Page 14 - On the Prowl: The Definitive History of the Walkinshaw Jaguar Sports Car Team

ON THE PROWL
1987: The World’s Best Sports Car Team
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replace Group 44 in IMSA for 1988, with IMSA-spec cars beginning testing
in August. Behind the scenes, there would need to be a lot to fall into
place to make that timeline happen, whilst running the Group C team too.
The one thing that would make things easier for TWR and Jaguar was
money, and once again Guy Edwards was brought in to hunt for cash.
Anticipating the need to step up the US program, Edwards’ work had
actually been initiated in late 1986, and he began with a conventional
hypothesis: a UK company sponsoring Jaguar would be like “a marvelous
Trojan horse into the underbelly of America” (Edwards’ own words). He
quickly discovered that there were no British firms who agreed with the
hypothesis and so in early 1987 he departed for the USA to start a month-
long trip soliciting thirty domestic sponsors.
For twenty-six days his trip was a failure. His targets just couldn’t see
a compelling return on investment, even with the growing popularity and
desirable demographics of IMSA. It was a dinner with an old friend that
changed his course, in which the name of the motor oil company Castrol
came up. Here was an archetypically British company with a strong
and growing American presence, aligning beautifully with Jaguar’s own
trajectory.
Edwards tapped his network to find the right people to talk to, and
in the spring of 1987 gave his eighty-slide sales pitch. In his favor was
the existing relationship between TWR and Castrol (in hindsight, had he
started with the team’s own auxiliary sponsors, he could have saved
himself an awful lot of time and money).
Against him was the fact that the Group C team had yet to begin its run
of 1987 victories, and so Edwards could only point to the 1986 Silverstone
win, and the few podium finishes as signs of potential success.
Discussions and negotiations were ongoing, but advanced enough
that John Egan and the Jaguar board gave approval to offer the contract
for TWR to run a two-car IMSA program in 1988. Walkinshaw jumped at
the chance: he envisioned a future in which he could amortize the costs
of the Group C program by handing down used parts to the IMSA team,
which he felt would have a much easier time of it with higher minimum
weights and weaker opposition. It was a significant misjudgment,
underestimating the strength of the privateer Porsche teams in America,
who had taken an incredible thirteen wins in 1986. There was strength in
depth too — those wins were shared between five teams.
Walkinshaw had also not taken the trouble to build a relationship with
John and Peggy Bishop, who ran IMSA. He assumed that the 7.0-liter
limit on non-turbocharged engines would continue for 1988, allowing
him to use the same units in both championships. Had he worked
more closely with the Bishops, he would have learned that they were
planning on reducing that cap, specifically in a response to the early-
season dominance of Jaguar in Group C. If TWR could make fools of the
factory Porsche team with a 7.0-liter XJR-8, what would happen when
they arrived in IMSA? The Bishops valued close and exciting racing and
knew that they needed to slow down the Jaguars when they arrived. If
that meant that an ornery Scottish race team owner had to pay for more
engines, so be it.
The IMSA contract was eventually signed on June 5th, at a cost to
Jaguar of more than £4 million for 1988, plus another $650,000 in pre-
season development. It was a minimum commitment of three years in
VThe June edition of Motor Sport magazine carried a short article
revealing how the Walkinshaw organization would run the Jaguar IMSA
program in 1988. It also noted that there would be no privateer-run Jaguar
Group C cars the following year. (Davy Jones archive)
v#6 at Silverstone was chassis #186, one of the 1986 world championship
cars that had been upgraded to 1987 Le Mans specification and tested
a number of times already. The Silverstone race would provide the team
a chance to test the Le Mans modifications at a high-speed track. John
Nielsen and Martin Brundle were on hand to drive. (Jerry Lewis-Evans)
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