary actually, and the
1500cc engine rules of the early sixties helped in getting the regular Formula Junior Stebro
eligible for F1 competition. The usual Stebro of the day was a sleek, low-line FJ machine
conventionally built from a space frame and set on coil spring and double wishbone suspension
at the front, with transverse link and twin radius arms at the rear.
For the 1963 US GP the Ford 105E engine was beefed up to 1.5 litres and thus the Stebro F1
car was born. Broeker entered two of them for the race at the Glen - one for himself and
one for a certain Ernie de Vos. Surprisingly, one of them was accepted. This became more
of a surprise - or a large disbelief with regard to the will of the organizers, whichever you like
when Broeker managed to ruin Saturday qualifying by depositing large amounts of oil on the
track. Not only that, he qualified the Stebro dead last, a whopping 15 seconds off the pace.
(Stunningly, he tailed Baghetti's hapless ATS by a mere 3.4 seconds, making the final ATS
effort just a tiny bit less ridiculous. At least the Italians weren't in last place anymore!)
Broeker was used to being a tailender, however. In 1964, he took the next Stebro in line
- the MkV, powered by a Cosworth MAE - to Europe to participate in the Old Continent's F2
championship but again he came to carry a red lantern. His name and that of his car first
appeared on the entry list of the opening European F2 race at Pau but ultimately he was
a no-show. In July, Broeker tried again at the F2 Reims GP. This time he managed to
outpace some of the worst backmarkers but still decided that a withdrawal would be the
best way to save face. The strange thing is, he didn't do that bad in France. In practice he
was "just" 14 seconds slower than Brabham, his time beating that of 'Geki', Maggs, Rosinski
and even Beltoise, who set an embarrassing 2.50.6 (3 seconds slower than Broeker) in his
René Bonnet 01.
Then there was Dutchman Klaas Twisk of the Tulip Stable (what's in a name?) who took
more than three minutes to complete a lap of Reims-Gueux, while Gérard Lareau
(Beltoise's team mate) was nearly a minute slower than Black Jack. Now why did Broeker
consider his mount to be uncompetitive?
Compared to Twisk and Lareau he could have done even worse!
In between, on April 12, he was an entrant for the Vienna GP. He managed to get
into the event proper this time but that's all the good news. Compare his practice best of
1.46.0 at Vienna's Aspern aerodrome with Brabham's pole time of 1.12.0 and you'll get
the picture. He finished the first heat 7 laps in arrears of winner Richard Attwood.
Mind you, this heat of 30 laps was wrapped up by Dickie A in 37 minutes.
Broeker covered just 23 laps in the same time, which meant he lost an average 24 seconds
a lap - which is by the way consistent with his qualifying time. Same story on May 24, when
Broeker entered the Berlin GP at Avus, the Canadian qualifying the Stebro some 14 seconds
off poleman Tony Hegbourne. At the blunt end of the grid the slow people were having a party
with Günther Schramm in his Cooper T59 just 0.6 seconds faster than Broeker and Bill Bradley
and Schramm's team mate Harald Limberger 5 and 17 seconds off Broeker respectively!
Just how slow can you go? In the race Broeker finished the first heat in 13th place, unclassified,
with 11 of the 15 laps covered. The second heat saw an improvement, PB finishing 11th with
13 laps. He must have learned the track by then.
Leaders flying past were no strange sensation to Broeker as he had this happening to
him in his single Grand Prix start a few months before. At least he didn't take anybody off
at the start - as he did with Jochen Rindt at the beginning of the second heat in Vienna!,
but instead trundled round at the back at an alarmingly slow pace.
The only Canadian F1 car ever built thus saw Graham Hill lap him every five tours. Now that
would have meant coverage in the television age! If sponsorship would have caught on a few
years earlier, Player's would have had a magnificent Canadian billboard. Ho-hum.
 Read About Peter Broeker and The WC Grand Prix
Peter Broeker / Canada's Track and Traffic
Return To Top Of The Page
copyright © Stebro Stainless Performance
|
