Audi Presents Petit Le Mans - 06/10/2001   Dennis Spencer Rotary Dreams   © Andrew S. Hartwell “If a man will begin with certainties, he will end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he will end in certainties.” --Sir Francis Bacon Team Spencer Motorsports picked up a somewhat demolished Nissan-Lola B2K / 40 after the Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona this year. This team, which is led by longtime Mazda competitor Dennis Spencer, wanted to get their hands on one of the cars that had been challenging them so successfully in Grand Am. And once you wreck a car, the price comes way down. And, in this case at least, the price of starting on a path to a dream was just right. Never one to turn down an opportunity to work towards the success of overcoming adversity and skepticism, Spencer has set out on a quest to make the rotary engine something future race teams will want to give serious consideration to. The man loves a challenge. And it isn’t just the win that may come at the end of the effort that drives him. It is really all about the effort itself. The chance to be the first to do something others thought impossible. Spencer and I had a conversation recently about his entry in the Petit Le Mans (ALMS). Normally, Team Spencer would be running a Mazda powered Kudzu chassis in Grand Am, but his continuing episodes of frustration with Grand Am officialdom simply put him off. But never one to walk away from a good challenge, Spencer has decided to apply his considerable energy towards making something different, and potentially rewarding, happen. “We have entered the Audi Presents Petit Le Mans, but we have not yet received the ACO homologation papers for our new creation. The Lola B2K / 40 wasn’t built to take a rotary engine. In order to maintain the car's original homologation, all of the suspension points and the aerodynamics have to remain essentially unchanged. The model numbers that Lola has for the car also represent what the engine type is. Obviously they didn’t contemplate a rotary so now we have been given the new designation B2K / 42, with the last 2 standing for the rotary. “This is something we have been working on with Lola in England via email and digital images. But there is only so much you can accomplish when there are just a few hours a day of daylight overlap between us and the UK. We go from one step to the next and all along we have been sending them renderings and CAD drawings to show them what we are doing. Lola has been fantastic! They keep the lines of communication open and they are working very well with us. “The homologation paperwork has to be signed, sealed, and delivered before we can go through the ALMS technical inspection process. The papers are much like a birth certificate that gives you the right to breathe. It may be one of those things where Nick Jordan from Lola actually hand-carries the thing over here to be signed by the ACO. “We have a high level of optimism that our particular shop's fabrication, and design, and engineering skills, and the quality of craftsmanship that comes out of our shop, will both meet and exceed the expectations of both Lola and the ACO.” Now every fighter can tell you that the element of surprise is one advantage you would never want to surrender. And that includes never showing your weaknesses or your bravado. Spencer admits to having a bit of both but, hey, there is no reason to broadcast it. “We have maintained a low profile with this project because, in this business, there is a lot of promising and bragging and so on that goes on. We are trying to be careful not to put ourselves in a position where we might have to back down from any statements or claims that we might make. So far, in our career, we have been pretty lucky in that we haven’t had any of those situations. “We also didn’t want to let everyone know what we were doing because we knew it would be a very tedious and down-to-the-wire process. (For homologation) among other things, you have to maintain the aerodynamic integrity, and let me tell you, there are a lot of things we would love to do with that Lola. There were a lot of things we discovered in testing it. “We tested the car against our Kudzu DLM. The Nissan-Lola is much faster than the Kudzu. The Nissan is significantly quicker if you just have a flat out drag race down the straight, but our Kudzu handles probably 100% better. “Lola has put out a great product. The Kudzu has some significant aerodynamic advantages over the Lola while the Lola has some features that are more efficient. We know for certain that if we could adopt one particular element of the Jim Downing Kudzu design on the Lola we would love to do it. We could do it in Grand Am, but not in the ALMS. “A 2-rotor engine has been installed in the chassis. The reason for this is that we have to have a car that has been both homologated and crash tested. I am not about to go out and crash test my Kudzu. That Kudzu is the best car that I have ever driven. Ryan Hampton will even tell you that the Lola wears you out but the Kudzu is a pleasure to drive. But it can’t be run in the Petit so we needed another chassis.” In its short history, the Petit Le Mans has become an internationally recognized premier sportscar event, one rapidly rising to be on a par with much longer-run classics as the Rolex 24 hours at Daytona, the 12 hours of Sebring and the 24 hours of Le Mans. With nearly 50 entries expected at this, the fourth running of the PLM, the race has taken on significant stature. Running in this race can be quite rewarding, just for having participated and survived the 10 hours or 1,000-mile duration. But for Dennis Spencer, there was even more to be gained from participating. “(Just being in the Petit) wasn’t our whole reason to do this. We wanted to take whatever our major competition was and learn what its strengths and weaknesses were so that we could build our Kudzu around those weaknesses. It was not to race a Nissan or a Lola. We simply wanted to look at the two cars side by side as that is the easiest way to make a good comparison. “We have been playing with how to make a 3-rotor conversion. A number of people asked us if we could do it as the cost of running a season with a rotary engine would be significantly less than with a Nissan engine. We have been working to adapt it but cooling issues are the biggest limitation we are facing. So we thought we would first try to go with a 2-rotor engine because it doesn’t have as much heat volume to dissipate. We give up a lot of speed but the goal is to end up with a naturally aspirated 3-rotor. “We could make the 3-rotor motor fit but it wasn’t worth it to put them in and then burn them up. It’s better to burn up 2-rotor motors! “We decided to stick a turbocharger on the 2-rotor so that it could be semi-competitive in the LMP675 class. Without the turbo the 2-rotor is simply ‘no way Jose’. With the turbo, we expect we could probably keep up with the Nissans but not the Reynard Judds or the Volkswagens or the new Cosworth. We just aren’t going to get the kind of torque they get. While the turbo gives us some torque, turbos on rotary engines in long races are notorious for burning up because of the high, 2000 degree, exhaust temperature. Are all the cards against Spencer? If so, what does that mean to this ever-optimistic challenger of the conventional mindset? “Did you ever know me to do anything that wasn’t uphill? This isn’t Grand Am either. This is the French! “You know, this is racing. Racing is taking an idea that isn’t necessarily mainstream and taking enthusiasm, ingenuity and expertise and rolling it all together in one package, trying something different. Racing is not about a parade of similar cars. “I’m don’t look at myself as a Don Quixote, a character on a donkey with a spear. I look at myself as a hood ornament on a Mack truck! It’s all about challenges. Can you imagine racing in spec racer series? Everything is the same. I have nothing against a series like that but that is what Grand Am is turning into. All Nissans, all Lolas. They look at it from the standpoint of creating parity but parity doesn’t build a series. Long-term, what builds a series is interest, not disinterest. “Roger Edmondson put a message on the Grand Am message board that said parity in the SRPII class had been achieved because we set the fastest lap at Watkins Glen. What it didn’t say though is that we spent a total of eight days testing. Several of those days we practised nothing but pit stops. Then we had Barry Waddell join us and coach us on strategy. We beat them in the pits; we did not beat them on the track. However, when given the opportunity, and a clear track and a little bit of draft, a driver like Ryan Hampton (left, below, with Spencer and Rich Grupp) can turn out a fantastic lap. But if you noticed the competition was nothing but fantastic drivers. I think that point was lost on the world. “Tom Seabolt has a quote in a book called “Prototypes”. There is a portion in there where he talks about cost containment. He wrote, “No matter what you do rule-wise, you can’t regulate how much a team is going to spend.” Grand Am should take a few lessons from that. You can go out and buy a car and engine that is under the price cap but then you spend a ton of money on things like data acquisition equipment, and you test extensively. Whoever decides to spend the most money is going to have the best odds of winning. “If we had decided to do every single race last year, and test continuously in-between, we would have found a way to constantly beat the Lolas.” Spencer intends to campaign his Kudzu in Grand Am next year, despite the differences in opinion that arose periodically throughout the current season. If nothing else, he is always up for the challenge of making something work. And so it’s one more attempt at success in 2002 for the orange and white car with the rotary motor. But the immediate challenge before Team Spencer is to get this car - which some of his team members jokingly refer to as the MazLola (or Mazola) – certified and in the field at the Petit Le Mans. So just how has this group of determined people tackled this new search for success? “It took a while to get the wrecked car back together but the rotary project itself has only been going a couple of months. The ACO process didn’t start right away because we hadn’t quite made up our mind that we were going to run in the Petit. “We are running larger radiators and different oil-exchangers and have generally upgraded the cooling. In the ALMS I am kind of stuck because I can’t make bodywork changes. In the Grand Am I can and I can lay radiators down or angle them to get more cooling. But, at this last minute, it wouldn’t be wise to try to get those changes past the ACO. It wouldn’t be worth the headache to try it. I mean, we are pushing up against the wire as it is. “As we speak, late at night, the guys are back in the shop putting the final touches on the car. We tested it last week when the car wasn’t really finished. We didn’t have a finished air box and those sorts of things. We are going into this race with a car that will have not turned a lap in racing trim. It should make it through tech inspection and if it does, then we will finally get to run it as a finished car. “But, we are fully prepared should the car not make it through tech inspection. As a substitute, we have entered two of my Camel Light cars in the HSR support race. Those cars will run and the look and the feel of those cars is so much fun. “If we do get into the Petit, every hour on the track gives us more information that we can use to develop the car before Sebring. And all of the time on the track will also serve as a 10-hour test session for us. If we only make it half way we still get 5 hours test data. “This hair-brained idea to go at the last minute and put a 2-rotor in an LMP675 chassis is something nobody in their right mind would do. You normally develop a car and then go race with it. But our car is being built by graduates of the Jim Downing school of the mastery of race craft. Everybody here is putting the right effort in to make this challenge happen “And by the way, the 2-rotor engine we are using has been sitting in a container in our shop for 5 years! “Our reason for doing this is because nobody else has done it. Success comes at different levels. The only failure is to give up and never try. Anything else is just a lower level of success and I will take it at any level I can get it! “And besides, what did I say racing was?” I believe it was something about bringing strengths together to face challenges. And this quote from an unknown wit perhaps says it best about the way Dennis Spencer likes to face a challenge: " When facing a difficult task, act as if you cannot fail. When going after Moby Dick, take along the tartar sauce!" Dennis, I’d like to be invited to the fish fry! Note: Team Spencer will debut the “Mazlola” in a unique paint scheme for the Petit Le Mans. In tribute to the spirit of America, the car will be painted to resemble an American flag. Spencer relates the details: “We will run a solid white car with red stripes the length of the body work and a blue left rear quarter deck with our usual white stars. The CrocoTile logo that has become so familiar to fans will still be on the nose so that fans will know the team. The entire car will have the appearance of a flag. I would hope that we are not the only team to do so. After the race, the car will most likely be converted back to the familiar team colors.” Copyright ©2000-©2023 TotalMotorSport