Wonderful evocative shot taken by Tony Glenn of Max Stewart’s Lola T330 Chev #HU1 during the 1973 Warwick Farm 100 Tasman Cup round in the final months of motor racing at the late, lamented ‘Farm circuit. Q3 and fifth in the race won by Steve Thompson’s Chevron B24 Chev.
Frank Gardner raced Lola’s prototype HU1, in his capacity as the Huntingdon outfit’s development driver in the final round of the 1972 F5000 Championship at Brands Hatch on October 21, finishing third behind Brian Redman’s Chevron B24 and Graham McRae’s McRae GM1, both cars also Chevrolet powered.
The following day, he entered the World Championship Victory race, also at Brands, which comprised a mix of F1 and F5000 cars. FG qualified 13th of 36 cars. Although he didn’t take the start, it was another marker of the T330’s pace straight outta-the-box.
Then the car was sold to Max who had the advantage of Frank’s presence throughout that Tasman summer. Frank had retired from single seaters but raced his Chev Camaro in the Tasman touring car races in order to flog the car, I think ? bought it
Max was sixth in the title chase but he was at the pointy end of qualifying in his new car right from the outset , his best finishes were third placings at Teretonga and Surfers Paradise
Stewart took in US L&M F5000 Championship rounds in 1973 before a broken wrist intervened, at Michigan (above) and Mid Ohio (below).
His best results: Riverside second in heat 2/seventh in the final, Laguna Seca fourth in heat 1, Michigan second in heat 2, fourth in the final.
Max in front of the VDS Chevron B24 Chevrolets of Peter Gethin and Teddy Pilette at Pukekohe during the 1974 Tasman Cup.
He was right on the pace throughout, finishing second in the championship behind Gethin, both of whom took two wins, Max’s were at Teretonga and Surfers Paradise
John Walker, Frank Matich and Max on the front row at Adelaide International in 1974, the February 24 Adelaide 100: Lola T330 Repco-Holden, Matich A53 Repco-Holden and Lola T330 Chev. None featured in the results of the race won by Warwick Brown’s Lola T332 Chev, HU27, the first T332.
Utterly conventional rear suspension of Max’s T330: single top link, reversed lower wishbone, twin radius rods, mag-alloy uprights, coil springs, Koni shocks and an adjustable roll bar. See here:https://primotipo.com/2025/01/12/lola-t332-factory-specification-information/
That’s Kevin Bartlett’s T332 up front, Max won this October 20, 1974 Gold Star round from KB. He won the championship too, several rounds hence, 51 points to KB’s 25.
Max and great rival and great friend, Kevin Bartlett tussle during the 1974 Australian Grand Prix at Oran Park. Max’ T330 gave not a centimetre away to Lola’s latest. See here:https://primotipo.com/2021/01/15/1974-australian-gp-oran-park/
Either, and Warwick Brown, could have won but in a race of changing fortunes, Stewart takes the chequered flag below. He back to backed it with AGP wins in 1975 at Surfers Paradise aboard a T400 Chev in conditions every bit as grisly as at Warwick Farm in the opening shot.
Lola Cars claim 54 victories for the T330 across three continents ‘in the day’.
That a driver’s legs were part of a car’s progressively deformable structure in bathtub aluminium monocoques – make that all aluminium monocoques – of this period is readily shown by the first of T330 HU1s tubs in an NZ 1973 Tasman paddock…was Graeme Lawrence the first member of the Lola Limper Club?
Credits…
Tony Glenn, Bob Homewood, Chris Parker, Alan Radley, Lola Heritage, Tony Matthews, Brian Stratton, Kevin Thomson, Jack Inwood
Tailpiece…
Teretonga by the look of it…a win too, 1974
Finito…
I was at Calder that fateful day& witnessed the accident. Nearly 50 years ago, time does indeed fly!