Here is a more complete history on Lotus Super 7 SB1604. I purchased the car in 1989. At that time it was not running, the dash was missing, instruments and other small bits were in a box, and the hand brake, top, windshield, spare wheel etc. were not installed. There was no tach. I learned that it had always been a racecar.

The first owner was Mike Watson who imported it new and who sold it to Gary Dunbar then it went to John Mah who sold it to me. I put things back together using a spare 1500 block and crank that was part of the package. The engine was assembled and put on the Dyno by Techcraft here on the peninsula. The original Cosworth head and Delong camshaft were retained and the result was 115 horses at 6500 RPM, a modest result. Using the original head with the increased displacement resulted in a fairly high compression ratio but it seemed workable.

I had an SCCA legal rollbar made up and installed Mickey Thompson competitors which turned out to be a very good choice, especially considering price. My first vintage race was a joint VMR/SCCA event at Sears Point on July 4 th 1992. A couple of laps before the end I developed a strong understeer that I thought I could handle... Wrong! I lost all control of my steering in turn 3a, a fast right hander, and went ass over tea kettle landing back on all four. I turned off the electrics and got out with a bruised left arm and very sore ribs from the driveshaft cover... lucky. I did, however, manage to turn a lap time that I've never been able to beat on those M/Ts! The cause of this mishap was a failure of the bolts that held the steering rack in place. They are pretty small and have since been up graded

My list of parts that needed repair or replacement was pretty extensive. I didn't get back to another race until June 1996 at Reno. Since that time we've run about 21 events with no real problems other than overheating which turned out to have been caused by that old head being too thin between the combustion chamber and coolant passages in a couple of spots. The head has been replaced by one I got from Bob Yarwood and the car runs almost too cool now.

Now for the best part of this story: In August of '05 I read a letter to the editor in Victory Lane that came from England from Ian Rhodes asking for information from anyone who knew of his step-father Mike Watson's racing exploits here on the west coast in the 60's. Mike was now 75 and had returned to the UK in 1970. I got Mike's address from Ian and wrote to him about what I'd been doing with his old car. He answered back with a rundown of his race results with the Lotus between 1963 and 1965 which included 17 weekends running from Tucson to most California venues. There were many first place finishes in class C, a first overall at Vacaville, and the class C championship for the SF region in 1964. Needless to say I was very pleased to learn all of this.

I keep in touch with Mike and have made up a display board with the history and some pictures to show at the events we enter. [Above is] a picture of Mike at Vacaville from Sept 1964 to go with the one of myself (at the top of the page) at Laguna Seca 41 years later, Sept. 2006. By the way, one of the first things I did when I got the Lotus was get plates so I could take it out on the street once in awhile. Very invigorating.