The McLaren team finished the series in good shape with the drivers reversing last year’s position. Hulme winning and McLaren taking second place. "In a way we did a little better than last year. First and second was what we had hoped for but we weren’t very confident about it. We had pole position at every race this year, whereas Gurney beat us once last year in the final couple of races, but this year we had completely licked our engine problems and we were both in top form as the series ended. So at the moment we’re feeling good, but I hasten to add we’re not complacent. We’re well aware that this season was probably our last easy one. That big Ferrari didn't get a chance to show its race pace, but I followed it in practice and its power to weight seemed pretty close to ours. Chris could run down the straight with almost identical acceleration and top speed to us. Brabham was at Vegas nosing around so you can reckon he’ll be chasing greenies next year with a new car and Gurney has quit Formula 1 to concentrate on Can-Am and Indy racing, so he isn’t going to be hanging about. I even hear talk that Honda is considering trying its hand at Can-Am. Then there’s the new 2H Chaparral. So you see what I meant about having had our last easy season …"

The Chevy domination of Can-Am has become an embarrassment to Ford since General Motors is supposedly out of racing and Ford is supposedly very much in, and rumour said that McLaren might be tempted to use new aluminium 429 Fords in his cars next year. I asked McLaren is he planned to can his engine development program on the lightweight Chev's in favour of the new Ford. "No. No and no comment." When McLaren doesn’t have anything to say on any given subject you can assume that the issue is fraught with deep political and financial undertones, and Bruce isn’t about to be drawn into discussion about it. Getting information about 1969 plans was like pulling teeth. Jim Hall and John Surtees are conversationalists by comparison with McLaren when he wants to clam up. "Plans are being made. I’m sure if I told you at the moment, you’d say ‘ v-e-r-y interesting.’ We don’t intend to expand our California operations, in fact we are bringing everything back to England to set up shop with our own dyno and test house."

Mixing Can-Am and Formula 1 is nigh on impossible as Gurney, Surtees and Ferrari discovered. McLaren was able to avoid disaster by flooding the projects alternately with staff, but even he had problems. At one stage only one mechanic was working on the Formula 1 cars while the others slaved to complete the Can-Am cars for shipment.

Did McLaren plan to favour the extended Can-Am series next year at the expense of his Formula 1 effort? "We’re going to work it 50/50 right down the line except that we plan to do our own engine development in Can-Am which means that in total we’ll have more people on the Can-Am project."

Denny Hulme, fellow countryman and Formula 1 world champion in 1967, plans to drive for McLaren again next year. The pair get on well together, Hulme respecting McLaren’s urge to design and build his own cars while reckoning himself to be a better driver than Bruce, and Bruce happy to acknowledge the point if it makes for a smooth running operation and lets him concentrate on new ideas.

Team Manager Mayer is a 24-hour-a-day operator seemingly pledged to transfer McLaren sketches and scrawled notes into race-winning reality. McLaren puts as many hours in at his 10,000 sq ft Colnbrook factory near London Airport as his staff does. His work day starts at around 8.00 a.m. and is seldom finished before 8 p.m.

For McLaren the actual races are just the top of the iceberg – but he’s beginning to notice that his efforts are making the berg turn green. Dollar green.

First published Field & Track 1969 by Eoin S. Young