It appeared in the final races of the series that the works McLarens were running against very weak opposition. "We were very surprised. Our actual improvement over last year's car had been slight, working on our testing yardstick at Goodwood. I eventually managed to get the new car down to 1 min. 12.7 sec in a Banzai effort which at the time was calculated by me as an attempt to instil confidence in the new car. We’d had the old car with the cast iron engine and everything just jury-rigged on it down to 1:13 regularly, and the previous year we’d done 1:13.4 with the 6 litre engine, so our actual improvement was under 1.5 percent and this was the sort of improvement in lap times we saw at Riverside and Las Vegas. On other circuits we had almost a 3 percent improvement and yet it wasn’t until the final races that we were back up to power after solving our piston ring problems.

"We expected Gurney and Shelby to give us much more opposition. Gurney had proved that his Weslake-headed Ford was capable of producing more than 550 horsepower for 500 miles at Indy and we felt sure that he would get 580bhp out of his fairly light engine over 200 miles with relatively little effort. In the standard McLaren chassis this engine would have been very quick. We figured Dan in his combination would be a big threat but it didn’t materialise. I suppose during our development season we were more worried about what Hall was doing than anyone else. I must say I was surprised – surprised and delighted – at the lack of competition."

McLaren was also rather surprised at the low standard of preparation. "There is no standard of preparation other than in the Penske area. In my opinion there is a regrettable tendency for the average American mechanic with very little background to feel he knows it all and never be worried," says McLaren. "Our chief mechanic Tyler Alexander is fond of saying ‘Hell, I’m worried all the time – anything could go wrong with the damned thing’ and he doesn’t presume to have an answer at his fingertips to every situation like some other crews pretend to have. Penske’s people are good because of Penske. There are some good mechanics on the series, but there are also some who think they are very good – they could take lesson from any of two dozen Formula 1 racing mechanics who wouldn’t presume to know everything…"

Talking about improvements he would like to see in the Can-Am series, McLaren mentions standardisation of starting procedure. "I’d like to see minute boards before the start with a 5 min board, 2 min and then 1 min so that drivers can start their engines sometime between the 2 min and 1 min boards and then at 1 min everyone is cleared off the grid and at zero the pace car pulls away. Las Vegas was a shambles. Nobody knew when to start engines, in fact Moss took off in the pace car a couple of times and then stopped. But that’s only a detail thing. Taken overall the Can-Am series is definitely on its way to being the greatest thing that has ever happened to motor racing. I think we should continue to have no limitations on engine size and as few rules and regulations as possible. The fact that the cars have all-enveloping bodies has led to relatively safe racing. If we had all been in single seaters in Turn 1 at Las Vegas, it would have been terrifying. Of course there is always the possibility that it wouldn’t have happened then because people wouldn’t have been game to tangle, but I reckon sports cars are generally safer in the event of the odd fracas. Sports cars are more spectacular, and more important, there’s room on which to put decals and other messages from your sponsor!" grins McLaren.

McLaren Racing enjoyed financial backing from Gulf and Goodyear on the series and both Hulme and McLaren basked in yards of prime print publicity as the series progressed. Features in Time and Sports Illustrated plus local press helped to make the two New Zealanders better known in the United States than they are in England. McLaren has certainly been on television more often on the West Coast than he has in either England or New Zealand!