Broadley agreed and the team at Lola came up with the Lola T-600: a simple but powerful wedge-shaped design based on an entirely new chassis that incorporated an aluminum honeycomb monocoque, ground effects tunnels, and side- mounted radiators fed by large, distinctive NACA ducts. To further take advantage of aerodynamics, the rear wheels were covered with access doors that hinged out of the way when needed. A normally aspirated 6.0-liter Chevy V8 prepared by Chaparral produced 630bhp; it was a reliable, proven motor, and parts were readily available. The spirit of the GTP rules came to full fruition for the first time with the new Lola.

“The Lola T-600 was designed as a two-seater racing car rather than a highly modified production-based car, which is what 935s were,” remembered Redman. “The advantage was better weight distribution, although it had a lot less power than the 935. It was hard in the races because the Porsches could turn up the boost in qualifying. We’d qualify somewhere fourth, fifth, sixth, that sort of area. Once the race got going, they couldn’t maintain the high boost pressure without damaging the engines. And we had better handling.”




Having won the 24 Hours of Daytona at the wheel of a Garretson 935, Redman arranged for the first Lola T-600 to be shipped to Cooke-Woods Racing in California in February 1981, where it was prepared largely by Garretson-based mechanics. Redman continued to share the Garretson 935 at Sebring, skipped Road Atlanta in April, and teamed with Rahal in the 935 to finish third at the Riverside 6 Hours. Once testing had satisfied Redman, the T-600 debuted in May at the Laguna Seca sprint round. The car attracted an enormous amount of attention; it didn’t look like anything else in the paddock.With the BMW M-1/C and the Lola T-600 qualifying fifth and seventh, respectively, the Laguna Seca grid took on a new look, providing a glimpse into the future. Redman methodically worked his way to the front, albeit with help from a turn nine incident that took out Ludwig’s Mustang and Rolf Stommelen’s 935. In its maiden event, the Lola T-600 grabbed the win, marking the first time that a GTP car won a Camel GT race.

Redman went on a tear, winning the next two events at Lime Rock and Mid-Ohio. In total, Redman would win five races and place second in five other events in the Lola, easily taking him to the 1981 Camel GT title. It was the first for him, the first for Lola Cars, and the first for a GTP machine.

Toward the end of the season, a new star driver and car combination began a remarkable run in the ANDIAL/Howard Meister AIR Porsche 935. Stommelen and Harold Grohs won the 1,000-kilometer event at Mosport and the five-hundred-miler at Road America just one week later. The following week, Stommelen and Derek Bell took the nonchampionship five- hundred-mile Lumbermens race at Mid-Ohio. The three-race total in prize money was over $75,000. No car, team, or driver had achieved anything like this streak in sports car racing. More than thirty-five years later, it remains unchallenged: three race wins by Stommelen of five hundred miles or more in just three weeks.Lola began taking orders for the T-600 from other teams once it started crushing the competition. Ted Field bought three for his Interscope Racing team. John Paul Sr. and Chris Cord each bought one as well. In total, Lola Cars built twelve of the T-600s, which were campaigned successfully not only in IMSA Camel GT racing for the next two seasons, but in the World Endurance Championship of Makes as well.

With the publication of FIA Group C regulations in 1981, some of the new European prototypes began using IMSA racing that same year as a test bed for the following year. GRID, Rondeau, Sauber, and other European constructors appeared at various races. Their presence diversified the fields and produced incredible competition between the new generation prototypes and the now-very-radical-silhouette GTX cars.

In GTO, the newly eligible BMW Procar M-1 was a game changer. Powered by a CSL straight, six-cylinder engine, though now in a modern midengine coupe, BMW gave customers a reliable and potent car.


Dave Cowart’s (of Tampa Florida) Red Lobster Restaurant–sponsored M-1 dominated, with wins at eleven of the fifteen events. Nine of the top ten in GTO season driver standings used an M-1 exclusively or in at least part of the season.



The Mazda RX-7 again dominated GTU with Dave Kent’s team of Lee Mueller and Walt Bohren finishing one-two in the series. The pair won eleven of the fifteen races between them. Don Devendorf and Electramotive had moved on from GTU in 1981; the team was busy developing the new GTO 280ZX Turbo car for 1982, but they supplied potent Electramotive GTU 280ZXs to customers.