Ralt History

[Michael Edick]

Thanks to Derek Harling for helping me track down a little history on my RT5 FSV.
Now, the fun part: according to his records, my car was originally purchased by a person named "Lechner" in June or July of 1980. He also had purchased a car in April of that same year.
So, does anyone have a clue as to who this "Lechner" person is?
I've checked the Old Race Cars web site, and couldn't find anyone by that name in the results for '80, '81 or '82...it could very well be that he just ran club races with it, but with two cars purchased within a few months of each other, it kinda sounds like maybe he was an entrant...hmmm.
The roll bar stamp is 82-264, which from what I understand is the Black Hawk Hills farm region of the SCCA, which may not mean a thing...maybe a roll bar was changed sometime in it's life...hmmm again!
Thanks!!!
Michael Edick
www.mteengineering.com

[Rick Kirchner]

Did you try Marc Bahner? Marc has probably made parts for everybody who had a serious interest in these cars.

[jebracing]

Walter Lechner was a super vee champion in Europe and was the last european sv champion. He raced an RT5 in 80.

[dereklola]

For the record here's the info I just emailed to Mike

Mr Google tells me that Walter Lechner was an Austrian who raced an RT5 in two German SuperVee races in April/May 1980, then no more until August 1980. So did he crash RT5-190, delivered in April, and then replace it with [your] RT5-196 in July because he raced an RT5 again from August until the end of the year. He raced an RT5 only once
in 1981 but he did buy two RT3s - presumably to race F3 rather then SuperVee. Then in 1982 he moved back to SuperVee and won the last European [German] SuperVee championship, in an RT5. Just to complete the story his son, Walter Jr, won the Formula Volkswagen championship in 2001!

From OldRacingCars.com - Super Vee in Europe -
A VW-backed European Championship existed for some years and in the early 1970s attracted grids in the high 20s. In 1975 two European-wide series were promoted, the Castrol GTX Trophy and the more important, and lucrative, Volkswagen Gold Cup. By the early 80s the "European" championship was largely German-based and there was concern
when VW withdrew their support at the end of 1982 to concentrate in building Formula Three engines. Germany also had a national Super Vee championship, and in 1982 Austrian Walter Lechner won both the European and German national championships. Indeed, support for Super Vee in Continental Europe generally exceeded the interest generated in Britain, were the formula never really flourished.

So how and when did yours come to America? One guess would be that with the demise of SuperVee in Europe and the climbing popularity in the US that some cars were shipped over here. Maybe VW America was somehow involved.

Now for the intriguing bit. Your fuel cell #37341 built in late 1981 is listed as being in car RT5-342 delivered in August 1982 to 'Robertson/Andretti'. Since Michael won the US SV championship title that year presumably this was a replacement car. There are lots of earlier ones consigned to Robertson but not with Andretti's name attached. So how
did your car end up with that car's fuel cell? Many possibilities of course. It might have gotten switched well after its/their pro lives. Or maybe the Lechner car was sold to or via Robertson even though secondhand. And of course once in a pro team anything can happen since they are stripped and rebuilt so often.

Finally the 'RT4' on your fuel cell does not mean Ralt RT4. I went out to my storage unit to check both mine - and both the RT2 and the RT4 cells have 'RT4' as part of the Marston part number and as you can see the RT4 and RT5 cells are significantly different in width and height. Pics attached. The RT5 cell fits between the inner side panels and the low
top, level with the side pods. Whereas both the RT2 and the RT4 are much bigger fitting between the outer side panels and the higher top just below the bodywork. The RT2 is also 4" longer than the RT4.

Just noticed that Walt Lechner ran CanAm here in 1984 - in a converted 1982 Williams FW07 F1 car - run by Colin Bennett who comes from same part of England as I do and whom I know slightly. Really small world!

[RT5owner]

Thanks to Derek Harling for helping me track down a little history on my RT5 FSV.

How did you go about finding the history of your Ralt?

[dereklola]

Mr Kingsbury meet Mr Google
Mr Google meet Mr Kingsbury

[RT5owner]

Mr Kingsbury meet Mr Google
Mr Google meet Mr Kingsbury

I haven't had any success with Mr. Google. Nothing comes up on my particular car. Any other ideas?

[FWSchroeder]

"lechner" "RT5" "ralt"

Use quotation marks and "search within results"

[SStadel]

The 82- part of your roll bar stamp is from the Blackhawk Valley Region (BVR) of SCCA. At some point at least the roll bar must have been in the Midwest!

[swede9]

Maybe I can help with this, although I’m not sure we are talking about the same car, (sorry I don’t know the chassis #) late in 1983 we did some work for Johnnie R Crean, Johnnie had a Lola 296 that he club raced and wanted to do some Formula Car Racing. Johnnie’s Brother-In-Law Rich Vogler had been doing a few Super Vee Races and had crashed his RT5. Johnnie bought the car which showed up in a huge wooden crate filled with the bent chassis and a load of bend parts and spares. Steve Jennings built us 2 motors. The tub was sent to Marc Bahner for repair and to update the lower section of the tub to match the 1983 RT5’s lower section which had a more pronounced taper, which allowed for larger tunnels. During this time the fuel cell was modified to match the new lower taper. We tried to purchase 1984 sidepods from Ralt before Long Beach but Ralt would not release any until after all 1984 RT5 were delivered. At this point Johnnie decided to put Steve Millen in the car for Long Beach, Steve knew Dick Bennett at West Surrey Racing who sold us a set of late 1983 RT3 side pods, these having the same underwing profile as the new 1984 sidepods. When we got to Long Beach we found that the modified fuel cell would be very close to not having enough capacity to complete the race. Pitted next to us was someone who had just bought a RT5 that had a lot of spare parts, of which was a used newer style spare fuel cell. We tried to contact the team (sorry don’t remember who they were) who had already left for the night. Not having any luck contacting them we took their spare fuel cell and installed it in our car the night before the race. The next day the team was not too happy with us but agreed to sell us the cell at full price. Millen finished 3rd at Long Beach, Rich Vogler drove the car to 4th at Phoenix and Millen drove the car again at Portland finishing 5th. After Portland if I remember there was some trouble getting pistons from Mahle and Johnnie sold the car and bought Jeff McPhearson’s RT4.