Classic American – September 2019

Richard Heseltine’sweird and wonderful American cars from the past.

Gas turbine racing cars?Yes, that really wasathing in the

Sixties and briefly it looked as if it was the future, as Richard

Heseltine uncovers the story of theTr ackburner...

T

he Sixties witnessedaseismic shift in how

IndyCars were designed. The front-engined

Roadsters were on borrowed time the

moment Jack Brabham and the Cooper Car

Company rocked up for the 1961 running of the

Indianapolis 500 and prompted jaws to slacken

with their pace despiteaserious horsepower

deficit. Mid/rear-sited engines were clearly

the way to go, even if several regulars at The

Brickyard were slow to comprehend which

way the wind was blowing. Not only that, it

wasn’tjust the positioning of engines that was

undergoingatransformative period. For much of

the decade, it appeared as though piston-power

was about to be usurped by gas turbines. The car

pictured here led the charge.

It’sjust that few noticed. Strictly speaking,

suchmethods of motive power were nothing

new asagas turbine-engined Kurtis Kraft-based

offering dubbed ‘SAC Fire Boid’ (yes, really...)

was used for demonstration purposes as far back

as 1955.

What’smore,ithadthesupportofUSAF

GeneralCurtis‘BombsAway’LeMay(himselfa

sometimeAllardracer,)asitwasusedasarolling

billboard to promote high-tech careers in the

Strategic Air Command.

It was later employed by Firestone for

testing purposes. Three years later,the Boeing

Aircraft Company approached Frank Kurtis

to designaracin gcar withaturbine engine

at the rear,but plans came to naught after

the Indy 500 organising body,USAC, were

either uncooperative or merely lackadaisical

in providing assistance, depending on whose

version of historyyou believe. Boeing didn’t

want to go to the trouble and expense if its

promotional tool wouldn’tbeallowed to race.

Then came the car pictured here. For 1962,

the winning entrant from the 1955 and ’

running of the Indy 500, John Zink, teamed up

with Boeing for another stab. This time,acar

was actually constructed;arear-engined and

turbine-powered device conjured by Zink’schief

mechanic, Denny Moore. As with all of Zink’s

cars, it was dubbed ‘Trackburner’. In the run

up tothe1963 Indy 500, the car was tested at

Zink’sprivate 5 / 8 - milecircuit,onlytocrashfirst

timeout.Followingthisinauspiciousdebut,this

bravenewworldwasrebuiltandtransportedto

Indianapolis where it was to be driven in the race

by Dan Gurney.Contrarytoseveral press reports

from the period, ‘Handsome Dan’ was no mere

newbie. He may have lacked experience in the

great race, but he had already claimed honours

in Formula One. Nevertheless, the Californian

was obliged to undergoa‘rookie test’ in a

front-engined Roadster and, having passed with

flying colours, he set about qualifying the latest

strain ofTrackburner.The car proved painfully

slow thanks in no small part to horrendous

throttle lag, to the point that he jumped ship

and raced MickeyThompson’scontroversial

Buick V8-engined ‘funny car’ instead.

Veteran charger Duane Carter was then given

the task of making the cut in theTrackburner,

but the 49-year-old couldn’tfind the necessary

pace. He ended up drivingafront-engined

Roadster in the race.

Athirddriver,Bill Cheesbourg, then had a

stab, but he too couldn’tget it up to speed. Zink

then threw in the towel and parked the car.It

waslefttootherturbine-equippedsingle-seaters

toprovetheconceptinfutureyears,evenifnone

everclaimedhonoursintheIndy 500.

John Zink

Tr ackburner

Richard Heseltine

From

obscurity

here to