A Raw Sound Tribute to the obscure Can-Am, F1 & F5000 Team: Shadow Cars at Festival of Speed 2024!

Описание: Here's a video all about the great tribute paid to the Shadow Racing Team at last year's Goodwood Festival of Speed. First things first: why wasn't Bozzy at Goodwood this year? Think many of you have asked yourselves this question. Well, there would be many reasons behind it, and the story would be too long for the video description. Let me just say that I was already intending to put it aside this year, and probably for a few more years to come. In the last editions I attended, I no longer felt the same emotion that the Festival gave me the first few times I went there. Furthermore for other reasons, I almost missed the trip in 2024 and, I admit it, I would have been rather annoyed to miss the spectacle you see up here.

I've always been a huge Shadow fan, for no specific reason. Their cars just looked too cool with that pure black paint and the UOP sponsor, enough to give an air of mystery around the team. The company was founded by Don Nichols in California in 1968 as "Advanced Vehicle Systems". Nichols was a U.S. Army veteran and Military Intelligence expert, becoming a leading figure in Japan's ascendant motorsport scene (the idea for building the Fuji Speedway is attributed to Nichols). We could spend the day telling the story of this character but I would prefer to focus on his team.

Shadow was the actual name given to his first cars, the Mk1s, an experimental series of sports cars created for the Can-Am championship. It was based on the Group 7 regulations, which were very permissive. One can almost say that they had no rules. Open wheels weren’t allowed and the cars had to be nominal two seaters, but that really was about it. And in fact this freedom led to the creation of truly cutting-edge cars in those years. The Mk1 Prototype was unveiled in late 1969 but it remained as such since the Sports Car Club of America banned moveable aerodynamic devices after its unveil. For the 1970 season the Mk1 was further developed and made it eligible for the championship, despite its innovative, yet questionable design with just 10'' in diameter wheels at the front and 12'' at the rear. Tyres were purposely build by Firestone and they were 315 mm wide at the front and 430 mm at the rear. This resulted in smaller than desirable brakes which needed better cooling. The AVS Shadow made its Can-Am series debut at Mosport Park, the only track where the orange Mk1 you see up here ran in this configuration.

The team became more competitive the following years, replacing the Mk1 with a differently designed car (the MkII) and later the MkIII. For the 1973 season, the Tony Southgate-designed DN2 debuted. This car was originally powered by a 1,200-hp turbocharged engine but proved to be unsuccessful and was raced only three times. A naturally aspirated Chevy V8 engine was then fitted but it proved not to be enough to defeat the dominant Porsches and didn’t handle well with its heavy chassis. Shadow came to dominate the shortened and final 1974 Can Am season with the DN4, although by this point they were competing largely against privateers as the works McLaren and Porsche efforts left the series at the end of 1973. Overseas their effort continued in the F5000 championship with the Shadow DN6.

Back in late 1972, Nichols announced that Shadow Racing would be entering Formula 1, with UOP sponsored cars designed by Tony Southgate. The team’s first race was at the 1973 South African Grand Prix with the DN1 fitted with a Cosworth DFV V8. The team's Formula 1 adventure continued until 1980 with poor results, capped by a single victory in 1977 at the Austrian Grand Prix with the Shadow DN8 driven by Alan Jones. After the 1977 season Shadow entered into a sharp decline. Most of the team left and, along with sponsor Franco Ambrosio, formed the Arrows team (from which an incredible spy story emerged on the design of the Arrows FA1). Nichols managed to keep alive the team until mid-1980 but he then had to sold everything to Teddy Yip’s Theodore Racing.

List of the cars in the video:

Shadow AVS Mk1 ' Lowline' Prototype
Shadow DN1 F1 1973
Shadow DN2 Can-Am
Shadow DN4 Can-Am
Shadow DN4B Can-Am
Shadow DN5 F1 1976
Shadow DN6 F5000
Shadow DN8 F1 1977
Shadow DN11 F1 1980
Shadow Mk1 'Mosport' Can-Am
Shadow Mk II Can-Am
Shadow Mk III Can-Am

0:00 Paddock Scenes
1:34 Cars heading to the start line
5:22 In action on the hillclimb
14:36 Back to the paddock

#Shadow #ShadowRacingTeam #ShadowRacingCars

I have to thank my friend and youtuber ‪@NM2255‬ for the great collaboration done during the event!

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Camcorder: Canon Legria GX10 + Zoom H5, Sony FDR AX700 + Audio-Technica Microphone
Event: Festival of Speed 2024
Where: Goodwood, England

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