Purcell Race Engineering

(Continued)

Building on the success of the Sports Racer, Carbir decided to move into the Formula Car market, and purchased a design from Piper Cars. Eric was responsible for the initial testing of this car, and following the tests it was concluded to largely start over, completely redesigning the Piper design to eliminate several major flaws. In just 4 months, Eric completely redesigned the chassis, suspension, engine bay and bodywork of the car. Eric was solely responsible for creating the new body “buck” from which the molds for the new car would be taken. In addition, a completely revised wing package was created for the new design, and the first car began testing in the summer of 1998.

The car was immediately quick, and further development at Eric’s direction continued to improve the car. Late in 1998, the car was entered in its first professional series event, at Pikes Peak Raceway in Colorado. While consistently in the top 10, and up to 5th at one point in the team’s debut, the car was eventually sidelined with a mechanical failure. Encouraged by the positive results, a team was formed for 1999 to enter two cars for the entire USF2000 professional series.

At the start of the 1999 season, Eric “changed hats” again to further development of the Carbir Sports 2000 car, and focus on engineering the factory ACRL team. Eric also attended non-conflicting events for the new Formula 2000 team, doubling his duties. While the ACRL team ran competitively without issue, the F2000 team struggled with cars that were difficult to drive and not competitive. Eric was brought into the F2000 team full time after 4 races, and Andy Lally was hired to work with Eric in order to improve the cars. The results were immediate, as Andy was victorious in his first race at Road Atlanta, and continued to outscore eventual champion Dan Weldon for the remainder of the season. The dramatic turnaround of the team’s fortune was a great tribute to Eric’s engineering talent and Lally’s abilities behind the wheel.

In 2000, Eric teamed with John Walko to engineer another young talent, Tom Dyer, to the USF2000 ACC Championship title. Eric continued to be responsible for engineering both the F2000 and sports car teams, dividing his time between the east and west coasts. Eric was also responsible for overseeing the construction and assembly of customer cars at the Carbir factory in Portland, Oregon, eventually delivering 17 Sports 2000 cars, and 8 Formula 2000 cars. When Carbir fell on hard times near the end of 2000, Eric was forced to leave and form a new partnership with Joe Moran to create Aerocell Motorsports, with the goal of running a team in the ACRL championship while working on a new Sports 2000 design.

Unfortunately, the new Sports 2000 design was never to be, as following the dramatic affects that 9/11 had on Joe’s business, he was forced to end his partnership with Eric. At this time, Eric created his own racing preparation facility, Earthbound Flying Machines. Eric continued to field professional Sports 2000 cars, and returned to the Formula Mazda Pro Series as well. During this time, Eric was contacted by Van Diemen International, the world’s largest manufacturer of race cars, to sort out the problems they had been having with their own Sports 2000 design.

Van Diemen had never had a failure in their illustrious history, and they were determined not to fail with their Sports Racer. Ralph Firman and Les Johnson, presidents of Van Diemen and Ancaster Leisure (the owners of the rights to the Sports Racer), had teken notice of Eric’s talents while he was at their competitor, Carbir. The pair met with Eric in early 2002, and proceeded by sending over a chassis for Eric to develop with young English Sports 2000 star Nik Johnson. During the 2002 season, the factory requested that Eric not make major changes to the car, evaluating the car as delivered to establish a true baseline. Eric worked his usual magic to the car within these confines, and he and Nik were able to make the car reasonably competitive. The Van Diemen’s first major victory came at Sears Point in the hands of David Ferguson at the final race of the long, storied ACRL history in November of 2002. David was impressed enough with the car to sell his championship winning Swift and purchased a Van Diemen of his own, taking that car in subsequent seasons to 2 4-Flight S2 Cup Championships, dozens of race victories, and several track records up and down the west coast.

In 2003, the factory enlisted Eric to continue his development of the car, and to run Nik in SCCA Nationals with an eye toward winning the SCCA National Championship Runoffs. Eric split his time between a very busy Formula Mazda schedule and the Sports 2000 development effort. Eric, Nik and David Ferguson dominated the west coast Sports 2000 scene, winning nearly every National entered, and breaking track records at Portland, Laguna Seca, Sears Point, Thunderhill and Seattle in the process. Unfortunately, a lack of budget for testing at Mid-Ohio prevented a better run, and during the championship race, Nik had gearbox trouble while challenging for a podium.

The lessons learned from the 2003 season led to major developments of the Van Diemen Sports 2000, as Eric had finally been given the “green light” from the factory to proceed. Entirely new suspension and bodywork were fitted to the car, and the new mechanical and aerodynamic package designed by Eric showed immediate results, knocking 1.2 seconds off the track record in testing at Portland. With Nik Johnson behind the wheel again, Eric and Nik won every National they entered in 2004, and expected a great run at the Runoffs. Once again, bad luck bit the duo at the championship race, as a very difficult to trace engine problem left them down on power the entire event. Nik fought valiantly with an excellent handling but underpowered car, and finished side by side with 2006 Champ Mark Mercer for the final podium spot.

Eric also managed and engineered a C Sports Racing national program for Dennis Pavlina in 2004. This program required that Eric develop a completely different Sports Racer chassis, the Doran, designing and developing the car with three different engine packages (Sports 2000 Ford, Cosworth YAC, and Cosworth BDA). This program yielded great results, with numerous dominant CSR wins and a Silver Medal (2nd place) at the 2004 SCCA Runoffs.

With the factory satisfied that the Van Diemen was competitive, no factory team was scheduled to run 2005, and Eric returned to professional racing as a consulting engineer for teams in the Star Mazda Pro Series and in Formula BMW USA. Dealing with no less than four teams and nine drivers was a challenge, but Eric’s reputation grew as other teams noticed how well drivers responded to Eric’s coaching and engineering abilities. This lead to Eric being hired for the entire 2006 season as the primary engineer for the new Haberfeld & Walker Formula BMW team, a partnership between Champ Car team owner Derrick Walker and former Formula 1 driver Mario Haberfeld.

Indy '05		Indy '06

Mosport '06		Denver '06

Eric continued to manage Earthbound Flying Machines as well, occasionally running a Sports 2000 race with customers, building Van Diemen Sports 2000’s for customers, and providing support for these cars, including continuing to develop the car even further.

Throughout 2006 Eric’s time was divided between his engineering contract with Haberfeld & Walker and managing Earthbound Flying Machines, running customer Sports 2000 cars and continuing to support the Van Diemen product. ■