BRUCE, DENNY, AND SOME OTHERS
The orange elephants
The still fledgling McLaren racing team won their first title in 1967, when founder Bruce McLaren was crowned Can-Am champion. Six races counted towards the championship and he won two while his teammate Denny Hulme won three, but those were his only points-scoring results; however, Bruce also had a pair of seconds, so the title was his. The inaugural Can-Am champion, John Surtees, won the other race, but the nucleus of what would soon be known as ‘the Bruce and Denny Show’ was taking shape.
In 1968, all six rounds were won by McLarens — three by that season’s champion, Denny; one by Bruce; and the others by North American privateers driving cars with the Kiwi on the logo. This was the late 1960s, and the traditional colours that racing cars had been painted were no longer groovy; McLaren’s papaya orange was a happening thing, a brazen colour that had been chosen so that it would be unmistakable in the mirrors of cars in front — and the expectation of team manager Teddy Mayer was that those would be lapped cars.
Trying to stop the Kiwis
Fifty years ago, the attraction of the Canadian-American Challenge Cup was crazy; the number of
