This weeks BLAST is another piece of Kieran Roberts’ great art, the brilliantly-named March of the Orange Elephants.
Let’s hear from the artist himself about this piece, this is from his website:
After the factory McLaren team dominated the 1968 CanAm championship with the successful M8A, the organisers increased the 1969 series from six races to eleven, presumably to loosen the McLaren stranglehold. McLaren’s response with their new M8B was devastating – winning all eleven races, including eight 1-2 finishes. Bruce McLaren wrote in his magazine column “It seems to be reaching the Moss / Clark stage, where we are getting so much publicity that people are coming along just to see us win. It’s like elephants at a circus – there might only be one or two there, but you don’t feel like going home without seeing the elephants, no matter how many monkeys there might be…” From then on the McLaren CanAm’s were known as orange elephants.
Here we see Chris Amon in the spare car after his Ferrari 612P failed, followed by Bruce McLaren, and Denny Hulme descending the infamous corkscrew at Laguna Seca during practice. True to Amon’s luck he would have to start from the back of the grid, working his way up to sixth before the diff failed, while McLaren would win, with Hulme second.
As always, we will continue to feature Kieran’s work as he produces it, but you can head to his website www.kieranrobertsart.com to see more, or buy some of his brilliant work.
