Chinook Formula A car-by-car histories
Harvey Craig sits in his 1969-model Chinook. Copyright Ed Butt 2011. Used with permission.
Chinook built four Formula A cars in 1969 and 1970, using an unfathomable range of model numbers from Mk 5 to Mk 9. None appeared very often, and they achieved minimal success.
Toronto-based Chinook, run by Canadian-Hungarian brothers Rudy and George Fejer, had built four Group 7 cars for use in Can-Am and in the Canadian Drivers Championship between 1966 and 1968 but for 1969 CASC moved the Canadian Championship to Formula A, for single-seater cars with 5-litre stock block engines. The Fejers laid down a run of four cars for this series and immediately attracted customers, including Brian Weightman who had the first car equipped with a Ford engine for a low-budget project, and Nat Adams, who had bought the Chinook Mk 5 Can-Am car in 1968.
George Fejer had built and raced a car in USAC road racing events in 1968 but this had not been a huge success and the new Formula A cars were more closely related to the Group 7 cars. According to former team member Ed Butt, the frames of the four cars were all built at the same time and had the same suspension but the Fejers chose to give a different model number to Weightman's Ford-powered car which was named in the press at the time and in later adverts as the Chinook Mk 6. Nat Adams' car, which had slightly squarer bodywork, was called the Mk 8. The model names applied to the final two cars, sold to Harvey Craig and Don Mason, are not known.
Please note that these histories are still in a state of flux. Since they were originally written, with the help of former Chinook team member Ed Butt, further information has been supplied by Steve Morici of Morici Motorsports West and by Richard Taylor of Autotune. The difficulty is that the information does not all agree and in some places directly conflicts. The biggest problem is the model numbers. The Can-Am cars were the MK 1, Mk 2 and Mk 5 but the 1968 USAC car is called the Mk 6 in some places and Mk 7 in others. Brian Weightman's car is then either a Mk 6 or a Mk 7; Nat Adams' car anything from a Mk 6 to a Mk 9; and the other two FA cars either Mk 7s or Mk 8s. Steve and Richard have done a great job preserving the history of Chinook and understanding the cars, so these histories will evolve as more is decyphered.
If you have anything to add, even if it is contradictory to what is written here, please email Allen.
Andy Miller with his ex-Formula A Chinook at Cheyenne Speedway. Copyright Andy Miller 2021. Used with permission.
David Korth's Chinook on the day he bought it from Andy Miller. Copyright David Korth 2023. Used with permission.
Built with Ford engine for Brian Weightman (Toronto, Ontario): Canadian Championship 1969 (2 starts) and Canadian rounds of the SCCA Continental Championship 1969 (1 start). Advertised in November 1969 when it was said to have raced only six times since it was delivered in July 1969.
Then unknown until January 1973, when it was acquired by Andy Miller (Fort Collins, CO) from Ron Hunter, owner of Rocky Mountain Winkelmann in Lakewood, CO. Collins was then racing "modifieds" at Intermountain Speedway in Cheyenne, Wyoming. At that point the car was fitted with a rather special 302 ci small block Ford V8 and had a ZF 5-speed transaxle. Hunter had fitted a full roll cage with the intention of running it at the Century 21 Raceway, a very short-lived new track at Aurora, CO, but could not get rear-engined cars accepted. Miller raced the car on the ⅕-mile oval at Cheyenne for three seasons, and also once each at Englewood Speedway, in Denver, Oregon Trails Raceway in Scottsbluff, Nebraska, and at Binkelman, Nebraska. He sold it as a rolling chassis to David Korth (Loveland, CO) who intended to install a Dodge 340 engine and make the car street legal(!) After a year, his enthusiasm for the project have ebbed, he sold it "as a rolling chassis to a friend of a friend who took it to Pennsylvania on the top of his pickup".
History then unknown until bought from Chuck Haines by Steve Morici (Wrightwood, CA) in May 2008. Still with Steve in April 2021.
Driven by: Brian Weightman. First race: Harewood Acres (R6), 17 Aug 1969. Total of 4 recorded races.
Nat Adams in his Formula A Chinook at Mosport Park in October 1969. Copyright Peter Viccary (gladiatorroadracing.ca) 2021. Used with permission.
Built with Chevrolet engine for Nat Adams (Hamilton, Ontario) and used in the Canadian Championship 1969. Due to a lack of sponsorship, the car was not competed until July, and first started a race at Harewood Acres in September. Did not start the August 1969 Mosport Park round of the SCCA Continental Championship. Retained for 1970, and raced in the first two rounds of the 1970 Canadian Championship in May then Seattle round of the SCCA Continental Championship a week later. The car performed poorly, and Adams decided to trade it for a McLaren or Lola.
Adams started to convert the Chinook for oval track racing with a roll cage but never finished it and instead sold it to Ed Butt in 1971. Butt planned to fit it with a twin turbocharged DOHC 255 ci Indy engine and run it as a supermodified at Oswego NY but before he got the engine installation completed, Oswego banned aluminum blocks. He then started work on a twin turbocharged 5.7-litre Chevrolet engine but the driver was killed in a road accident before this was ready to race and Butt lost interest in the project. Later in the 1970s, Butt decided to close down his workshop and having nowhere to keep the car and not much market for it, he sold the engine and 2 speed Halibrand transmission, stripped off all the suspension and running gear and scrapped the chassis, a decision he regrets to this day.
Driven by: Nat Adams. First race: Harewood Acres (R8), 27 Sep 1969. Total of 5 recorded races.
Built with a Chevrolet V8 engine for Harvey Craig (Minerva, Scarborough, Ontario) to use in Canadian and US Formula A. The car was announced in April 1969, but there is no sign of it appearing that season. Craig entered it for the Edmonton round of the SCCA Continental Championship on 24 May 1970 but did not arrive. He was then a non-starter at the Canadian Road Racing Championship race at Rockcliffe Airfield on 1 July, having qualified 16th out of 22 FA and FB cars. He made his first start in the next round of the series, at Harewood Acres on 9 August, where he retired after 11 laps. Craig retained the car for 1971, and appeared at Mid-Ohio on 5 July, qualifying 28th out of 31 and retiring after just 10 laps with overheating. He may have been at Road America on 18 July, but was shown as a non-starter with no practice time. Finally, he was at Edmonton on 1 August, but after qualifying last but one he did not start. Craig is likely to have also raced the car in Canadian club events.
Craig sold the car less engine in 1973 to a garage owner in Toronto but does not recall his name. Subsequent history unknown.
Driven by: Harvey Craig. First race: Harewood Acres (R5), 9 Aug 1970. Total of 2 recorded races.
These histories last updated on .