It's a Ball

Beneath the low-slung hood snorts a cocky engine that is even smaller than the put-putter of the family Volkswagen (1,100 cc. v. 1,192 cc.). But everything else about the racing machine is big league, from the rakish cut of its body to its four-speed gearbox and cat-footed suspensions. Last week a buzzing swarm of the precocious big-little cars performed before an audience of 5,000 at Lime Rock, Conn, in a battle of agility and speed that was finally won by Harry Carter in a Lotus with an average speed of 78.18 m.p.h. At dozens of the top tracks across the U.S. and Europe, the newest craze in auto racing is Formula Junior competition, a kind of half-pint Grand Prix.

The first Formula Juniors were built in Italy three years ago as a safe and sane training car for Grand Prix drivers. Appalled by the dearth of first-class Italian drivers, Count Giovanni Lurani, an oldtime competitor himself, got together with drivers and automakers to devise a small sandlot version of the bellowing, big-engined (2,500 cc.) Ferraris and Maseratis--just as the familiar midget racers are pocket-sized editions of the Indianapolis "big cars." To make it safe, the Formula Junior got its dinky engine. To make it cheap, the class was restricted to using parts from standard touring sports cars. But while the Formula Junior is indeed cheaper ($4,000 v. $15,000) and slower (125 m.p.h. v. 160 m.p.h.), it is also a good deal more nimble. When the Formula Junior hit the U.S. last year, drivers were so delighted that the car has become the fastest-growing class in the Sports Car Club of America. Says veteran U.S. Driver Augie Pabst: "In a Formula Junior, you can stop quick and corner fast. Frankly, it's a ball."

Bane or Boon? Even so, the success of the Formula Junior is worrying many of its original backers. Many of the first cars were slapped together by backyard mechanics, and the races had a pleasantly informal air. Now the winning cars come almost exclusively from more than 20 Italian, English, French and U.S. firms--including renowned racing names like Lotus, Cooper and OSCA--who are building the new cars at peak capacity. Europeans are grooming their Formula Junior cars with Grand Prix care and cash. When New York's grand old Vanderbilt Cup was revived in June after a 22-year lapse, the promoters shrewdly chose the Formula Junior as the competition class, drew such top drivers as Walt Hansgen, Carroll Shelby, George Constantine and Jim Rath-mann, winner of this year's rugged Indianapolis 500.

Crack Formula Junior mechanics and drivers are now getting their cars up to within a few m.p.h. of Grand Prix racers themselves on some tracks. At Salerno, Italy last month, a 27-year-old Belgian businessman, George Saveniers, ran off a curve in a Cooper, killed himself and a spectator and injured 19 others. Italy's Gianpaolo Volpini, builder of one of the hottest Formula Junior cars, says bluntly that drivers are courting suicide when they push the car beyond its theoretical limit of no m.p.h. And the Federation Franfaise des Sports had some words of misgiving: "Formula Junior cars were meant to be something between glorified hot-rods and disenchanted Ferraris. But now the class has grown from the race of the weekend amateur to a fulltime sport every bit as competitive as Grand Prix racing."

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