Lola T292
The Lola T292 was a sports car prototype . The racing car type was developed by Lola Cars in 1972 and was the second model in the T290 series.
Development history
The T292 was a draft by Patrick Head and John Barnard and followed the Lola T290 . The T292 was designed and built for the regulations of the 2-liter class of sports car racing. The technical guidelines for the races of the World Sports Car Championship differed from the races in Japan and North America, but the vehicles could easily be adapted to the different requirements. In contrast to its predecessor, the racing car had a new chassis and aerodynamic improvements to the body. Despite the relatively low output from the 2-liter engines, the T292 reached a top speed of almost 300 km / h.
Over the years, different engines - all 2-liter units - were used. The Ecurie Bonnier relied on the PVC-4-cylinder engines of Cosworth ; BMW engines were predominantly used in the Interseries , and the Racing Organization Course registered their T292 with 4-cylinder Simca engines at the Le Mans 24-hour race . The Scuderia-Brescia-Corse-T292 from 1974, which had a Ferrari 4-cylinder engine from the 1960s, could almost be described as exotic .
Racing history
A total of T292s were entered 234 times in 139 races. With this type of racing car, 25 overall and 5 class wins could be achieved.
The T292 first raced at the 2-hour race in Jarama in 1972 , a race for the European 2-liter sports car championship. The Briton Richard Scott reached the 12th final place. The first race win came in March 1973 at the 300 km race in Fuji , the first race of the season in the Japanese Fuji Grand Champion Series, with Noritake Takahara at the wheel. In Europe there was the first victory in May 1973; Chris Craft won the 2-liter race at Misano ; the car was reported by Crowne Racing Ltd. The works T292 was driven by Guy Edwards in 1973, who won the Auvergne Trophy that year .
In 1973 and 1974 the T292 became the defining racing vehicles in sports car races of the 2-liter formula. At the 24 Hours of Le Mans 1976 , Georges Morand , François Trisconi and André Chevalley achieved a class victory for Group 6 sports cars in a T292 with a Cosworth engine; it was also 15th place in the overall ranking. The T292s were driven in competition until 1986. The last race victory in the statistics is the success of Keiji Matsumoto and Akira Morihata in the 500 km race in Suzuka in 1977 . Because the last start was at the Le Mans Sprint 1986 , a race for the French Group 6 championship.