Sam Posey, Surtees TS11 Chev in the Wigram pitlane during the January 20, 1973 Lady Wigram Trophy weekend.
John Surtees’ first two F5000 designs – the Len Terry designed 1969-71 TS5/TS5A and 1971 TS8 – sold well and were quite successful.
The TS11 was Surtees 1972 F5000 car. Based on the Grand Prix TS9B the prototype was tested by Big John at Goodwood but was written off shortly thereafter when Mike Hailwood hit a patch of oil and crashed it at Brands Hatch on October 28..
That curtailed plans for John Surtees to race it, and win the November 1971 Australian Grand Prix at Warwick Farm to help generate some sales.
Surtees’ and Hailwood‘s TS8/9 and first TS11…
An alternative car, a TS8 (with TS9 chassis 002) was sent to Sydney instead. Surtees qualified it ninth and was well placed for a decent finish before a slow puncture forced an even slower pitstop and tyre change.
That same car was then raced very competitively by Mike Hailwood in the 1972 Tasman Cup. Hailwood crashed the TS8 (chassis TS9-002) in the final New Zealand round at Teretonga so a new TS11 chassis was sent to Sydney and a front-radiator TS11 – tagged TS11/03 – was built up from the pile of parts to complete the final four Australian rounds.
Mike was second in the championship behind Graham McRae despite not winning a round: Q3 and second at Pukekohe, Levin Q4/third, Wigram Q4/second, Teretonga Q1/DNF crash. In Australia, this time with the outwardly similar TS11: Surfers Paradise no time/sixth, Warwick Farm Q17/fifth, Sandown Q7/fourth and Adelaide Q4/second.
Build numbers and competitor set…
Five TS11s were built, including the Hailwood Tasman car, and there are another four mystery-cars as Allen Brown correctly describes such machines, see here: https://www.oldracingcars.com/surtees/ts11/
The most successful TS11 was TS11/04, the Champcarr Inc – Doug Champion and Fred Carrillo – machine based in San Juan, California raced by Sam Posey in the 1972 US F5000 L&M Championship, the most competitive of the F5000 competitions globally.
1972 was the year of the McRae GM1 and Lola T300 so the going was tough, but the talkative, talented American racer of single-seaters, Can-Am, Champcars – plus an occasional F1 drive – got the best out of the car, finishing second behind Graham McRae and then Brian Redman and Brett Lunger tied in third in Chevron B24/Lola T300 respectively: 87, 69 and 60 points respectively.
Posey didn’t win a round but placed second at Laguna Seca, Road America and Riverside in a season of consistency and reliability.
Posey’s Tasman…
When Sam crossed the Pacific his reliability seems to have deserted him! What didn’t change was the pace of McRae, and there were a few other quicks at the front of the 1973 Tasman Cup field too: Frank Matich, John McCormack, Steve Thompson, Allan Rollinson, Max Stewart and Warwick Brown to name a few.
In the four Kiwi rounds he was: Pukekohe NZGP Q11 DNF throttle, Levin Q7 DNF engine, Wigram Q11 DNF engine and Teretonga Q9 and second behind Alan Rollinson. So, a good finish to the first half of the series before crossing the Tasman for Surfers Paradise.
Surfers Q9 and fifth, Warwick Farm Q6 and seventh, Sandown Q6 and sixth, Adelaide Q2 and DNF undisclosed. It was all pretty uninspiring, the sheer pace evident in the US was missing and four DNF’s in eight races doesn’t win championships.
McRae won the championship with three wins aboard his McRae GM1 Chev, 40 points from John McCormack, Elfin MR5 Repco-Holden two wins and 29 points and Frank Matich, Matich A50 Repco-Holden, one win, 27 points.
Posey is a most interesting renaissance man, I like this Motor Trend article about him: https://www.motortrend.com/features/racer-same-posey-shines-bright/
Specifications…
Gijs van Lennep won the European F5000 Championship with his car (TS11/02) but was lucky in that the quicker McRae and Brian Redman biased their F5000 seasons on both sides of the Atlantic to the US L&M rather than the British Rothmans Formula 5000 Championship.
As mentioned above the, TS11 was a development of the F1 TS9B. It had a period typical aluminium alloy monocoque chassis, a Chev 5-litre engine to the choice of the customer, and used Hewland’s ubiquitous DG300 five speed transaxle.
It had a Tyrrell or sportscar type nose, side radiators and inboard front suspension, the top rocker actuating a coil spring damper unit, magnesium uprights with an adjustable roll bar. The brakes were outboard. At the rear was magnesium uprights, a single top and parallel bottom yonks with a pair of radius rods doing fore and aft locational duties on either side. Brakes were inboard, note the oil-rads under the wing.
Etcetera…
This shot of Mike Hailwood in the Sandown Park, Australian GP dummy grid on February 20, 1972 gives us a better look at the unpainted full-monocoque Surtees TS11 chassis – TS11/03 – of the three-week old car.
The structure extends right up behind behind the drivers shoulders in the photograph below. Mike was fourth from Q7, the was race won by Graham McRae’s Leda GM1 Chev.
Mike Hailwood chats with a mechanic in the Warwick Farm 100 paddock over the February 13, 1972 weekend.
Note the inboard rocker front suspension and single radius rod doing locational duties at the rear.
Rear wing area very busy, to the detriment of it doing its job!
Note the faired oil coolers either side of the vertically mounted oil tank, and Varley battery underneath it. The rear suspension has only one – top – radius rod on each side but the lower suspension comprises a wide based wishbone and an additional ‘toe’ link.
Roll bar mounted directly to the rear bulkhead and in nicely braced both fore and aft, note the single radius rod.
There was nothing wrong with the assembly of the new car by Mike’s mechanics. It finished all four races in Australia, well up too.
Without wanting to confuse things further, see above a wonderful painting of Hailwood’s Surtees TS8 as it appeared in New Zealand in the summer of ’72…
John Surtees and Sam Posey in the Laguna Seca paddock in 1971. ‘Well, keep going the way you are and there probably is an F1 drive at home for you Sam.’
Sam Posey in front of Mike Hailwood during the October 1972 US GP at Watkins Glen.
The pair are racing Champcarr/works-Surtees TS9B Ford DFVs. Sam was Q24 and 12th, Mike Q14 and an accident impacted 17th. Jackie Stewart won in a Tyrrell 005 Ford DFV.
Credits…
Dave Waldron via Gerard Richards, Bryn Kempthorne, Maurizio Rizzo, Marabeth Cohen-Tyler, Brian Hopping, Paul Overell, Greg Rickes, Glen Moulds, Michael Kidd, Steve Love, Stupix, Old Motor Racing Photographs Australia Archive, Pinterest, Brian Jackson photos via Glenn Paine, John Blanden
Finito…
primotipo... 
Hello,
My name is Mark Hood, I grew up at 2 Conmurra ave Edwardstown. I worked for Garrie Cooper off and on from the early-mid seventies, then on to John McCormack till the early eighties.
After Sam Posey raced in Australia, I recall two crewmen from Ansett Team going to the US to crew for Mr Posey, they were the Murphy brothers, I think John and Bob.
I also recall one of John McCormack’s later crewmen Peter Stege also crewed in the US. He was part of the crew that shifted around the corner from Elfin’s to Dunorlan Rd, this was the time that all efforts were going into the Leyland F5000 McLaren,, and also the division of the team. As an aside Leyland also supplied a turbo diesel engine for the transporter.
John Lanyon left a lot of gaps in his version of history.
Regards.
Mark Hood.
Thanks Mark,
Great to hear from you, the Murphys are still with us aren’t they? I’ve not heard of Peter Stege.I’d love to chat to you about your assessment of the engines used by Garrie and John Mac at the time: Repco-Holden, Repco-Leyland and Chev.
Mark