First, I should mention that I have updated part one,
Remembering Norbert McNamara: May I Borrow Your Fairthorpe?
as I have learned of and therefore added additional entries for
McNamara at Laguna Seca in October1961 for both the Electron and Electron
Minor. With that said, now to continue with Part Two:
Remembering Dr. Norbert McNamara M.D.: Are Two Norberts
Better Than One?
In 1963, after graduating from medical school. Dr. Norbert McNamara
M.D. moved to Palo Alto where he was doing his residency at nearby Stanford
Medical Center. Norbert McNamara again entered the Fairthorpe Electron Minor in
the Monterey Pacific Grand Prix at Laguna Seca, but this time the entrant was
Norbert Tracy. Not sure if this is the same Electron Minor that David Dinsmore entered
in 1961 and 1962? Most likely they were one and the same, both were white, but
can’t be sure. Interesting is the
engine displacement was listed at 1056cc. If they were still using the Triumph
948cc engine, the 63mm bore would need to be increased to 66.5mm achieve 1056cc.
Unlike Davis Dinsmore and James Kirrs, I did find Norbert
Tracy’s obituary published by Marin Independent Journal on Dec. 10, 2003, and
it is as follows:
“Norbert
A. Tracy passed away Saturday, December 6, 2003, after a ten-year illness with
non-Hodgkins’s lymphoma. He was born in Cork City, Ireland, October 3, 1936, to
Peter and Eleanor Tracy. He came to the United States in 1958 and lived with
his relatives in San Francisco. He attended City College of San Francisco and
U.C. Berkeley, studying electrical engineering. His studies were interrupted by
the draft into the U.S. Army. He was stationed in France and upon discharge,
returned to Cal and changed his major to Civil Engineering. While at Cal, he
received his master’s degree in Geotechnical Engineering.
In
1974 he began a 28-year career with Jacobs Associates, Engineers/ Consultants.
He served as President from 1992 to 1999. From 1999, he was Chairman of the
Board of Directors until he retired in 2002. During his career, he was involved
in many high-profile projects, some of which were tunnel and infrastructure
design projects, such as the Melbourne CityLink and Sydney M-5 Motorway,
Chicago’s TARP project, New York’s Light Rail, major sewer system tunnels in
Rochester, New York and Boston’s Inter-Island and Metro West Water Supply
Tunnels. He was involved in a number of pump/ storage and mining projects
throughout the U.S. and overseas. He worked on such local projects as the City
and County of San Francisco’s Clean Water Tunnel, East Bay Municipal Utility
District’s Claremont Tunnel, the Walnut Creek/ San Ramon Improvement Project
and the Mokelumne Aqueduct. In
earlier years, he and his cousin worked on developing a race car for the Can Am
series. He enjoyed auto racing, golf, the Giants and 49ers, home improvement
projects, but most of all, he enjoyed his family. Norbert is survived by his
wife and best friend of 33 years, Barbara and children: Kevin of Larkspur,
Ellen of San Rafael, and Shannon of San Diego; his sisters Ruth Dumas of Point
Lookout, NY, Gillian Tracy of Rye Brook, NY, his brother Michael of Waterford,
Ireland and many loving sisters-in-law and brothers-in-law, nieces, nephews,
cousins, and many good friends. He had a delightful sense of humor and was a
quiet wonderful man.”
I find the line highlighted above interesting, and
the same line repeated below:
“In earlier years, he and his cousin worked on
developing a race car for the Can Am series.”
Was the cousin mentioned, Norbert McNamara? I
believe McNamara was, indeed, his cousin and they both worked on the Fairthorpes
together and later, they worked on the Costin sports racer which would later be
raced as the ZMT Climax.
The Fairthorpe in the photo below was photographed outside of Nadeau Bourgeault’s
workshop, on the back of the photo is written “Fairthorpe Electron
Bourgeault”. His shop was located next to the
Bill Breeze Sports Car Center in Manzanita, CA near the base of the Richmond
Bay Bridge. It is likely that the Fairthorpe was there to have work done on the
car. Perhaps having a roll over bar installed, if so likely photographed before
it began racing in 1961?
I believe that the Fairthorpe above is an
Electron Minor. Well, it is hard to tell from the quality of the photo. You can’t see if it has 15” TR3 wheels or 13”
Herald wheels. On an Electron with a TR3 rear axle the rear wheel will be
slightly tucked under the body, where the rear wheels on this Fairthorpe appear
to fill the rear wheel aches. Only about one third of the steering wheel rim is
visible in the photo, that certainly makes it an Electron Minor, as the
Electron steering was mounted much higher.
Nadeau Bourgeault or “Nado” as he was usually
called, could be described as a wizard or a genius working on sports cars,
having re-bodied several cars in beautiful alloy bodywork. Additionally, he
went on to build a series of his own racing cars.
The next photograph below is of Norbert
McNamara Fairthorpe Electron. On the back of the photo is written “Fairthorpe
Electron New! 31st Avenue” Note that the indicators are on the side
of the bonnet, whereas the Electron Minor above had its directionals at the
front of the bonnet. This Fairthorpe was first sold in 1959 but first titled in
California in 1961, about the same time that Norbert began racing Fairthorpes.
Perhaps it was first registered in another state. Notice also that the
steering wheel is very high in this photo as you can almost see the steering
wheel hub which makes it an Electron.
Below is also photograph of a Fairthorpe Electron, on the back is written
“Fairthorpe Electron Cotati”.
Notice that this Fairthorpe also has directionals on the
side of the bonnet. Is it the same Fairthorpe as the one on 31st
Avenue, maybe? Maybe not? Also, I can just see that the roll over bar spans the
full width of the cockpit, with a single brace to the rear behind the driver.
“Cotati” on the back refers to the local racetrack at that time, about 45 minutes north of San Francisco. It was an abandoned WWII Naval Airfield, see below, from a page on “Tam’s Old Racecar’ website. There were many regional SCCA races held there, and it is certain that Norbert and his Fairthorpe raced in some of those events there, but no records were kept.
