Mara goes Letara, Ep. 4-5: Rallycross!
23th May 1975
Summer Racing Team Workshop, Lerance, Letara
After the future rules for the next decade of racing in Letara were finalised and publshed, Inna Horyova, Mara’s Comrade Director of Letaran Operations, Rodyn Gumprov, Mara’s Comrade Director of Engineering (CDE), John Summer, the owner and main driver for Mara’s semi works entry in the past ten years (and as a privateer the ten years before), and John’s son Nico met in the team’s garage in Lerance. Nico looked like being in his early twenties and kept some distance to the others initially.
It was one of Rodyn’s first appointments after having just taken over the reins as CDE from Yenna Bielicka who had left her CDE position at Mara for Aljoscha Aeroplanes as head of engine development only a couple of weeks prior.
Rodyn summarized the new racing ruleset. “So the future of Letaran racing will indeed be rallycross, but not a smaller track or with lower specs as we argued for?”
John answered. “In essence, yes. There are hardly any technical restrictions in place, seemingly aimed at full works entries with limitless pockets. I wonder how can we keep up?”
Initial strategizing for the Mara rallycross entry
“How much factory backing can we expect?” John continued.
“About the same as last time”, Rodyn answered. “So quite limited. As much as I personally like engineering challenges, it’d be a hard sell at home to partake in capitalist excess on - what is admittedly - a fringe market.”
John nodded somberly but he hadn’t expected anything else. “Luckily, we are ready to re-invest a fair bit of the prize money we pocketed over the last years through our string of podium finishes.”
John pointed at the car up on the hoist and nodded at Inna. “We got the new 2.5 SSE RTH base car you provided and already got to work to replicate key things from the previous race car.”
The reworked Mara Irena 2.5 SSE RTH which is to be the basis of the rallycross entry
“That’s great”, Inna replied. “I’d like to keep the look for the resemblance to the consumer car.”
John continued. “As you can see, we already expanded the brake and engine cooling - we might need it for the extended race duration. We also fitted a front and rear spoiler already - we figure we need them as well, but we have not tested them yet, of course.”
Suddenly, the big outer garage doors opened and Anya Mayster, one of Rodyn’s junior engine development engineers arrived. “Beware… when we bring gifts”, she stated dryly, marching into the garage.
A few of John’s mechanics pushed in two big pallettes on handcarts with one big engine crate each on them.
“Behold the 5 litre V8 from our Kavaler interceptor at home”, Anya continued. “It’s the same engine block as the 4 litre, just bored and stroked. So should be all familiar to you?”
The boxes with two development engines for the rallycross car
John nodded. “Unrestricted, this should allow then for a nice boost in power. However, I have heard that other teams are starting to explore turbochargers, something we neither know anything about not have the capacity to develop. So we probably won’t be able to compete on outright power and speed.”
“That’s what we would have needed last year, to keep Yenna interested, perhaps”, Rodyn muttered. He knew from personal conversations with her that the lack of a engine-related challenges in her job prompted her to seek greener pastures in the aircraft industry.
He continued. “We can reach out to Aljoscha Aeroplanes again to make the… spoilers work and optimize the airflow of the facelifted body. And to our Fruinian tyre supplier Tyrelli to further increase tyre grip.”
It was John’s turn again. “We still need to maximize engine power as well. I can look for local vendors to provide material and expertise in exchange for their sponsorship logos we can put on the car.”
Rodyn, Inna and Anya were all puzzled by the concept, but didn’t say anything.
John continued. “It’s a long distance race, so that’s something else to keep on mind. We’d also need a second driver, hence why I brought my son along who has been competing in the Letaran junior series.” He clapped Nico Summer on the shoulder. “Oh, and the entire off-road thing… where the existing suspension might even give us some advantages over the pure sports and supercars the others might enter…”