Most race cars retire without fanfare; their exploits quickly forgotten for the latest round of quicker machinery. The cars that weren’t winners are often scrapped, forgotten, or scavenged for spare parts in service of their successors. Lucky ones get a more relaxed second life in historic racing series.

But what of would-be motorsport machines that never arrived at the starting line in the first place? They’re lucky to end up with a few lines in a listicle a decade after their stunted chance at glory.

The racing version of the eighth-gen Volkswagen GTI was headed down a similar path after Vee-Dub pulled the plug on all factory motorsport programs in 2020, midway through the GTI touring car’s development. The Volkswagen Motorsport staff was split up and reassigned to work on other projects within the company, and the prototype they’d been working on—the Mk8 GTI TCR—joined the brand’s museum inventory, unfinished.

The one-of-one work-in-progress subsequently traveled to the United States as a marketing and PR asset, trotted out to local circuits to reel off routine demonstration laps instead of traveling the world and angrily banging doors with the Hyundais, Hondas, and other competitors in TCR-class racing series. But fate had another path for this special GTI, and it would soon be yanked out of obscurity and onto one of the biggest stages in motorsport.

As part of the 50^th birthday celebrations of the Golf nameplate in 2024, VW decided to honor its hatchback’s venerable racing history with a special project that evolved into a plan to compete at the Nürburgring 24 Hours (N24). With just months until the race and without a factory racing division, building a new car was out of the question—but what about that old Mk8 GTI TCR prototype that’d been kicking around in America?

And so began the fast-tracked process of turning a half-finished racer into a world-class competitor. The Volkswagen Motorsport engineers who’d formerly been involved with the project the first time around were willing and eager for another go. They knew the car well and were champing at their bits to pick up where they’d left off, but they’d have to work at night after their day jobs, and they needed a little extra help.

And Max Kruse Racing was there to provide it. Co-founded and run by Volkswagen development driver, brand ambassador, and professional racer Benny Leuchter, the racing team complemented VW’s in-house engineers by providing invaluable experience with setting up and running a car in a 24-hour endurance race. Leuchter’s familiarity with Volkswagen Motorsport made the partnership even stronger.

The Mk8 GTI TCR prototype was shipped back to Germany, where it was immediately routed to Max Kruse Racing’s HQ in Duisburg. With a four-month countdown to the N24, time was of the essence.

The powertrain package was largely left as-is, with the most significant changes occurring on the software rather than hardware side. Namely, the ECU was adapted to run the newly developed Shell E20 fuel that would power the GTI in the N24. “The engine is the stock GTI gen-four 888 engine [a 2.0-liter turbocharged four-cylinder],” VW spokesperson Martin Hube told us at the Nürburgring. “We are competing in the alternative fuel class, so it’s running E20 that we are using together with Shell, [which is] capable of getting rid of nearly 50% of CO2. We wanted to show that a stock engine is capable of competing with this new [bioethanol] fuel under the hardest conditions. [The car] also gained some power because the fuel is a bit more than 100 octane.” The total output in the rechristened Mk8 GTI TCR—now called the Volkswagen GTI Clubsport 24h—is 348 hp, which is just about 50 more than the recently unveiled road-going version.

The GTI Clubsport 24h’s most noticeable augmentation, though, is its redeveloped aero package. Marketing is one reason for the revamp, seeing as the prototype featured the pre-facelift Mk8 GTI’s styling cues and would need to be updated to match the current model’s look. Win with a one-off car on Sunday, sell more base Golfs on Monday, or something like that . . . However, those with extra keen eyes for GTIs will notice that the Clubsport 24h has a mix of pre- and post-facelift design elements.

That said, the main impetus behind the aero makeover was performance-focused, with the engineers incorporating the latest principles into their old car’s new fenders, wings, splitters, diffusers, and every other wind-shifting bit and bob. The resulting look is the meanest looking widebody ever worn by a factory-backed Volkswagen. Like the prototype, the finished Clubsport 24h completes its silhouette with a chunky rear wing hung from swan-neck supports attached to the hatch, and a single very purposeful-looking center-exit exhaust.

With the bodywork buttoned up, it was time for the new roll cage and safety structures to be homologated with just a few weeks before the green flag, so the Clubsport 24h was flat-bedded to a testing and certification center in Spain to make sure everything was in order. With its up-to-date safety compliance in hand, it then headed back to Germany for last-minute shakedowns at Volkswagen’s test track in Ehra-Lessein. The VW engineers and the Max Kruse Racing team had just enough time to define the parameters and tolerances of their car’s systems—for example, how hot the gearbox oil could get without leading to mechanical failure, and which shift points to use to maintain the appropriate operating temperature—before it was time to put all their efforts to the test at the Clubsport 24h’s first-ever race.

There are less daunting debuts than a day-long trial by fire (and fog) at the Nürburgring, but the Clubsport 24h was immediately impressive upon its arrival in Nürburg. Before the race proper, the car set a new front-wheel drive racing car record at the track (which combines the shorter and more modern Grand Prix circuit with the infamous Nordschleife for a total lap length of just under 16 miles) during qualifying: With Benny Leuchter at the controls, the Clubsport 24h clocked a 8:53.239 lap to start the race at the front of its class.

On race day, the #50 car was to be driven by Leuchter, Johan Kristoffersson, Nico Otto and Heiko Hamme over the course of the 24 hours. Mother Nature had other plans however, and the dense layer of fog that immobilized the emergency services helicopter saw the race halted after 7 hours and 22 minutes. Track conditions were closely monitored as hundreds of thousands of fingers were crossed for a restart that never came. To the disappointment of nearly a third of a million people who’d come to compete at, watch and camp out next to this year’s race, the 2024 edition was the shortest in the N24’s 52-race history.

Despite that, the team behind the Clubsport 24h wasn’t upset with taking home the class win. The car finished in 43^rd overall, conquered its category, beat more than half the overall field of finishers, and fulfilled its purpose. “We wanted to show the people in the woods, the people around the track, that this car is really capable,” Hube said, “and now we have the fastest museum car ever made by Volkswagen.”

It still is a museum piece, after all. With one race and one class win under its belt, the Clubsport 24h’s next job is back under the marketing and PR umbrella, where it will be attending the annual GTI Treffen—the world’s largest hot hatch VW celebration—in Wolfsburg during the last weekend of July. But its time as a contemporary racer may not be over, either…

On that topic, Hube told Hagerty, “We have huge motivation now. We expected to be competitive, but we haven’t expected to come to the ‘Ring and record a record lap time. That shows the capabilities of this car, and the engineers have so many ideas for further development. We’re really inspired and there is an idea to use [the Clubsport 24h] as a development car for the next years. We have two more things to celebrate: in 2026 it will be 50 years of GTI. 2027 will be 25 years of R.”

Could this car’s successful second chance revive the defunct Volkswagen Motorsport department? “Now we have to convince the board that it’s necessary to be here [at the Nürburgring], that it’s necessary to present the Golf in front of the fans here. We have to come back.” Asked how they will convince the board, Hube smiles and says with typical German playfulness masked in straightforward phrasing: “It’s better to argue our case with a good result than with a bad result.”

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post The Volkswagen GTI Clubsport 24h Is a Museum Car Reborn to Race appeared first on Hagerty Media.

British race car driver Jamie Chadwick continued her American invasion last weekend with a history-making win in the Indy NXT Series, which used to be called Indy Lights. It’s the developmental feeder series for IndyCar, and many of its graduates have gone on to solid IndyCar careers, recently including Kyle Kirkwood and David Malukas, and in less recent history, Josef Newgarden, Scott Dixon, Helio Castroneves, Pato O’Ward, Marco Andretti, James Hinchcliffe, Colton Herta and Tony Kaanan.

Chadwick, who drives for Andretti Global, qualified on the pole for the Grand Prix of Road America, a 20-lap race on the tough Wisconsin road course. She is only the third female driver to win in the NXT/Indy Lights series, with the first being Ana Beatriz, who won in 2008 and 2009, and Pippa Mann, who was the most recent winner in 2010. Those wins were on oval tracks, so Chadwick becomes the first female driver to win on a road course.

“I have no words,” Chadwick said after her victory on Sunday. “Honestly, I’m a bit emotional. We’ve had an unbelievable car this year and just haven’t been able to do anything about it. I’m just so happy we held on there.”

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by On Her Turf (@onherturf)

She beat Andretti Global teammate Louis Foster by 0.82 seconds, with Jacob Abel in third. Foster and Abel already have two wins each this season, and are the top two in the points, with Abel leading.

This is the second NXT season for Chadwick, 26, after winning three championships in the Europe-based, all-female W Series. That series was cancelled after three seasons for lack of finances, and last ran in 2022, when Chadwick returned with support from Caitlyn Jenner to win her third championship, this time for the newly-formed Jenner Racing team. The W Series was essentially replaced by the female-only, F1-backed F1 Academy in 2023. F1 Academy is on the Formula 4 level, considered a step down from the competition in the W Series.

Prior to racing in the W and NXT Series, Chadwick competed mostly in Europe, but she had several starts in the F3 Asian Championship. She has also been a development driver for the Williams F1 team, and a test driver for the NIO Formula E team. Chadwick co-drove an Aston Martin to a win in the Silverstone 24 Hours in 2015, and to fifth in class in the 2019 running of the 24 Hours of Nürburgring. She’s also competed in Extreme E, the electric off-road series.

Additionally, Chadwick is also the official advisor for 17-year-old Lia Block, daughter of the late stunt driver and rally racer Ken Block, as she competes for Williams in the F1 Academy series this season. After four of the scheduled 14 races, Lia is 14th in points out of 17 drivers.

Chadwick moved to the NXT series in 2023, where she had a best finish of sixth, and ended the season 12th in points. It took her a while to get acclimated to U.S. tracks and the NXT car, which is a Dallara chassis with a turbocharged 2.0-liter Mazda-AER four-cylinder, with six-speed gearbox. The series is owned by IndyCar, which means it’s owned by Roger Penske. Her best finish this season had been third on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s road course.

While Chadwick led Sunday’s race from the pole and never gave up the lead, it wasn’t easy. A crash on lap 16 caused officials to fly the red flag, stopping the race to allow for a clean-up and ensure that it wouldn’t finish under a caution flag. It was restarted with two laps to go.

“With the red flag at the end, I was like, ‘Come on!’” Chadwick said. “We started to lose the tires a little bit. I just knew I had to be aggressive. I knew they [Foster and Abel] have a championship to worry about, and I just had to get my head down. I really wanted to win today.” The victory moved Chadwick up to ninth in points.

This was the sixth race in a 13-race NXT season. Next up is a doubleheader at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca on June 22-23.

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post Jamie Chadwick Is the First Female Indy NXT Race Winner in 15 Years appeared first on Hagerty Media.

If you plan to win one of the two inaugural Ford Mustang Challenge races this weekend at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, you’ll have to beat one of the biggest names in Ford Motorsports.

No, not a professional race car driver, but the chief executive officer at Ford, Jim Farley. It shouldn’t come as too big of a surprise that the company CEO wants to compete—Farley is no stranger to racetracks, especially historic racing, competing in cars from his collection that include a 1965 Ford GT40, a 1966 427 Cobra, and a 1978 Lola 298.

“This is an amazing time for Mustang as we grow our family to include grassroots racing all the way up to the Mustang GT3 which will compete at Le Mans next week,” Farley said. “Like all the racers this weekend, I have a lot to learn in a short amount of time, but I can’t wait to get out there and enjoy some close battles with like-minded Mustang racing fans.”

He’ll be racing the number 17 Mustang, with a livery that recalls the first Mustang to win a race at Mid-Ohio—Jerry Titus’ Trans Am victory in 1967 in a Terlingua Racing Team entry.

The new Mustang Challenge series was created last year by Ford, and sanctioned by IMSA. The one-make series features the Mustang Dark Horse R, powered by a 500-horsepower, 5.0-liter Coyote V-8 with a Tremec manual transmission, racing on 19-inch Michelin slicks. The engine has been upgraded with enhanced cooling and oiling, and has a Borla racing exhaust. The track-only Dark Horse R starts at $145,000.

There are two 45-minute races per weekend. Besides Mid-Ohio, the series will also travel to Watkins Glen International, Road America, Circuit of the Americas and the road course at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

There are 26 entries for this weekend’s series kickoff. Farley will be driving a car owned and prepared by MDK Motorsports, which also has two additional cars in the field for drivers Tom Tait, Jr., and Gabe Tesch. MDK is owned by Mark David Kvamme, a venture capitalist based in Ohio and an experienced competitor. He has raced in the Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona and at the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

The original Mustang Challenge series launched in 2008, using the Mustang FR500S. It was the brainchild of the late Larry Miller, a Ford dealer in Salt Lake City, Utah, who built the Miller Motorsports Park outside the city. The cars, which sold for $75,000, were turn-key racers powered by a 4.6-liter V-8 and a Tremec manual transmission. You can watch a race here.

As with the new Mustang Challenge series, the original featured two 45-minute races per weekend. It was sanctioned by Grand-Am, which became IMSA, and it lasted for three seasons.

For information on the new Mustang Challenge series, click here.

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post Ford CEO Jim Farley to Race in First Round of New Mustang Challenge Series appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Parnelli Jones—who died Tuesday at the age of 90—was the avatar of steely-eyed, crew-cut oval-track racing in the 1960s. Yes, he also won a hard-fought Trans-Am championship in 1970, famously outbrawling Mark Donohue, aka Captain Nice. But Parnelli didn’t have much use for road racers back then. As he told his car owner, NASCAR stalwart (and D-Day veteran) Bud Moore, “Ain’t none of those fruitcuppers gonna outrun me.”

So I was a bit worried about the reception I was going to receive when I sat down in his office to interview him for a magazine called Sports Car International, which was written, edited and published by a small band of devoted fruitcuppers. This was 30-something years ago, when Parnelli was long retired from a driving career that had seen him win everything from the Indy 500 to the Mexican 1000. He’d shut down his Vel’s Parnelli Jones Racing team, which had been the King Kong of American motorsports in the 1970s, and he’d sold off the extensive portfolio of Firestone tire shops that had made him a very rich man. By then, he spent his time managing his Southern California real estate empire and puttering around local golf courses.

Close friends called him Rufus—his given name—or Rufe. The rest of the world knew him simply as Parnelli. He’d mellowed over the years, but he wasn’t soft. He still had the arctic-blue eyes, the granite jaw, the thrice-broken nose. Unlike his great friend and even greater rival, A.J. Foyt, he was still trim enough to climb into a midget and sling it around for hot laps, and there was nothing that tickled him more than outrunning his sons, P.J. and Page, who were embarking on careers as professional racers. “He always had to lead,” Al Unser, who won Indy twice while driving for him, once told me. “If he’d ever settled down, he probably would have won twice as many races as he did. But he just couldn’t stand running second. It’s not just racing either. If you’re playing pool or golf, or if it’s just arm wrestling, the man has to win.”

Parnelli greeted me with a firm handshake and a chilly smile, and I figured the interview would last about as long as a heat race in one of the many USAC sprint car shows he dominated in the early 1960s. Much to my surprise, he spent the rest of the afternoon with me. He squired me around the museum he maintained upstairs, passing along loving histories of each of the cars. Then we sat down with his partner, the large and expansive Vel Miletich, and longtime right-hand man Jimmy Dilamarter.

A few weeks earlier, Dilamarter said, he’d been out with Parnelli when another driver tried to cut in line at a freeway onramp. Parnelli ran him onto the shoulder and off the road, and he would have driven him into a bridge abutment if the guy hadn’t backed off. Then, with a big belly laugh, Miletich recalled how Parnelli had terrorized the NASCAR regulars in a Ford stock car at Darlington, repeatedly pulling slide jobs that forced the other drivers to stand on the brakes to avoid a wreck in Turn 3. After the car went several laps down due to mechanical issues, Miletich put driver Marvin Porter in the cockpit. After the race, a perplexed Porter told him, “These guys sure are polite. Every time I reach a corner, everybody backs off for me.”

Of course, these stories fit squarely into the Parnelli mythology. What I didn’t expect to find was that the man was genuinely funny. Whenever I saw him, he’d regale me with stories from a treasure trove of hilarious anecdotes. One of his (and my) favorites was about how he got involved in the relatively new sport of off-road racing.

“That was Bill Stroppe’s doing,” he said. “He asked me to do a race in Las Vegas. I wasn’t interested, but Bill said, ‘I guess you’re not man enough to do it.’ Well, that was like waving a red cape in front of a bull. So I agreed to do it, and I told the guy riding with me, ‘Alright, you tap my leg if you think I’m going too hard.’” Parnelli snorted. “That guy plumb beat me to death. And I beat the shit out of the car. I mean, I knocked the front tires clean off of it. And I ran it on the rims for so long that they had to take a torch and cut them off.”

But what was so refreshing—and surprising—about Parnelli was his humility. Well, maybe humility is the wrong word, because he was clear-eyed about his skills. Once, when I asked him which drivers he’d feared back in the day, he was silent for a long time before saying, “I don’t want to sound like I’m bragging. But I always felt that other drivers were there just to be beaten.” That said, he wasn’t what he called “an ego guy.” He gave credit where credit was due, and he wasn’t always the hero of his own stories.

He admitted that he pushed his cars too hard—he’s the all-time leader of the Broke While Leading category—and he blamed himself for the failure of the STP turbine whooshmobile that crapped out within eight miles of winning Indy in 1967. He acknowledged that he was terrified by running sprint cars on Midwestern high banks, which was a major reason he quit racing open wheelers while he was still in his prime. And when he made a mistake, he owned up to it.

In 1972, VPJ went to Indy with Al Unser, who’d won the 500 for the team the previous two years. “Penske was there with the McLarens,” Parnelli recalled. “Donohue set on the pole, but they kept puking engines. At the last minute, we sold them one of ours. Well, Donohue won the race, and our cars finished second and third. That’s when I designed a belt that goes around your waist, and it has a boot on the back and a push button, and you can kick your own ass.” He roared. “Al would have won three years in a row if we hadn’t sold Donohue that engine.”

But the more I talked to Parnelli, the harder I found it to reconcile the many contradictions he embodied. He grew up poor—and poorly educated—and did a long, painful apprenticeship running jalopies on Southern California bullrings. Yet despite racing during what was statistically the most dangerous era in motorsports history, he was never seriously injured, and he ended up as one of the wealthiest drivers in the world.

On ovals, whether the rutted dirt of Langhorne or the smooth pavement of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, he was uniquely relaxed and precise. “He never looked like he was going fast,” said Johnny Rutherford, who raced against him on both tracks. “He made it look effortless.” But in road racing, he was a wild man, infamously punting John Surtees halfway to Salinas during a Can-Am race at Laguna Seca (which he won). And as his one-time Trans-Am teammate Dan Gurney recalled, “When you were following right behind him, he’d carve the edge off [the corners] and throw rocks at you. He did that to me once at Kent and broke my windshield.”

And then there was the man himself. Away from the track, he was too tightly wound to be truly avuncular, but there was nothing about the way he carried himself that hinted at his legendary combativeness. I mean, this was a guy who punched out another driver after winning the Indy 500. As Bobby Unser, who’d been mentored by him, once told me, “Parnelli’s a very gentle person, but he can be extremely ornery. Extremely ornery. He was one guy Foyt never picked on. Foyt might have been able to whip him, but Parnelli was like a wolverine. He would have chewed on his ears and bitten his nose off. And even if he’d gotten whipped, he would have waited until he healed up, and then he would have come right back at him.”

Parnelli didn’t exude the swagger of A.J. Foyt or the charisma of Mario Andretti. He wasn’t as sunny as Dan Gurney or as quotable as Bobby Unser. But he was one of one, and what a great one he was.

***

Check out theHagerty Media homepageso you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post Respected at Every Track: Remembering Parnelli Jones appeared first on Hagerty Media.

If you had “Cadillac mulling a hypercar” on your 2024 automotive bingo board, kudos to you—we sure didn’t. Speaking with Australian automotive media during a brand briefing event for Cadillac, which launches in the Australian market later this year with the Lyriq EV, General Motors global design chief Michael Simcoe left a few breadcrumbs that, if you squint, may point to a potential high-performance hypercar coming from the luxury brand.

“Could we build a hypercar? Yes,” Simcoe told members of the Australian motoring media, including carsales.com.au, where this report comes from. “Would we like to build one? Yes. Are we building one? That would be giving too much away,” Simcoe said.

The topic, according to carsales.com.au, was addressed after Simcoe, a Melbourne native, was asked about Cadillac’s desired involvement with Formula 1 with Andretti Global—which has hit a roadblock within the soap opera that is F1—and whether involvement in the pinnacle of racing could spur development of such a car. (Recall that the Mercedes-AMG One is essentially the automaker’s current Formula 1 powertrain transplanted into a limited-run, ultra-high-performance road and track car.)

Perhaps more interestingly, Simcoe also reportedly admitted that such a hypercar may yet retain some element of internal combustion, despite the brand’s intention to go all-electric by 2030. “No, [the hypercar] wouldn’t have to be [electric], but it could be,” Simcoe said. “Whether it’s ICE or whether it’s EV, Cadillac is committed to performance.”

Keeping some form of internal combustion as part of the potential powertrain for the hypercar would make sense, as F1’s impending technical overhaul in 2026 will still retain some element of internal combustion for those power units as well.

Our minds went in another direction, however, and we immediately thought of the brand’s GTP cars that race in IMSA. Imagine that bellowing 5.5-liter, race-bred V-8 attached to the rear end of a road car that looked as good as the GTP car. Hey, dreaming is free, right?

It’s all just rumors and speculation for now, but that’s half the fun of it. Let’s cross our collective fingers and hope that Cadillac shocks the world with a hypercar in the near future.

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post Report: Cadillac Wants to Build a Hypercar to Rival Mercedes-AMG One appeared first on Hagerty Media.

If you had a blank check and the brief to build “The closest thing to a life-like R/C car that you could,” what would it look like? While the outcomes of such a thought exercise are myriad, I’d bet many of you would end up with something that looks an awful lot like this creation from California-based design firm SV Vintage.

Meet the SV Rover, a purpose-built desert racing truck that pushes the boundaries of what an off-roader can do—so much so that the company is boldly proclaiming it to be the world’s first “Hyper Truck.” The SV Rover is loosely based on the design of a classic Land Rover Defender, but to say the two share anything in common is like saying my 75-lb Golden Retriever is “loosely based on” Mystik Dan, the thoroughbred horse that took home this year’s Kentucky Derby.

This two-seat, rear-midengined monster truck wears carbon-fiber bodywork that shrouds a fully bespoke, custom-fabricated tube chassis and space frame with all sorts of neat engineering tricks. In fact, in the walk-around video below, founder and CEO Joe Scarbo explains that the original goal for the SV Rover was to build a truck that was compliant with the Trophy Truck regulations for the SCORE international off-road racing series. It just so happened that once the truck’s development phase was complete, the thing could be legally driven on roads—in California, at least.

The SV Rover first debuted at the F.A.T. International ice race in Aspen, Colorado, earlier this year. If the Scarbo Vintage name sounds familiar, recall that the outfit is also responsible for a Corvette-engined mid-60s F1 tribute car, aptly named the SVF1, as well as the bonkers SV RSR 911 restomod race car.

So what all is hiding beneath that bodacious bodywork? The magic really starts with the suspension, arguably the most important system for an off-road vehicle. The SV Rover boasts inboard pushrod suspension at both ends enabling 30 inches of wheel travel at each corner. The ride height is fully adjustable thanks to a four-corner air-ride system that compliments the massive, remote reservoir dampers. The system enables you to optimize ground clearance for rock crawling, where you want as much space as possible between your vehicle and the earth, and for off-road racing, where a lower center of gravity is better suited to desert hijinks.

More than just the damper system, though, the brilliance here is in how the suspension works with the chassis—or rather, as part of the chassis. The front and rear differential carriers are both chassis nodes, meaning that the suspension components bolt into those carriers rather than to other points on the chassis. This technique is common in R/C cars and gives the resulting machine increased wheel travel and articulation—Scarbo cites the Traxxas Revo as a big influence for this design.

Unlike those R/C cars, though, the SV Rover had to make room for actual passengers in the interior. To accommodate the added packaging constraints, the front dampers are positioned ahead of the inboard rocker arms instead of behind them, like you’d see if you popped the bodywork of one of those Traxxas cars.

On the other side of that little passenger compartment, you’ll find the business end of this brute. Scarbo Vintage will build you an SV Rover with your choice of two very distinct powertrains. Your first option is an 1100-hp supercharged V-8 setup with a 65-gallon fuel tank positioned beneath the cabin area. If you’d rather, you can also spec your SV Rover with a 750-kW EV powertrain that draws from a 75-kWh lithium-ion battery pack that, conveniently, sits in that same protected enclosure below the floor. The V-8 will get an 8-speed paddle-shifted automatic transmission, while the EV variant does without a dedicated gearbox. Scarbo says that for the V-8 configuration, the total weight for the SV Rover will still ring in below 4500 lbs, which is pretty impressive.

Both powertrains will propel the SV Rover in two-wheel- or four-wheel-drive, selectable by the driver. The two-speed transfer case is divorced from the transmission and positioned in the front in both configurations, but the choice was made specifically to accommodate the EV drivetrain. The front and rear differentials are selectable locking, depending on your crawling or cruising needs.

Despite all that capability, the interior of the SV Rover looks like a fine place to spend some time. The fully digital cockpit incorporates two screens—a 12.3-inch unit ahead of the driver and a 12.8-inch unit off on the center of the dashboard for multimedia duties. There are even a few comfort amenities such as power-locking doors and windows, and climate control.

So, what will all this goodness run you? Unsurprisingly, it won’t come cheap. Pricing starts at a heady $1.5M, though each vehicle is configured for a specific client, so the final price tag could ring in a bit lower or much higher, depending on what the buyer wants. At least it’s not a lump sum payment, however; Scarbo Vintage says each build will take about 10 months to complete. A deposit of $500,000 is due upon completion of your order, with another $500K due when the rolling chassis is fitted with the suspension and drivetrain components. The remaining balance is due when a client takes possession of their SV Rover.

Be sure to check out the walkaround video below, where Scarbo reveals all sorts of interesting tidbits about what went into building such an audacious machine.

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post The Scarbo Vintage SV Rover is the Closest Thing We Have to a “Hyper Truck” appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Despite Honda sweeping the podium at Sunday’s Detroit Grand Prix, it was a Chevrolet that paced the field for most of the afternoon. The series’ Corvette Z06 pace car, to be exact, spent 47 laps in front of the pack, as the race was slowed for a total of eight cautions throughout the 100-lap affair.

Tight confines, a bumpy temporary track surface, and one hellacious hairpin set up for an entertaining sophomore attempt at Detroit’s 1.7-mile street course.

Motown has a rich history of open wheel racing: Formula 1 first visited in 1982 on the streets of downtown. IndyCar took over after F1 departed after 1988. The contest moved to Belle Isle, a neighboring island park out on the Detroit River, in 1992 and stayed until IndyCar returned to the heart of Detroit’s downtown in 2023.

The new nine-turn course, which includes a three-quarter-mile straight, encircles the Renaissance Center, General Motors’ global headquarters since 1996.

In the shadow of the towering RenCen, the Detroit course features another oddity: A split pit lane. Cars are serviced on either side of pit road, depending on the team’s stall selection. This year, the track layout remained largely unchanged save for some smoothing and widening of certain portions of the track. Still, it proved treacherous for many, including a gaggle of drivers involved in Sunday’s biggest wreck in the first turn of lap one.

Perhaps the biggest change was the inclusion of IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar racing on the weekend slate. Prototype racers (GTP) as well as GT cars kicked off the weekend, serving as an epic opening act. Manufacturer diversity was on display as Cadillacs and Corvettes attempted to defend their home turf in their respective classes to no avail. Acura took home GTP victory and Porsche was triumphant in GTD Pro.

Sunday’s race was dominated by Scott Dixon in the Chip Ganassi Honda. The six-time champ pitted early and saved enough fuel throughout the yellow-laden race to make it back to the checkers a few car lengths in front of fellow Indy 500 winner Marcus Ericsson.

Many were critical of the on-track action, labeling the race as a demo derby. It was easier to list the cars not involved in the opening lap pile-up, and the seven flags that slowed action throughout the rest didn’t help erase that first impression. Post race, a few drivers took to social media to vent. “I miss Belle Isle,” wrote this year’s Indy 500 runner-up Pato O’Ward.

The drivers’ frustration is understandable, but the dance in downtown Detroit is way better than any Belle Isle battle for a few reasons. First, the new location is second to none for spectators. For a series that is in dire need of new fans, Detroit’s street course brings the action to the people. Attending Belle Isle required planning and execution. You had to take a shuttle across a bridge to the island just to get to the course.

Second: Visibility. The island park was flat with not enough decent views of the track. Detroit’s downtown course has plenty of perches, as numerous parking garages allow for different bird’s eye views—not to mention an incredible view of cars racing along Detroit River waterfront.

And finally, the most important aspect for your humble author: The new course is a photographer’s dream. There are infinite places to shoot from, whether you have photo credentials or are just attending as a fan. This year was the first time I donned a photo vest for the event, shooting all three days. Check out some of my favorite shots below.

Still, at the end of the weekend, I felt like there were vantage points that I missed. Oh well, there’s always next year. Fingers crossed it will still be downtown.

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post Gallery: Detroit Grand Prix’s Second Downtown Dust-up appeared first on Hagerty Media.

The Bugatti Type 35 may well hold the most wins of any race car in history, but it had to overcome one major obstacle along the way: the Alfa Romeo P2.

Vittorio Jano, recently poached from Fiat, was personally tasked by Alfa founder Nicola Romeo with its design.  “Listen,” Romeo said.  “I am not expecting you to make a car which will beat all others, but I’d like one which will make us look good, so that we can make an identity card for this factory, then later, when it has a name, we’ll make the car.”

It’s fair to say that Jano exceeded expectations. He began by assembling a two-liter straight-eight engine with a double crankcase design, fixed steel heads, and gear-driven twin camshafts. At Fiat, Jano had been an early adopter of the supercharger so he added a Roots-type blower, complete with a pioneering intercooler. At 5500 rpm Jano’s engine produced 140 horsepower.

The P2’s chassis didn’t break any new ground with its traditional ladder frame, but the elongated tail aided aerodynamics and the staggered two-seater layout gave the driver a little more elbow room to twirl the big steering wheel.

The first P2 was completed on June 2, 1924, and driven immediately by Giuseppe Campari and Alberto Ascari, even before it was painted in Alfa’s trademark racing red. A week later it lined up at the Circuito di Cremona for its first true test over five laps of the 40-mile road course. Ascari took the checkered flag almost a minute ahead of his nearest rival, Alete Marconcini, in the Chiribiri 12/16, with Roberto Malinervi’s Bugatti T22 in third.

At Lyons, just a few weeks later, Bugatti brought five of its new Type 35s to attempt to steal Alfa’s thunder. It was not to be. Campari stormed to victory after five hours of hard racing, with the first of the Bugattis, driven by Jean Chassagne, a distant seventh place.

With a third win at the Italian Grand Prix at Monza, Alfa Romeo confirmed the P2’s pace. In the 1925 season it won two of the four rounds of the first-ever World Championship for Grand Prix Cars, securing the title for Alfa Romeo.

The dominance was short-lived, however, as a new rule for 1926 saw a change of engine displacement to 1.5 liters, favoring Bugatti. The P2 battled on in other categories and, in 1930, secured its most memorable success at the Targa Florio.

Achille Varzi somehow managed to complete the grueling 335-mile event around Sicily in six hours and 55 minutes, despite suffering from a fuel problem that could not only have ended his race but also his life. A broken bracket holding the spare wheel caused the fuel tank to leak. On the last lap of the 67-mile road layout, his mechanic attempted to add more gas to the tank while the Alfa sped on. It spilled onto the hot exhaust and immediately ignited. The mechanic tore out his seat cushion and frantically beat at the flames as they crossed the finish line. Louis Chiron’s Bugatti Type 35 B was almost two minutes behind. Another one-in-the-eye for Alfa’s rival, just before the P2 was retired from service.

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post On This Day 100 Years Ago, Alfa Built the Bugatti-beating P2 appeared first on Hagerty Media.

The field at the 1973 Press On Regardless rally (POR), held in the sandy terrain of backwoods Michigan, could not have been more varied. The Datsun 510s, Volvos, and Subarus were to be expected. Likewise privateer and subsequent rally legend John Buffum and his Ford Mk1 Escort RS 1600 were right in their element. More surprising was a hulking Jeep Wagoneer driven by 1972 POR winner Gene Henderson, a friendly bear of a man who was also a fierce competitor.

But at the end of 345 grueling miles of special-stage rallying, with the total course totaling 1700 miles, the unlikely victor was a little white mud-spattered Toyota Corolla 1600, campaigned by two privateer Canadians on a shoestring budget. It was Toyota’s first World Rally Championship victory.

“It’s like I would say to my students when I was coaching ski racing,” says Walter Boyce, driver of that Corolla 1600 Coupe. “All you’ve got is your own gravity—so just don’t ever slow down.”

Boyce and co-driver Doug Woods beat the 56 other entries handily, finishing 24 minutes ahead of the next-closest team. Further, POR was known as a serious car-breaker, billed as “America’s longest, richest, oldest, meanest car rally.”

Boyce disputes the rally’s reputation somewhat, though that year’s results tell a different tale: 57 entrants, 34 retirements, just 23 finishers. But by 1973, Boyce had built a reputation as a driver who was smooth as well as quick behind the wheel. More importantly, despite his philosophy of staying off the brakes and keeping momentum up, he had that all-important quality so needed in privateer racing: Mechanical sympathy.

“I’d always been good at getting the car to the finish,” he says. “You didn’t want to break things like the factory teams could afford to. It was my car, after all.”

Boyce started seriously rallying in Canada in the late 1960s, taking advantage of a generous contingency program offered by British Leyland. Campaigning an MGB, he placed high enough to earn bonuses that allowed him to buy a Datsun 510—and an engagement ring for his future wife. (That turned out to be an excellent move, as Mrs. Leslie Boyce appears to have been quite understanding of her husband’s motorsports obsession, as we will see at the end of this story.)

Datsun was a logical next step, as the company was also paying out contingency money on wins with its products. Partnered with Doug Woods as a co-driver, Boyce won the Canadian national championship for the first time in 1969. He’d go on to win it four more times.

When the money dried up at Datsun, Boyce approached Toyota. Then known in Canadian markets as Canadian Motor Industries, Toyota Canada was about 10 years younger than its U.S. counterpart, but executives were willing to take a risk on rallying. Especially with import brands like Volvo and Subaru, rallying was a popular sport with a broader following than it enjoys in modern days, and wins could burnish a brand’s reputation.

Thus, in 1971, Boyce bought his first Corolla. It was not an immediate success. The engine mounts weren’t up to the task of rallying, and when the car launched over a frost heave during the 1971 B.C. Centennial Rally, the engine lurched forward on landing and put the fan blades right through the radiator.

At this point, the spirit of MacGyver surfaced, 14 years before the show would air. A cable was run from the back of the transmission tunnel and looped around the firewall to prevent the engine from further forward lunges. Boyce and Woods had been forced to retire from the B.C. Rally, but they went on to win the Canadian championship.

By 1973, this Corolla was somewhat worn out by its repeated rally wins. That’s literally worn out—the floorboards had nearly been ground off by abrasive gravel. A new Corolla was purchased and modified with twin downdraft carburetors and an electric fan.

With the assistance of a few friends, the T-50 four-speed clamshell transmission was split open and a kit was installed to give the car a fifth gear. Power was still modest at a little over 100 horsepower, but Boyce says that reliability rather than outright punch was of far greater concern.

Woods headed down to POR ahead of Boyce and set about developing a set of pace notes with another driver. Unlike European rallies, where they were an absolute necessity, pace notes were unusual for North American rally drivers, and indeed Boyce had never used them. But he says navigator Woods was brimming with confidence that the conditions would favor his driving style.

The first bit of luck for the Corolla was a piece of bad luck for the Wagoneer team. While the Jeeps had muscled their way through the previous year’s rally, with V-8 power and four-wheel drive trouncing the lightweight sportscars, this year they’d come to the starting line with specially prepared racing engines. Unfortunately, the factory oil pickups didn’t match the larger oil pan sumps, and engine failure caused early retirement. That meant it was up to the Corolla to beat the Datsun 240Zs, RS Fords, and even the actual Alpine A110 1800 that had won the Sanremo rally in Italy that rear, clinching the overall WRC championship for Alpine.

But from the start, the Corolla flew. On the first night, it had set nearly all the fastest special stage times, and was convincingly in the lead. The only real reliability issue was a leaking heater hose with just a few stages remaining, but Boyce was able to swap it for a spare and keep his foot down. He won, Toyota’s Canadian contingent were beside themselves with delight, and somebody got on the phone to headquarters in Aichi, Japan, and let executives there know that the littlest Toyota for sale in North America was now a bona fide WRC winner.

A telegram of congratulations arrived immediately, followed by an invitation to Japan. The Boyces were fêted by Toyota’s brass, and had a chance to visit the company’s Toyota Racing Development workshops. Like any smart privateer racer, Boyce filled his luggage with every TRD part he could get his hands on, then headed back to Canada to start building his next car.

That car was a Celica, and it was in fact Mrs. Boyce’s Celica, the same car that had brought their daughter home from the hospital. Boyce and a few friends tore it apart, choosing a reliable T-50 transmission again, fitting the car with fiberglass fender flares, and building up a potent twin-cam engine good for around 180 horsepower.

“I’m not sure what I bought my wife, but I’m sure I had to get her something,” Boyce laughs. “I suppose it helps that a Celica wasn’t the most convenient car for carrying a baby around in.”

He continued to contest North American WRC events with this Celica, finishing third in the Rideau Lakes Rally behind two factory Lancias, one of them a Stratos; not bad for a four-cylinder Toyota. Boyce rallied into the mid-1980s, winning Group A championships. He was inducted into the Canadian Motorsport Hall of Fame in 2003.

The Celica was sold to Toyota Canada, and went on to win Canadian championships with Finnish-Canadian Grand Master rally driver Taisto Heinonen at the wheel. Boyce also sold off the plucky Corolla that gave Toyota its first WRC win, but it’s unclear what happened to the car after that.

Toyota’s official rally team would notch its first WRC win 1975, at the 1000 Lakes Rally in Finland. In the 1980s, it would win the Safari Rally several times, before the ascendancy of Carlos Sainz and the all-wheel-drive Celica GT-Four. In 1993, Toyota won its first WRC manufacturer’s title, and repeated the feat in 1994. The year after that, the Sega Rally Championship arcade game brought Toyota rallying to fans of all ages.

To date, though, only one Canadian driver has ever won a WRC race, and Walter Boyce did it behind the wheel of the most modest of cars. But the momentum he and co-driver Doug Woods started for Toyota has continued all the way to today’s modern GR Corolla. It’s easy, Boyce would say: Just don’t ever slow down.

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post Toyota’s First WRC Victory Had Humble Origins appeared first on Hagerty Media.

This should be much-needed shot in the arm for rallying, and specifically the FIA World Rally Championship: Lancia, a legendary brand within the sport, is returning the WRC.

Lancia quit rallying, all forms of motorsports for that matter, in 1992. This past year, the rumor mill has run at full tilt that the company would have a new entry in rallying, something that parent entity Stellantis confirmed on Monday.

The vehicle will be loosely based on the Ypsilon HF, which Stellantis calls “a high-performance version of the first car of the brand’s new era, a 100-percent electric model that will be launched in the market in May of 2025.” Which is kind of confusing, because the rally car, the Ypislon Rally 4 HF, is decidedly an internal-combustion vehicle. It will be powered by a 1.2-liter turbocharged, 212-horsepower three-cylinder engine, mated to a five-speed manual transmission and a mechanical limited-slip differential.

Lancia also announced the revival of the high-performance HF designation with both the new electric model and the rally version of the Ypsilon. Lancia will be introducing an HF version for each of the brand’s new models.

The Ypsilon Rally 4 HF “is the ideal solution for all rally enthusiasts to enjoy,” Stellantis claims, “but is also a serious candidate for drivers aspiring to victory in the Rally 4 class and in the two-wheel drive championships.” The Rally 4 class is essentially an entry point into pro rallying, populated by “young drivers beginning their careers with a passion to become the professionals of the future.”

The Rally 4 class was created in 2019 as part of the “rally pyramid”—a clear blueprint of how a driver and team can climb the pyramid up to Rally 1, the elite class in the WRC.

The Lancia will be competing with models from manufacturers that include Stellantis-owned Peugeot and Opel, as well as Renault. The announcement was made during the WRC Rally Italia Sardegna, Lancia’s home rally and the sixth event on a 13-event calendar.

Despite not competing for more than three decades, Lancia is still the most successful brand in the sport, with 15 World Rally Championships (11 constructor’s titles and four driver’s titles), as well as wins in the Mille Miglia, the Targa Florio and the Carrera Panamericana. Martini Racing teamed with Lancia in 1982 for the then-new Lancia 037 and drivers Attilio Bettega and Markku Alén, creating the famous red, white and blue exterior color scheme.

This could be just the start of a serious effort on Lancia’s part to return to glory on the rally circuit. According to DirtFish.com, it’s possible that Lancia could absorb Citroën’s C3 Rally 2 effort, which is plausible since that company is also controlled by Stellantis. Its customer racing manager Didier Clements “was one of the masterminds of Citroën’s generation of world championship domination with Sébastien Loeb.”

Regardless, it’s a happy day for Lancia enthusiasts, said company CEO Luca Napolitano, in this slightly awkward translation: “Lancia has always been in people’s hearts, also thanks to its competitive soul represented by some iconic models from a past that made the brand the most successful one of all time in the rally world. And that sporty heart is starting to beat again today!”

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post After 32 Years out of the Sport, Lancia Is Returning to Rally appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Cadillac’s beautiful, sleek LMDh race car has been tearing up the track at endurance events around the globe, racking up plenty of podium finishes since its racing debut in 2023. While the car’s cutting-edge design is gorgeous, many of us at Hagerty wanted to know what was behind its blistering performance, so we sought some background information on its rowdy V-8 powerplant.

We got to speak with Adam Trojanek, the lead propulsion engineer for Cadillac’s LMDh (Le Mans Daytona hybrid) entry about the development of the LMC55.R V-8. Without revealing too many secrets, he shed some light on the engine and the team’s decision-making process as the raucous V-8 came together.

Trojanek has spent his entire automotive career with GM, taking a job on the performance small-block V-8 calibration team after getting a bachelor’s degree from Kettering University. After that, he spent four years as a program specialist on Chevrolet’s IndyCar team, before rotating into a role in engineering for production engines, where he led the small-block development team on the dyno. Back in racing once again, Trojanek put his V-8 expertise into the unique dual-overhead-cam 5.5-liter V-8 that provides the performance and soundtrack for Cadillac’s successful endurance racer.

The first thing we got out of the way is that the LMC55.R isn’t the same V-8 used in the Corvette C8.R. “The only thing that we share with the GT3 motor is the fact that it’s 5.5 liters in displacement,” noted Trojanek. The deeper you dive in, the more you’ll find to back up that sentiment.

“For this LMDh/GTP car and for the hypercar rules we live under . . . we all have to meet a specific power band that’s based off a declared maximum engine speed that we refer to as an nMax,” said Trojanek. The race series measures that power using torque sensors on the axle. The propulsion development team had to keep in mind that the engine would have a hybrid assist, but Trojanek and the rest of the team wanted the engine to be able to provide the necessary power on its own so that the driver could count on the output, “regardless of ambient condition and regardless of fuel strategy.”

Cadillac’s race entry didn’t turn out to be a naturally aspirated V-8 by accident—many options were on the table. Cadillac’s competitors use turbocharged V-8s and turbocharged V-6s with less displacement, but the engine had to be true to the brand. “The engine is easily identified as a Cadillac . . . the best way to do that is how it sounds,” said Trojanek. That made the decision for a naturally aspirated V-8 easy, but they still had to make it perform at a high level.

“One benefit, for sure, is that we have no turbo lag,” explained Trojanek. “That’s one reason why we didn’t go with turbos—because we knew that whatever the driver wanted, it would be there, instantly, or nearly instantly, compared to a turbo.” Of course, a turbocharger also means more moving parts, more plumbing, more weight, and additional cooling demands. Rather than worry about all that extra mass, packaging it, and tuning the right boost curve, the Cadillac team could spend time improving other aspects of the car.

“I think the propulsion system allows every OEM, including Cadillac, to make a unique experience for fans and for drivers. It’s turning into a kind of software war in terms of how we control the propulsion system to meet what the drivers request and need.”

—Adam Trojanek, Cadillac LMDh Lead Propulsion Engineer

“There are always opportunities to find more power and more efficiency with a new engine versus something that is already homologated,” said Trojanek. “We took advantage of that.” The team focused on ways to increase combustion efficiency and reduce frictional and pumping loss. One way to eke out extra efficiency is by squeezing the intake charge using a high compression ratio. An efficient combustion chamber is a must, and direct injection is another big factor that helps sustain a higher compression ratio. We asked about the specifics of the compression ratio. “I can’t say, sorry. It’s high,” Trojanek added with a laugh.

Variable-length runners and swapping intakes based on track configuration are not allowed, so tuning the intake was critical. “ITBs (individual throttle bodies) are a good choice for a naturally aspirated engine just in terms of allowing good throttle response. They also allow you to tune as you see fit for the ultimate power curve, as well as allowing good low-end response for transient conditions getting off the corner,” said Trojanek. ITBs let each intake runner breathe from the atmosphere, and placing the throttle bodies close to the cylinder head improves throttle response. If you’ve ever driven a car with a huge intake, like a tunnel ram with a lot of plenum volume, these things are the opposite. Because it’s at the top of the engine, any additional mass in the intake would raise the center of gravity, so engineers went through a lot of work to ensure the intake system was as light as possible, while still being durable.

“What we call ‘pens down’ in terms of we’re snapping the chalk line,” Trojanek said, was mid/late 2021. That’s when they started building the parts they’d been designing. “Our first engine was running on the dyno in Q1 of 2022.” That’s a fast turnaround. “We had about a year of in-vehicle and on-dyno development before homologation during Q4 of 2022.”

Trojanek said the engine is a structural member of the car. “That drove us to utilize a lot of advanced materials and design practices so that we could be as light as possible but as strong as possible while also maintaining durability and reliability for the engine, since it is an endurance series,” said Trojanek. “‘To finish first, you must first finish’ that’s always the mindset.”

He told us that the engineering team tried to limit how many times a component was split into multiple components. That helps with strength and weight, and it can also reduce the number of fasteners needed. Every bolt is added mass, and a bolt can’t work itself loose if it’s not there in the first place. The team employed that mindset on construction throughout the car, but the biggest pieces of the engine are an excellent example. The top half of the block is cast from a high-strength aluminum alloy, but the sump half is billet, machined from a single piece of aluminum. The block and sump are machined together, as a matched pair, with the bottom billet piece carrying the main caps and acting as a main girdle to add rigidity to the bottom end of the V-8.

Other ways of minimizing mass included employing the best methods of 3D printing currently available. “That really allowed us to explore different materials that might not be available outside of additive manufacturing,” said Trojanek. Nearly 30 parts designed for the engine are built using additive manufacturing, including the oil tank and the oil cooler shell both printed in sintered aluminum. Some of the parts 3D printed for the cooling system would be very difficult to fabricate using traditional methods while also minimizing flow restriction within the packaging constraints of the engine bay. In many cases, 3D printing is quicker and also produces a lighter part.

“We knew the goal we had to hit, we knew the timeline to get the job done, and we pushed like mad until we got there.”

—Adam Trojanek, Cadillac LMDh Lead Propulsion Engineer

The team also did its homework when building the engine’s dry-sump oiling system. “We drew upon a lot of our other GM racing engines and families to help guide us in the latest and greatest technology that was on the market,” Trojanek said. “We ended up with a configuration that offered that best pumping efficiency, scavenging efficiency, and was also the lightest-weight option on the market at the time.” The dry sump scavenges oil from six locations in the engine: one in each bay of the block that houses a pair of cylinders, with two additional pumps that pull oil from elsewhere in the engine. Trojanek wouldn’t say specifically, but it’s important that oil pumped to the top end of the engine makes its way to get recirculated, so you can guess that it’s from either the cylinder heads or somewhere in the valley of the block. “We use DLC (diamond-like coating) on various components to help with wear, but it’s not as much as people would think,” Trojanek said. “The engine is very reliable and has good wear, because we did our work ahead of time to make sure that we didn’t necessarily need the DLC.”

Besides a high-speed flyby, the best way to experience the Cadillac V-8’s signature sounds is to hear it leaving the pits. “We have a strong enough electric motor to give us, honestly, really good 0–60 times,” noted Trojanek. When he says 0–60, he’s talking kilometers per hour, as 60 kph is the pit lane speed, governed by the series. Time spent getting up to the max pit lane speed is wasted, and penalties for exceeding the limit can also cost the team. Cadillac’s strategy seeks to eliminate those inefficiencies. “We can achieve that quicker, smoother, with the appropriate amount of energy to the tire to get up to speed, a lot more accurately than we can by slipping the clutch in an ICE engine.” Once the car leaves pit lane, an electronically controlled clutch manages the blend to internal combustion power. That’s when the engine snorts to life.

The results speak for themselves. “Everyone recognizes the Cadillac sound,” said Trojanek, especially the characteristic roar it makes as it leaves pit lane under EV power and fires up the V-8 in an instant.” It’s won the hearts of many, and terrified some,” he joked.

We asked Trojanek if the team experimented with different exhaust configurations besides the four-into-one arrangement that made it onto the car. “You look at how small our headers are and the exhaust system as a whole. To fit a Tri-Y into that added unnecessary mass. We didn’t really need it to make the power or the torque curve. In terms of efficiency, it was kind of negligible. The four-into-one is what suits us best,” Trojanek said.

GM’s host of engine development tools enabled engineers to simulate exhaust tubing lengths to try exhaust options virtually before any actual tubing was bent, or printed, in this case. Each of the collectors is made from 3D-printed Inconel. There weren’t any surprises turning the combustion calculations into a high-flowing reality.

We asked Trojanek if Cadillac’s engineers placed any Easter Eggs into its parts, like logos or emblems hidden in castings. “No, we talked about it, but I think we were just so focused on making sure that all the performance metrics were met.” Casting a Cadillac logo into parts was a topic of discussion. When you’re sweating fastener size and fastener material looking for every gram you can, it’s tough to justify extra aluminum mass that’s not making the car any faster. “The exhaust is our easter egg!” Trojanek joked.

We also asked about any nicknames the engine or car had during development. He won’t outright say that the engineers nicknamed the prototypes “Batmobile,” but Trojanek did admit that the test cars were black and the propulsion system software that powers the cars has a customizable background where the engineers have placed an image of a very recognizable 1990s movie car. If a buttoned-up Bruce Wayne drove a CT5-V Blackwing, it’s not a stretch to imagine the Caped Crusader prowling Gotham in Cadillac’s sleek, low-slung race car.

Cadillac put its bespoke V-8 to good use in 2023, capturing the team and manufacturer championships in IMSA GTP/DPi. The 2024 racing season is going well, too, as Cadillac is tied for first early in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season.

You can see the cars in action on track and hear that famous Cadillac V-8 sound all around the world, but you can also bring it into your living room with the documentary No Perfect Formula, which premieres May 31 at 7 p.m. ET and takes a look at the team’s 2023 Le Mans effort. You can find it on the Hagerty channel #2545 on the Samsung TV Plus app on Samsung Smart TVs, Galaxy Devices, and on the web. If you’d like to watch it on any other device, you will also find it on Hagerty’s Facebook page.

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post Cadillac Racing’s Bespoke LMC55.R V-8 Is All Business appeared first on Hagerty Media.

For Rick Hendrick, owner of the Hendrick Motorsports NASCAR racing team, it represents a milestone. “I never thought I’d get to have an entry in the Indy 500 in my life,” he said. But he does, and his car will start Sunday’s Indianapolis 500 from fifth place on the grid.

It began when one of his NASCAR drivers, Kyle Larson, expressed a persistent interest in adding IndyCars to the list of vehicles he has raced. And that’s a long list, ranging from IMSA prototype sports cars to dirt late models. “Everybody knew that Kyle wanted to run the Indy 500,” Hendrick said, so he started talking to Zak Brown, CEO of McLaren Racing, about entering Larson in one of Brown’s Arrow-McLaren IndyCars. “We put a deal together,” said Hendrick, and so far, “It couldn’t have gone any better.”

“Yeah, it’s been awesome from day one. Mr. H and his entire organization are absolutely legendary in motorsports,” Brown said. He and Hendrick met the media Tuesday on a Zoom call.

Larson is doing “the double”—racing at Indianapolis early Sunday, then jetting and helicoptering to Concord, North Carolina and the Charlotte Motor Speedway for the NASCAR Coca-Cola 600. He’ll be the fifth NASCAR driver to attempt the feat. Only Tony Stewart, in 2001, completed all 1100 laps. Larson will be the first driver to try it since Kurt Busch’s attempt in 2014.

And yes, it’s hard to imagine that things could have gone any better—so far. Larson, 31, took to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway quickly, increasing his speed as he practiced for last weekend’s qualifying. As mentioned, Larson qualified the HendrickCars.com Dallara/Chevrolet fifth out of 34 cars, with a four-lap average speed of 232.846 mph.

“Nervous as I’ve ever been watching qualifying,” said Hendrick. “The pressure of running four laps is something I’m not used to. One lap maybe at Daytona, or two. It’s just biting your fingernails. But Zak and his whole group have just done an amazing job, and we’re very fortunate to be partners with him and his team.”

Still, “I’m not used to watching a car go into the corner at 241,” Hendrick said.

Brown said that prior to qualifying, “I would have said the front half of the field would have been an awesome result. I wouldn’t have put much money on qualifying fifth. I think that’s a testament to Kyle’s ability and the collective effort of both teams to give him a race car and an environment to compete at the front.”

Well, true, but he hasn’t exactly competed yet. But given Larson’s raw talent, a very fast car and hopefully a competent pit crew, he may indeed run at the front. That said, there may still be obstacles ahead. Larson is the NASCAR Cup series points leader, so it’s important for him to make it to Charlotte on time. Driver introductions are at 5:25 p.m. ET.

But what if there’s a rain delay at Indy? This is Weather.com’s forecast for Sunday in Indianapolis, as of Wednesday morning: “Thunderstorms likely. Potential for severe thunderstorms. High around 75F. Winds SSE at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 90%.”

Would Hendrick pull Larson out of the Indy 500 and insist that he head to Charlotte? “It would be very hard,” Hendrick admitted. “It would be very tough. It would be very disappointing because of all the effort that everyone has put in.” Not to mention the fact that Hendrick is flying in a huge number of guests—five airplanes’ worth, he said.

“It’s going to be pressure all day,” Hendrick said. “How does the race go? Is it going to rain? What time do we have to leave to get back to Charlotte? This is going to be a tremendous amount of pressure, but we signed up for it.”

The one thing Hendrick and Brown are not worrying about is Larson. “He’s just a die-hard racer,” Hendrick said. “He’ll race in this race just like he would when he flies somewhere and gets in a sprint car or a midget. He just wants to get in the car and race. I think all the racing he’s done has kind of built his confidence so much that he believes in himself and he believes in the team and what the team tells him the car will do, and then he figures it out on his own, and he’s off to the races.”

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post Larson Shines Ahead of Ambitious IndyCar-NASCAR Doubleheader appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Chevy’s hybrid, all-wheel-drive, mid-engined C8 Corvette E-Ray will serve as the Indianapolis 500 pace car later this month at the hallmark event’s 108th running.

The E-Ray is Chevy’s quickest Corvette ever, with a claimed 0–60 time of just 2.5 seconds. It pairs a 6.2-liter, naturally-aspirated, 495-horse V-8 turning the rear wheels with an electric motor on the front axle that motivates the front wheels. The combined system output is a meaty 655 horsepower, and that electric drive unit alone is good for 160 hp and 125 lb-ft of torque.

We first rode in the E-Ray back in January of last year and quickly discovered that this was a very unique experience within the Corvette world. It was the first all-wheel-drive Corvette to reach production, and the first to employ hybrid tech in service of greater performance.

Then, last fall, we finally got behind the wheel of the E-Ray and confirmed that the hybrid drivetrain had serious performance potential, while also feeling like the ideal grand touring Corvette of the C8 pack.

The Artic White E-Ray should shine brightly leading the pack of speedway-spec IndyCars. It’s a clever nod from the series to choose a performance-oriented hybrid to lead the lineup, especially since the series finally announced that it will incorporate a hybrid component into the race cars’ drivetrains beginning in July.

The E-Ray will join a long list of Corvettes that have paced the greatest spectacle in racing; to date, no model has lapped ahead of the IndyCar field more than a Corvette. We’ve seen that past iterations of Corvette Pace cars have become sought-after collectibles, so we’re just warning you: Don’t be surprised if some sort of commemorative E-Ray Pace Car edition pops up at your local dealership soon after the race.

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post Hybrid Corvette E-Ray to Serve as Indianapolis 500 Pace Car appeared first on Hagerty Media.

The latest episode of Hagerty’s Barn Find Hunter, just posted on YouTube, took me back to some joyful memories, and I highly recommend it. Host Tom Cotter, a racer himself, visits the home of late racer and automotive writer Linda Sharp, and buys the historic number 22, 1968 Datsun 2000 roadster that she raced.

I knew Linda. You know how some people look better in a fire suit than others? I don’t mean more attractive or more stylish, I just mean more natural—like the Nomex just suits them.

That’s the way Linda Sharp was, which is fortunate because she spent a lot of her life zipping up her one-piece. I noticed that when I met her 28 years ago at Talladega, where Saab had gathered some 900s and a bunch of auto writers; she appeared a lot more at ease than most of the journalists wearing new white Saab fire suits, many of whom spent a lot of time in front of the mirror and taking what then passed for selfies.

Linda had a lot of experience behind the wheel of race cars, in SCCA and various club racing and some pro series, like the IMSA Kelly American Challenge. She had been introduced to racing by her then-boyfriend of 20 years, Jim Fitzgerald. Yes, the same Jim Fitzgerald who won 350 SCCA races as well as multiple Runoffs, and was also a NASCAR Winston Cup driver. He also helped Paul Newman get started in racing, and eventually became his teammate. Fitzgerald had a deal with Datsun, and typically raced their sports cars. Consequently, so did Linda.

Back to Talladega: In 1986, Saab had set a bunch of world speed and endurance records at Talladega in 9000s, and a few journalists were invited to come watch, and in a limited role, take part. There were not many of us there in 1986 available to return in 1996, when Saab set even more records, this time in 900s. And this time, journalists would play a larger role, actually helping set some records, too.

Linda and I gravitated to each other; I was amazed at the breadth and depth of her motorsports and production car knowledge, and being from Tennessee, her Georgia-bred accent sounded like home. On track, we paired up as often as we could get away with it. We were told not to draft, but we did anyway, running nose-to-tail as we tried to get as much speed as possible out of the Saabs.

At one wonderful point, for an hour, we had identical cars, and were running right at 160 mph. Drafting, we could hit 162. I led for a while, and kept trying different lines—high, low, high-then-low, looking at the speedometer for feedback. This line got us 163 on the back straight; that line got us 161. It might sound daring but Talladega is such a nice track, and the Michelin-shod Saabs handled the 33-degree banking with aplomb. Occasionally Linda and I would hear over the radio, in an invariably polite Swedish accent, “Cars 4 and 5, kindly separate,” and we would, until we hit the back straight again, front and rear bumpers drawn together like magnets.

That’s when I knew I had a friend for life: Linda and her husband, Bob, who built engines for NASCAR teams, moved up to that list of people you can count on two hands that you know are kindred spirits, bolstered when I learned that Bob and Linda, like me, couldn’t turn away a stray animal.

A few years later Linda and I, along with a third journalist who never really got comfortable, were invited to run a two-race weekend at Lime Rock in the Neon Challenge series. Our Neons were painfully slow—we had one of the regular drivers test Linda’s car, and the driver came back and said, “Huh. Apparently there’s stock, which are our cars, and REALLY stock, which are your cars.”

It was good to hear that because we were questioning our own ability, but let’s face it: If we were right on the tail of Chrysler hotshoe Eric Heuschele’s Neon coming down the hill onto the front straight of Lime Rock, and then Eric ended up 150 feet ahead at the first turn—well, Linda and I were pretty confident in our ability to shift and floor the accelerator, so it had to be the cars.

So basically we raced against each other, seldom more than a few yards apart. At the end of the first race, Linda finished a car length ahead. For the first time in my life, I was beaten by a girl. Not that there aren’t millions of girls who can outdrive me, but it had never happened before, and as enlightened as I think I am, it was a blow.

So onto the next race: Halfway through, Linda and I were side by side, and here comes the lead pack to pass us. I gave them room on the left, and Linda gave them room on the right, but somebody still body-slammed Linda’s car, giving me about a hundred-foot lead on her. I won that race, and she very generously told everyone then and since that we split the races, but if I’m present, I correct her: You won the first race, and got crashed out in the second one. Slow-talking, Southern-drawlin’ Linda Sharp is a better driver than me. Can kick my ass at will.

Soon after that, Linda, who worked as a driving instructor, and as a columnist for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, started a dirt-track magazine called Muddslinger. I wrote for it, and she and Bob paid me more than the stories were worth. Linda and Bob semi-retired to a farm outside Mount Airy, North Carolina, the town that Andy Griffith’s Mayberry was modeled after, where they took in even more stray animals. Linda and I emailed several times a weekend about racing, about politics, about dogs and cats.

One of her longest and uncharacteristically angry emails came after she watched “Winning: The Racing Life of Paul Newman,” the Adam Carolla-produced documentary that aired in 2015. With Fitzgerald—who was killed in an awful crash in a Trans-Am race at St. Petersburg in 1987, a race that Newman was also in—Linda was there for Newman’s racing career, and she was upset about how many people in Carolla’s documentary talked about how close they were to the action when, as Linda wrote, “Paul never knew they existed.”

One of my favorite passages from that email: “Robert Redford is also a very present ‘interview’ in the film. Paul would sometimes speak of Redford, but he never came to a race to my knowledge.  I can recall Paul saying, ‘Never go to dinner with Redford, because he eats off of everyone else’s plate before he touches his own food.'”

The last week of December in 2016, Linda went into the hospital for a minor surgery. Something went wrong. On December 30, she died. Leaving Bob, the nicest guy in the world, a widower, a couple dozen dogs and cats and horses nobody else wanted without a benefactor, and hundreds of friends like me stunned and saddened and ready as hell to get 2016 over with.

Cotter’s Barn Find Hunter brings all that back. Good memories of a friend taken too soon.

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post <em>Barn Find Hunter</em>: You Should Have Known Linda Sharp appeared first on Hagerty Media.

In May of 2019, IndyCar announced that it would be moving to a hybrid powertrain. That August, IndyCar finalized its plans, confirming that the hybrid system would debut in 2022.

The new system was expected to do three things: First, it would allow drivers who stall out on track to re-start their cars and rejoin the race, rather than have to bring out a caution flag and summon a safety team to drive to the stalled car and re-start it. Second, it would boost the powertrain’s total output to over 900 horsepower.

And third, certainly having the real-world relevance to hybrid power in passenger cars would attract a much-needed third manufacturer to sign up for the IndyCar series, joining Honda and Chevrolet.

On Tuesday, five years after that original announcement, IndyCar said that the hybrid package would debut at the Honda Indy 200 race at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, which is set for July 5-7. Obviously, it has been delayed multiple times.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by NTT INDYCAR SERIES (@indycar)

Addressing IndyCar’s expectations of the new hybrid systems: The drivers will indeed be able to re-start their cars without the aid of the safety team. This will mean fewer caution flags.

Second, in Tuesday’s announcement, IndyCar said the hybrid system would boost horsepower to “800+ for the first time in two decades,” and though it did say more power might be possible down the line, it’s still short of the promised 900.

That 800-horsepower figure will be achieved when the driver presses two buttons: One will deploy the available electricity to supply additional power. The other is the existing Push to Pass feature, which lets the turbochargers briefly increase the boost, itself worth about 50 hp. (Push to Pass has been around since 2004, when the competing ChampCar series introduced it on its Ford Cosworth engines.)

The two power enhancers come with different rules. Push to Pass will still have a restriction on amount of time per use and total time used over the course of a race. Rules for the hybrid power unit will limit the amount of energy deployed per lap based on track length. Drivers will be able deploy the electric boost on all the circuits that the series visits. They will be able to combine it with Push to Pass on road and street circuits, but not ovals since Push to Pass is not available on those tracks.

The new hybrid system, jointly developed by Chevrolet and Honda, was more of a challenge than they were expecting, but the end result is a low-voltage, 48-volt unit that stores energy in 20 ultracapacitors instead of batteries. Capacitors work well for storing energy for brief periods, but aren’t great at long-term energy storage, which is fine for this application.

The hybrid equipment, called the ERS for energy recovery system, weighs in at about 120 pounds, a significant increase given the cars weigh 1630 pounds on most tracks, slightly less on ovals. It is contained in the bellhousing, located between the 2.2-liter, twin-turbocharged V-6 engine and the gearbox. IndyCar has done 23,518 miles of testing on hybrid-equipped cars, with more planned at the Milwaukee Mile in June.

Oh, and that third thing the hybrid system was supposed to do? Attract at least one more OEM, or original equipment manufacturer, besides Honda and Chevrolet to the IndyCar series? Hasn’t happened.

“This technology is very important to our current OEM partners, Honda and Chevy,” IndyCar President Jay Frye told the Indianapolis Star in 2019, “so if it’s important to them, then you can logically conclude it’s important to other OEMs.”

Perhaps, but it seems only IMSA, the sports car series, has been able to attract many new manufacturers, as it currently has 18. The competing SRO series, in the GT3 sports car class alone, has nine.

So we’ll see if another manufacturer will sign up for IndyCar. Regardless, the series is pretty strong now, and excitement is building for the 108th Indianapolis 500 on May 26. Maybe the hybrid system will keep IndyCar in the conversation well after its biggest race.

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post Better Late Than Never: IndyCar to Add Hybrid Power in July appeared first on Hagerty Media.

The Friends of Laguna Seca, the nonprofit organization tasked with managing the historic Monterey County racetrack, has named Lauri Eberhart as CEO. Eberhart has a long history of motorsports management, including running Charlotte Motor Speedway. She began her motorsports career as an assistant to Michigan International Speedway’s public relations director when she was still in high school.
 
“Lauri brings a wealth of legal, sports, and entertainment industry experience and expertise to FLS,” said Ross Merrill, president of Friends of Laguna Seca. “Her skillset melds perfectly with our existing resources and partnerships as we step into the long-term concession at the Laguna Seca Recreation Area. FLS is extremely excited to welcome Lauri to our team.”

We spoke with Eberhart about her new role and how she and the rest of the Friends of Laguna Seca hope to reestablish the speedway. Eberhart, who currently lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, “right in the heart of NASCAR Country” as she put it, will soon be moving west. “With this type of job, and with the plans that the Friends have with the facility, you need boots on the ground,” said Eberhart.

“From my first interaction with Lauri it was obvious that she shared our passion and vision for the future of Laguna Seca,” said Bruce Canepa, vice president, Friends of Laguna Seca. “Her background includes a wealth of motorsports experience that will lead us to a greatly improved Laguna Seca that will benefit the community, motorsports, and fans.”

“To go to one of the most beautiful places in the country and run a speedway is really an exciting project,” said Eberhart. “The Friends of Laguna Seca is looking to restore, revitalize, and reinvent the raceway, and work with the community so that everybody can take pride in what’s happening at Laguna Seca,” she said. That three-pronged strategy first involves restoration, which means making up for years of deferred maintenance and lack of investment. Phase two of the plan is revitalizing the space by improving some of the basic infrastructure, like parking and hospitality. “I want to see Laguna Seca, the physical structure and the infrastructure of the facility, be the showcase that it is, on the international stage,” said Eberhart.

The final phase will be reinventing the space by expanding the venue’s appeal and modernizing the track’s business model based on what the community wants to see there. Eberhart said that when the time comes to design the new construction, the community will be involved and that modern sports facilities like professional football stadiums or ballparks might be considered for inspiration. “We also have to take inspiration from the local community,” said Eberhart. “There’s a certain vibe in Monterey. There’s a certain personality. We have to be mindful that we’re incorporating those real, native assets of the raceway itself.”

With the recent litigation in its rearview, Friends of Laguna Seca sees a promising future as the locals sense a positive shift in momentum. “I’m feeling a lot of love from the local community for this project and for the vision that Friends of Laguna Seca have for the raceway,” said Eberhart.
 
“Laguna Seca is one of America’s most historic race circuits. I am excited and honored by this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to lead the charge as Friends of Laguna Seca reimagines and reconstructs this incredible raceway to begin a new chapter,” said Eberhart. “I look forward to partnering with our neighbors, the greater community, the raceway staff, and Monterey County to ensure the raceway’s success benefits the community and the entire racing world for decades to come.”

As fans of motorsports in general and Laguna Seca in particular, we’re excited to see the historic facility get this much-needed attention from a team led by such an accomplished motorsports executive. We’re looking forward to seeing the next evolution of Laguna Seca unfold.

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post Friends of Laguna Seca Names Lauri Eberhart as CEO to Lead Historic Raceway’s Revitalization appeared first on Hagerty Media.

It’s one thing to win a competition with an unlimited budget. It’s quite another to bring home top honors when you’ve got a strict cap on what you can spend. In this circumstance, it’s usually the most innovative and creative competitor that prevails, and Material Girls Racing proved that in this year’s Grassroots Motorsports $2000 Challenge. The team, made up of four high school seniors, evolved their vehicle over years of competition and came up with a winning formula that just happens to wear a Ford Ranger body.

This pink pickup actually sits on a 2013 Ford Taurus Police Intercepter chassis and is powered by a twin-turbo V-6 that sends power to all four wheels. The team says in a forum post that the police interceptor’s Ecoboost factory turbos and fuel pump are maxed out, which means there’s somewhere in the range of 400 hp on tap. It’s no slouch.

The project came together for the Grassroots Motorsports $2000 challenge, which pits builders against each other with a budget cap of $2024 (it goes up $1 each year to match the calendar). The event scores participants by quarter mile and autocross times, along with a concours presentation that allows judges to discuss how the cars are built with the people who turned the wrenches.

Material Girls Racing are repeat participants in the $2000 Challenge. Their ongoing pursuit of speed was the impetus for the body swap—they maxed out the heavy stock Taurus in last year’s competition. Budget constraints made finding more power in the Ecoboost difficult, and suspension tuning would have been another heavy spend. Tight purse strings meant the team had to get creative, so they took a page from Colin Chapman’s book and focused on adding lightness. Even after last year’s competition where the car ran almost fully stripped and only sporting the driver’s door, there was still a lot of weight that could be trimmed and still fit inside the rules for the competition.

After figuring out what models could match the Taurus’ wheelbase, the team found a $300 Ford Ranger on Facebook Marketplace. They got to work with sawzalls and other cutting implements, trimming away the Taurus’ unibody until a tractor could help drop the shell of the truck on top of what was left of the chassis. A roll bar tied to the Taurus chassis adds stiffness back into the structure. After lengthening a few panels and relocating the radiator to the bed of the truck, the team sprayed the Ranger in a coat of pink paint. According to the team, their efforts ended up shaving an impressive 900 pounds from the vehicle’s weight.

The team says they were inspired by Shirley Muldowney and other female legends of motorsport, and we think these Material Girls would have made Shirley and others proud by building a truck that not only looks pretty sweet but also performs incredibly well. The truck ran a 12.1-second quarter mile (enough for sixth overall out of 53 competitors) and completed the autocross with a 44.3-second time (good for ninth overall). It also posted with a solid “concours” score, and their performance across all disciplines was enough to put these high school seniors atop the leaderboard, narrowly edging out a 1990 Nissan 300ZX and 1985 Chevrolet Corvette.

As all four members of the team are about to graduate high school, squeezing in a first-place build in among schoolwork, college applications, and the rest of their busy schedules had to have been quite a feat. With the creativity, speed, and skill they showed with this project, we wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to see one or all of these young women on a Formula SAE team in the near future—it’s probably a safe bet that this isn’t the last time we’ll see them in motorsports.

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post How 4 Teens Won GRM’s $2000 Challenge in a Low-Buck “Truck” appeared first on Hagerty Media.

NASCAR is hoping to drive fans to some new television partners in 2025 by instituting a mid-season bracket tournament, with the winner taking home $1 million.

The sport’s new TV deal has the first 12 NASCAR Cup series races of the season televised by Fox Sports. The final 14 races will appear on NBC Sports. It’s the 10 races in the middle of the 36-race season that figure into the bracket tournament—the first five will air on Amazon Prime and the second five on TNT.

The drivers will compete for race wins and points as they do now, with the bracket tournament being a separate component. Here’s how it will work: The bracket will feature 32 drivers. They will be determined by how they do in races 15 through 17, aired on Amazon Prime. The actual competition among those 32 drivers will take place in races 18 through 22, aired on TNT. Drivers will compete head-to-head, with the top-finishing driver of each race advancing over five rounds.

NASCAR has not yet announced its 2025 season schedule, so it isn’t known what tracks will be represented in the 10 races airing on Amazon Prime and TNT.

“With the launch of our new media rights partnerships in 2025, we were excited to partner with Prime Video and TNT Sports to collaborate on fan engagement concepts that drive storylines in our sport and innovation from a production perspective,” said Brian Herbst, NASCAR senior vice president for media and productions.

“The idea of an in-season tournament has been discussed within the NASCAR industry, and as we started to focus on adding promotional elements that drive interest throughout the season, we were excited by the opportunity to leverage the marketing weight of Amazon and TNT Sports to bring this concept to life,” Herbst said.

The new seven-year TV deal is reportedly worth $7.7 billion, which includes an agreement with The CW network to air the entire 33-race NASCAR Xfinity season each year from 2025 to 2031.

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post NASCAR Announces a Mid-Season, $1 Million Bracket Tournament for 2025 appeared first on Hagerty Media.

What’s a company like Cadillac doing in sports car racing?

Winning, mostly.

Since Cadillac joined the International Motor Sports Association series in 2017 in the top prototype class, it has earned four championships and won the Rolex 24 at Daytona four times. 

But changes have come to sports car racing—In 2023, IMSA introduced a total redesign of the cars eligible to compete in its premiere GTP class, including a new body, chassis, and revolutionary hybrid power.

An added incentive came with that new GTP package: The specifications for IMSA’s fastest class meant that the cars were now eligible to enter the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the most prestigious sports car race in the world. Manufacturers from all over the globe come to Le Mans each June to compete, and Cadillac received three invitations to enter the 2023 race, celebrating the 100^th anniversary of the event. Three teams were dispatched to France to race the Cadillac V-Series.R in the Hypercar class.

A documentary team followed Cadillac as they embarked on their ambitious return to Le Mans, and the result is “No Perfect Formula,” which premieres May 31 at 7 p.m. EST, on the Hagerty channel 1194 on the Samsung TV Plus app on Samsung Smart TVs, Galaxy Devices, and on the web. Global audiences can view the documentary on Hagerty’s Facebook page.

Want a sneak peek? You can view the official trailer for “No Perfect Formula” below.

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post <em>No Perfect Formula</em> Tracks Cadillac’s Ambitious Return to Le Mans appeared first on Hagerty Media.

One-hundred and fifteen years ago, with automotive fever sweeping the country and car manufacturers looking to stand out from the crowd, three Indiana communities were preparing to host the greatest automobile race that the “west” had ever seen.

No, it wasn’t the Indianapolis 500. The first running of the “Greatest Spectacle in Sports” was two years and 135 miles away. 

It was 1909, and northwest Indiana was gearing up for its own version of the East Coast’s famed Vanderbilt Cup. Chicago investor, entrepreneur, and auto enthusiast Ira Cobe, president of the Chicago Automobile Club, admired the success of the Vanderbilt road races, which were held annually from 1904 to 1910 on New York’s Long Island. Cobe wanted to bring that excitement to the Windy City, but when it became apparent that Chicago’s heavily traveled railroad lines impeded the design of a safe road course, Cobe looked to neighboring communities for help. Residents of Crown Point, Lowell, and Cedar Lake, located just across the state line in Lake County, Indiana, raised their collective hands.

A deal was struck after Cobe promised to make road improvements, and the Cobe Cup was born. Technically called the Western Stock Chassis Races, the weekend event actually consisted of two races: The 232-mile Indiana Trophy, open to automobiles with engine displacements of less than 300 cubic inches, was set for Saturday, June 18, followed by the 396-mile Cobe Cup, open to larger-displacement engines, on Sunday, June 19.

Preparations

With help from Ira Cobe’s Chicago Automobile Club, a 23.37-mile course was mapped out along Lake County roads and small-town streets. It included an S curve, some hairpin turns, and two long straightaways: a 5.7-mile stretch between Cedar Lake and Lowell, and a 7.1-mile section to the start-finish line near Crown Point. The course was held entirely on unpaved roads, most of which were essentially loose gravel covered in tar. Although the conditions weren’t exactly ideal, they were seemingly perfect for what the Chicago Examiner referred to as “bronzed and brawny men, nerves stretched to the utmost tension, anxiously awaiting the sound of the starter’s pistol, which will send them on their perilous, nerve-racking, and history-making drive.”

According to longtime Lake County historian Richard Schmal, whose father, Fred, owned a hotel in Crown Point and hosted race fans during the event, two walking bridges were constructed over the raceway, along with an even larger viaduct for horses. “Owing to the immense crowd of people and autos,” a notice in The Lowell Tribune warned, “it will be found necessary to blindfold horses coming in from the country, especially when crossing the viaducts.” 

A large grandstand was built near the start-finish line in Crown Point, along with press boxes and a staging/pit area, while two smaller grandstands were constructed in Lowell. 

“The (Crown Point) stand was an immense structure in length: 864 feet, in depth: 60 feet, and in height: about 25 feet,” Rev. Timothy Ball wrote in a letter that was later shared in Richard Schmal’s weekly “Pioneer History” column in the Lowell Tribune. “The number of seats: 10,000. Amount of lumber used: 400,000 feet (with) 59 kegs of nails. Contract price for construction: $10,000.”

Advertisements promised patrons that the bleacher seats were “free from the dangerous racing machines … with a two-mile view each way.” Cost of admission was $2, equal to nearly $65 today.

Nine telegraph stations were built to relay standings from one checkpoint to another, and National Guard soldiers were stationed at 40 locations along the route.

With large crowds expected, round-trip train tickets were offered from Chicago, about 50 miles away, aboard the Pennsylvania Railroad. Hotel rooms could be had for $4 a night, and guests could rent chairs to sit on the front porch and watch the races. Farmers offered hitching posts for horse teams, at 35 cents each, and locals looked to make a killing by selling a variety of concessions in and around the grandstands.

“Three hundred men, women, and boys will be ready to pass out 400,000 sandwiches to the automobilists,” The Lake County Times wrote. “There will be no necessity under the present arrangement for anyone leaving his seat in the grandstand during the races, because lunches will be served them at any time.”

The day before the first race, the Times gave a preview of what attendees could expect. “It will be the greatest thing ever seen in the west, and the town and countryside quivers with excitement … You will see a faint tremulous speck in the distance. A red flag flutters in the breeze. You hear the cry ‘car coming,’ and in your veins—as you see the speck get larger and larger, swerving from side to side—the blood burns and the thrill of expectancy grows on you. Nearer and nearer comes the wicked looking machine, half in the air, hurtling, leaping, shaking, containing two weird, goggle-eyed dusty demons strapped in, hanging on for dear life. It hurricanes along in a cloud of dust, spitting like musketry and bounding toward you. The earth vibrates as the demon car hurls itself on, palpitating, swerving from side to side, growning, rattling, chug-chugging and coughing, and you hold your breath as the cheering from thousands rocks the air.”

Race Day Reality

Surprisingly, as the sun rose on race day and the cars got underway, the grandstands were nearly empty. Perhaps the newspapers, despite playing up the thrill of the action, were to blame, scaring away fans by questioning whether there would be enough food and rooms to accommodate the expected throng. Elmer Ragon, editor of the The Lowell Tribune, certainly thought so, and he lamented that fewer than 50,000 people attended both races.

The Lake County Times, perhaps stretching the truth a bit, reported that the towering Crown Point grandstand “held a single paying customer and a brass band.” Another story claimed, “All the grandstands were crowded—with emptiness.”

Maybe there was a lack of paying customers simply because they realized they could watch the race from other points along the course—for free, and in the shade. Instead of paying $2 to sit in undercovered grandstands and purchase the food and drink on sale, many decided to park, sleep, and picnic along the race course, where trees provided shade and, for some, a better view high in the branches.

Different Story on the Track

Although attendance was a disappointment, the competition in the two races was not. In Saturday’s Indiana Cup, Joe Matson was the last of 19 drivers to launch from the starting line—cars started at one-minute intervals—but when the dust and smoke cleared, his 25.6-horsepower Chalmers-Detroit Bluebird placed first. Matson, who the newspapers referred to as the “Durable Dane,” completed 10 laps in 4 hours, 31 minutes, 21 seconds, an average of 51.5 mph. He also had a top speed of 78 mph. (Earlier in the week, Matson scared the living daylights out of Chicago Examiner reporter Delaney Holden, who occupied the mechanic’s seat during an exhibition run, an experience Holden vowed never to repeat.)

A dozen drivers took part in Sunday’s race for the Cobe Cup Trophy, which included cars built by Buick, Apperson, Fiat, Knox, Locomobile, and Stoddard-Dayton. Again, the final race car off the line also became the champion. Louis Chevrolet, who the press nicknamed the “Demon Frenchman,” drove his Buick to victory, covering nearly 400 miles in 8 hours, 1 minute, 30 seconds. He finished just 1 minute, 5 seconds ahead of Billy Borque’s Knox. 

(Two years later, on November 3, 1911, Chevrolet co-founded the Chevrolet Motor Car Company with his brother Arthur Chevrolet, William C. Durant, and investment partners William Little and Dr. Edwin R. Campbell.)

The Cobe Cup course was in such rough shape during the second race that every one of the larger cars averaged less than 50 mph. Chevrolet managed to push his Buick over 80 mph on one stretch, but he had to overcome a blown cylinder to hold off Borque, a feat that the Chicago Examiner applauded by declaring that Chevrolet “won the race on his nerve.”

“The race was run over roads that were in terrible condition,” the newspaper reported. “There were patches on the course that were hardly in shape for travel, and yet the dozen daredevil drivers who faced the starter willingly took their lives in their hands and sent their cars tearing around the course at mile-a-minute speed, turning sharp corners and ploughing [sic] up the rough places with never a thought of the danger that was theirs.”

Driver Herbert Lytle, whose Apperson broke a rear spring and completed only 11 of the 17 laps, told the Chicago Daily News: “The course is in awful shape for a short stretch. If I could have saved the machine in any sort of shape I would have kept running on three springs. [One spot on the course is so bad that] all the cars are slowing up as they strike their running gear … Other parts of the course are fine. This bad spot must be built over if the race is to be run again.”

The Lake County Star didn’t mince words about a potential return. A headline on the front page trumpeted: “THE GREAT RACES ARE OVER. The Crowds Have Dispersed. Thank God.”

A Change of Venue

With the lack of paying customers, promoters lost an estimated $25,000–$40,000 (about $780,000–$1,262,000 today). Although Cobe stated publicly that he planned to give the Cobe Cup another go in Lake County—“I believe we can repeat our races next year … We are going ahead with our preparations”—he soon changed his mind. The Indianapolis News reported in October 1909 that the Crown Point grandstand was being torn down. The newspaper added that the new Indianapolis Motor Speedway, which opened in August 1909, was interested in the lumber.

The Chicago Automobile Club later announced that it would move the Cobe Cup to Indy for 1910. Joe Dawson, driving a Marmon, averaged 73.423 mph and won the 200-mile race, which was held on Independence Day.

The following year, the Indianapolis 500 was held for the first time, and the Cobe Cup was no more.

Indiana Remembers

It has been more than a century since Indiana hosted its first major car race, and although the later Indy 500 has received much more fame and adulation, the three Lake County communities have never forgotten the Cobe Cup. In fact, the Regional Streeters Car Club will retrace the original racecourse when it hosts the commemorative Cobe Cup Car Cruise on Saturday, May 25, the day before the 108th running of the Greatest Spectacle in Sports.

“It isn’t exactly the same route,” says first-year Regional Streeters president Bob Schroader, “but it’s close.”

The cruise doubles as a fundraiser for local charities. Beneficiaries have included Shriner’s Children’s Hospital in Chicago, automotive education scholarships, Riley Hospital for Children in Indianapolis, and Community Health Network’s “Buddy Bags” program, which provides school children take-home meals on weekends.

Last year’s Cobe Cup Cruise included 105 cars, up from 80 the previous year. That’s an encouraging sign for Schroader, who is hoping to add younger members to the club’s membership. While Bob owns a 1947 Ford F1 pickup, and his wife, Susan, the club’s secretary, owns a 1979 Chevrolet El Camino, they say classic car ownership is not a requirement to join the club.

“If you enjoy them and want to be part of it,” Bob says, “we’d love to have you.”

The Schroaders say the annual Cobe Cup Car Cruise requires the cooperation of the Crown Point, Lowell, and Cedar Lake Police Departments, as well as the Lake County Sheriff’s Department and all three communities.

As the 1909 Cobe Cup proved, it takes a village. Or, in this case, three.

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post Before the Indy 500, the Cobe Cup Was the Midwest’s Greatest Automotive Spectacle appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Five races into the 2024 Formula 1 season and Red Bull has already shown blistering pace—again. In the RB20, Max Verstappen picked up where he left off last season and has claimed four wins from the series’ opening rounds. But news this week that chief technical officer Adrian Newey is leaving the team at the end of the season has sent shockwaves up and down the paddock, with any number of rivals hoping to land him.

The British engineer has a history of crafting some world-beating machinery and has experience well beyond F1 when it comes to race car design. From sports cars to Indy, Newey has a knack for blueprinting success. Let’s take a look at the race cars that have defined his 40-year career.

11. March 82G GTP

Win rate: 0 percent

Designed for IMSA’s then-new GTP class, the March 82G was the first racer to come from Newey’s now-prolific pen. The car was based on an existing BMW design, and since Newey worked alongside March boss Robin Herd, it’s difficult to estimate Newey’s impact in the program.

Even so, the 82G enjoyed success. Powered by a 5.7-liter Chevy V-8 between the rear axles, it started in pole position for its first-ever race, the 1982 Daytona 24 Hours. Then, the wedge-shaped racer followed up its success on the high banks with a runner-up finish at the 12 Hours of Sebring.

10. March 881

Win rate: 0 percent

The March 881 was Newey’s first Formula 1 car, and it hinted to the paddock that he might be a design superstar in the making.

During the 1988 season, the 881 was typically the fastest non-turbo car in a field dominated by turbocharged McLarens and Ferraris. In the Japanese Grand Prix, it briefly led—the only non-turbo to do so that year and the first since 1983. The 881 did land on the podium twice, recording second- and third-place finishes.

9. Red Bull RB5

Win rate: 35 percent

After threatening to leave McLaren numerous times, Newey finally did so in 2005.

In 2006, he landed at the new team in town, Red Bull Racing. Newey’s first creation to win a grand prix under the new banner was the RB5, in 2009. The achievement meant so much to the soft-drink company that it gave the designer an RB5 as a “thank you.” He occasionally runs it at the Goodwood Festival of Speed.

Fun fact: The first Newey car to win a title was the RB6, in 2010. This kicked-off a four-year stretch of dominance for the Bull.

8. McLaren MP4/13

Win rate: 56 percent

Irritated at Williams’ unwillingness to give him shares in the team or more input in driver selection, Newey took his drawing board to mighty McLaren for the 1997 season.

His arrival coincided with a rule change mandating narrower cars and tires and, surprise, surprise, Newey’s car suited the new regs better than anyone else’s racer. The MP4/13 won nine of 16 races in 1998, with Mika Häkkinen ultimately taking the title. Remarkably, the feat still stands as McLaren’s last constructors’ championship.

7. March 85C

Win rate: 67 percent

Newey’s first Indy car was also his first race winner. The 85C was designed to utilize either a Ford or a Buick engine. During the 1985 IndyCar season, the 85C won 10 of 15 races and earned 12 pole positions. It’s the first, and only, Adrian Newey design to win the Indianapolis 500—though the victory didn’t come without drama. Danny Sullivan, aboard a Miller-liveried 85C, famously completed his “spin and win” in 1985.

6. Red Bull RB9

Win rate: 68 percent

By 2013, Newey was chief technical officer at Red Bull and put in charge of the design team. His inspiration clearly remained undimmed. After a slow start (well, slow by Newey’s standards), Sebastian Vettel found his stride and ended the season by winning nine consecutive races in the Renault-powered RB9. The successive wins record set by Vettel still stood until 2023, when Verstappen scored 10 in a row.

5. Williams FW14B

Win rate: 62 percent

After the 881, Newey’s next two March designs weren’t nearly as successful, and the British team eventually fired him. According to legend, he left his designs for a new March behind. Supposedly, his successor threw them in the trash.

Bad decision.

The blueprints were of the FW14, an incredible design that Newey ended up building for his new employer, Williams.

Featuring active suspension, the Renault-engined car stormed to the 1992 F1 world championship in Nigel Mansell’s hands. While other Newey cars are more statistically successful, the FW14B’s margin of victory over rivals was dramatic. The new car also spawned a line of winners.

In 1993, the FW15C won 15 of 16 pole positions and helped deliver Alain Prost his fourth championship. Appropriately, Prost calls Newey “the best.”

4. Aston Martin Valkyrie

Win rate: N/A

Okay, so it’s not a racing car, but one tester described it as “the most extreme factory-built car ever to wear number plates.”

The Valkyrie, otherwise known as the AM-RB 001, was the result of Aston Martin’s sponsorship of Red Bull. Newey took time from his day job to design the car, which is aimed at use on road and track.

Old habits die hard, and even road cars deserve epic downforce. Using underbody aerodynamics, the 1140-horsepower monster creates 4189 pounds of tire-squashing downforce at high speed.

Production is limited to 150, but if you want this piece of Newey’s historic handiwork in your garage, tough luck; they’re already sold out.

3. Williams FW18

Win rate: 75 percent

The mid-1990s were golden years for Williams, culminating in the Newey-designed, Renault-powered FW18 of 1996. Newey’s aero work lifted the bar to a level that main rivals Ferrari and Benetton couldn’t stand. The FW18 won 12 of the season’s 16 races, with Damon Hill taking the title ahead of teammate Jacques Villeneuve.

2. Red Bull RB18

Win rate: 77 percent

Following years of Mercedes dominance, Newey got his title-winning mojo back in 2021.

Then, in 2022, the group won with the RB18, a novel car built for F1’s newest generation of grand prix racer. One of F1’s rule changes led to the return of ground effects—where air rushing under the car creates negative pressure and sucks the car to the track. Unfortunately for his F1 opposition, Newey is an ace at ground effects; one of his final projects in college was “ground-effect aerodynamics on racing cars.”

The resulting RB18 was masters’ degree work, making Newey’s rivals look like they were still in high school, smoking behind the bike sheds. The 2022 Honda-powered racer won 17 of the year’s 22 grands prix, handing Max Verstappen his second drivers’ championship.

1. Red Bull RB19

Win rate: 95 percent

When the Red Bull RB19 hit the track in 2023, it was clear to all that Newey was a master at moving from strength to strength. In the hands of Verstappen and teammate Sergio Perez, the RB19 won an astounding 21 of 22 races, with Perez taking two victories and Verstappen the rest, including those 10 in a row. A 100 percent win rate is theoretically possible, but, given the many variables and hurdles posed by competing in a full F1 season, it’s difficult to imagine any car—or designer—ever bettering the 95 percent of Newey’s RB19.

Where will the RB20 land after the 2024 season? More importantly, given the news that Newey is departing Red Bull at the end of the season, where will he land? Chime in below.

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post Adrian Newey’s Best Race Cars, Ranked appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Today, May 1, marks the 30th anniversary of the fatal accident at the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix that took the life of Brazilian Ayrton Senna.  Who knows where his Formula 1 career would have taken him? How many more wins would he have and what F1 records would he still hold today?

Even without the what-ifs, the Brazilian left an incredible legacy. In just over a decade at open-wheel racing’s highest level, Senna amassed 65 pole positions, 41 victories, and numerous legendary drives. How do we narrow it down to his five best? With great difficulty.

5. Japanese Grand Prix, 1988

Up until 1988, Senna had shown flashes of mastery but was never able to put a full season together. Ahead of the season finale at Suzuka, he stood at the brink of his first F1 title. All Senna needed to do was win the Japanese Grand Prix. Easy, right?

Things got off to a rough start. Firing from the pole position, he nearly stalled the Honda V-6 in his McLaren Mp4/4. By the first corner, he had slipped to 14th place in the running order.

Those who watched the grand prix that day witnessed one of the greatest comeback drives. Ever. Ayrton dispatched six cars in less than a lap, and by the time he came back around to the front stretch he was in eighth. By lap four, he was up to fourth.

Meanwhile, Senna’s championship rival—and McLaren teammate—Alain Prost was under pressure from Ivan Capelli in March. Once Capelli faded, Senna inherited second place. It only took him another 10 laps to catch Prost and even less time to pass the championship hopeful. Momentum and adrenaline launched Senna past the Frenchman.

A light rain fell over the track in the final laps. It didn’t matter. Senna was on a mission. He stormed across the finish line, capturing his eighth win of the season and his first championship.

4. Monaco Grand Prix 1984

Ok, so Senna didn’t win the 1984 Monaco Grand Prix. Rather than putting a notch in the win column, the Brazilian opened a few eyes to his brilliance in wet conditions.

Another race in the wet. Senna in only his sixth grand prix was driving the low-budget Toleman-Hart entry. He qualified 13th in dry conditions.

After 20 laps, his Candy-liveried ride was the quickest car on the track. Between laps 22 and 31, his gap to leader Alain Prost shriveled in the rain, dropping from 34 seconds to a meager seven. An upset was brewing.

On lap 32, Senna surged ahead of his Prost’s McLaren. Unfortunately, the race was terminated on the previous lap due to torrential showers.

If it weren’t for the stoppage, would Senna have won? Perhaps. Stefan Bellof’s Tyrrell was closing him down on the duo when the race was called. And Senna’s Toleman had suspension damage that might not have lasted a full race. Even so, it was an eye-catching performance. Senna would make Monaco his personal playground, winning six times at the street course, including five in a row from 1989 to 1993.

3. Brazilian Grand Prix 1991

In 1991, Senna claimed his third and final F1 world championship, driving a McLaren-Honda V12 that was inferior to its Williams-Renault rivals. The Brazilian Grand Prix, Senna’s home race, best encapsulated the season’s struggles.

Senna started from pole position and rocketed into the lead, initially fending off Nigel Mansell before his Williams car suffered gearbox trouble. As the race wore on, Senna began experiencing shifting trouble, too. First he lost fourth gear, followed by third, and then fifth.

As Ayrton started his final lap, he put the car in sixth gear and left it there. It meant he had no engine braking but at least he was still going and still in the lead.

As if things couldn’t get any worse, it started to rain. And Senna was on slicks.

By the time he crossed the line, Riccardo Patrese’s Williams had closed the gap to less to than three seconds. Still, Senna claimed a home grand prix win for the first time in his F1 career. Keeping his car straight amid the rain and gearbox issues had sapped so much energy from Senna that he had to be lifted from the cockpit to attend the podium ceremony.

2. Portuguese Grand Prix 1985

Senna’s first pole position came in only his second race for Lotus. In that era, Lotus was in its dying days as an F1 superpower. On that rainy day in Portugal, driving the iconic black-and-gold John Player Special machine, Senna simply drove away from the opposition.

As with many of his other wet weather performances, Senna was in his own zip code. By the finish, he was more than a minute ahead of second place  Michele Alboreto in a Ferrari. The rest of the field was a lap down.

Unlike some of Senna’s drives in the wet, this was entirely undramatic. His self-assurance in the treacherous conditions made his rivals look ham-fisted. Yet out of the car, he had the look of a man who had simply done what he’d expected.

The triumph in Portugal was Senna’s first F1 victory and a bellwether for future rain-soaked heroics.

1. European Grand Prix 1993

In 1993, the United Kingdom hosted two Formula 1 Grand Prix. The first race was held at the historic Donington Park in England. On a soaked track, Senna started fourth in an orange and white McLaren MP4/8. Even worse, he momentarily dropped a place after Michael Schumacher muscled him onto a curb in the first corner of the first lap.

Schumacher’s move ruffled the Brazilian. Senna quickly dodged round Schumacher’s Benetton to take fourth, then scythed past Karl Wendlinger’s Sauber for third. Damon Hill’s Williams-Renault was Senna’s next victim followed by its sister car of Alain Prost. Four passes, one mesmerizing lap.

It was all the opposition saw of the McLaren man for the rest of the afternoon—unless, of course, he was lapping them. His team changed tires four times to suit the wet-dry weather and Senna almost lapped the entire field. The only driver to finish on the same lap was Damon Hill, who finished nearly two minutes behind.

It was a performance that made the world’s best drivers on the F1 grid look like complete amateurs.

Did we miss any of your favorites? Let us know in the comments below.

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post Ayrton Senna’s Top 5 Formula 1 Drives, Ranked appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Motorsports has long been a high-stakes industry, backed by major auto manufacturers and underwritten by hundreds of corporations, some of them Fortune 500 companies. But despite ever-rising levels of professionalism, cheating still occurs on the highest levels.

How that cheating is treated by the major sanctioning bodies, though, differs. Minor infractions are typically addressed promptly, with a loss of finishing position, a fine, or a points penalty, or all three. When a major infraction occurs—well, that’s where it gets interesting.

For years—decades, actually—NASCAR maintained a tacit policy of allowing winners that did not pass post-race technical inspection to keep the win, sometimes despite rather egregious violations. Example: The 1983 Miller High Life 400 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, which was won by Richard Petty.

In post-race inspection, it was found that Petty’s car had left-side tires installed on the right side of the car, which supposedly gave the car an illegal advantage. But worse, after tearing down the engine, it was found that the V-8 in Petty’s Pontiac measured out to nearly 382 cubic inches. NASCAR’s limit was, and is, 358 cubic inches.

NASCAR officials met for three hours and determined that Petty should be fined $35,000 and docked 104 points, but he would be allowed to retain the win. The decision was in keeping with NASCAR’s unspoken opinion that fans should be able to go home Sunday knowing who the winner of the race was, and not learn that he had been disqualified in Monday’s newspaper.

It was not always that way. In NASCAR’s very first race, apparent winner Glenn Dunaway was stripped of the victory after officials found illegal rear springs on his Ford. The win was given to the car that came in second, Jim Roper.

That was in 1949. Between then and 1960, NASCAR took the wins away from seven drivers for violations that ranged from a fuel tank that was too big, to illegal cylinder heads.

It was not until July of 2022 that NASCAR would strip another Cup series winner of a victory, when Denny Hamlin, driving a Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing, was disqualified from the M&Ms 400 at Pocono Raceway for having a front spoiler that had been bolstered by illegal tape. Kyle Busch, who finished second, was also disqualified. His Joe Gibbs Toyota had the same tape treatment. This gave the win to Chase Elliott, who had finished third.

We mention this because on Tuesday, IndyCar took away Josef Newgarden’s win in the 2024 season opener at St. Petersburg. Scott McLaughlin, who finished third, was also disqualified. Both drive for Team Penske, owned by Roger Penske, who also owns the IndyCar series as well as the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. “Very disappointing,” Penske told the Associated Press. “Very embarrassing.”

The gutsy call was made by IndyCar President Jay Frye after it was found that Team Penske had manipulated the “push to pass,” or PTP, system that allows drivers, under certain circumstances, to push a button and get a 50-horsepower boost from the turbocharged engine. The gimmick, similar to what Formula 1 uses, is supposed to make the racing more interesting.

The problem in St. Petersburg was that PTP cannot be used on starts and restarts. In fact, the PTP system is literally disabled then by IndyCar. But somehow, the Penske Chevrolets had managed to enable the system, and Newgarden, the reigning Indianapolis 500 champion, and McLaughlin used it. Teammate Will Power did not, and IndyCar just fined him 10 points and allowed him to keep his fourth-place finish. Pato O’Ward, who drives for Arrow McLaren, was elevated from second to first place.

So how did the Penske team circumvent the PTP shutoff? In a statement, Team Penske President Tim Cindric said that the “push-to-pass software was not removed as it should have been, following recently completed hybrid testing in the Team Penske Indy cars.

“This software allowed for push-to-pass to be deployed during restarts at the St. Petersburg Grand Prix race, when it should not have been permitted,” said Cindric, regarded as Roger Penske’s right-hand man. “The car driven by Josef Newgarden and the car driven by Scott McLaughlin both deployed push-to-pass on a restart, which violated IndyCar rules. Team Penske accepts the penalties applied by IndyCar.”

Also interesting is that it took 45 days for IndyCar to bust Penske. That’s because they didn’t find out about the breach until a practice session for last Sunday’s race at Barber Motorsports Park in Alabama. IndyCar did not activate the electronic PTP system during the early part of the session, but noticed that it was activated in three of the 27 cars on the grid—the three Penske cars. An immediate investigation followed. Two days later, the Penske penalties were announced.

According to Racer, the PTP system is activated under all circumstances when there is a test of the hybrid system on IndyCars. Cindric said that by mistake, PTP software left on his cars after the hybrid test was not removed. They have the option to protest the penalties, but instead are pleading guilty.

It is reminiscent of the last major motorsports cheating scandal, which occurred at the 2023 Rolex 24 at Daytona, the opening race of the season for the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. The cars race on Michelin tires, and in the then-new GTP class, the tire company suggests a minimum tire pressure. When a GTP car’s tires fall below that minimum, it is electronically broadcast to IMSA’s race control. As a penalty, IMSA requires the car to drive slowly through the pits while the race is on.

But for the winning car, the Meyer Shank Acura, the team managed to jam the telemetry that broadcast the low-pressure message back to IMSA, presumably allowing them to lower their tire pressures, which is a distinct performance advantage. It appears Meyer Shank, which was celebrating its second straight Rolex 24 victory, may have been ratted out by a competitor, who reported it to Honda Performance Development, which reported it to IMSA. The sanctioning body investigated and found it was true. It took six weeks.

In a controversial move, IMSA, which is owned by NASCAR, did not take the win away from the Meyer Shank Acura, but chose to penalize the team heavily with a loss of points earned, a fine of $50,000 and the loss of the winner’s purse, an amount that IMSA has not disclosed. Acura pulled its sponsorship of the Meyer Shank team, taking it to the other Acura team, Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti, which is now fielding two cars instead of one for 2024.

Does it pay to cheat? Not when you get caught. But that’s the only time in racing we learn who’s really breaking the rules.

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post Your Cheatin’ Art: It Only Pays When You Don’t Get Caught appeared first on Hagerty Media.

I’ve stormed down the Mulsanne Straight at Le Mans, taken laps at Sebring, and clipped apexes at Lime Rock, Virginia International Raceway, and Road America. Almost all of this heroic driving was in… minivans. As an automotive magazine art director, the job of piloting a Town & Country around raceways—at lofty speeds of 25 or 35 mph—while a photographer hangs out the open hatch, clicking away at a pretty car behind, usually falls to me. Directions inevitably crackle over the radio: “Let’s follow the racing line for a couple laps.” Back in the paddock, my boss strolls over with a cocked eyebrow, claps me on the shoulder, and quietly says “Todd, that was not the racing line. But nice try!”

Eventually, the boss man decided I needed some professional instruction, so I headed to Chandler, Arizona, just a few miles from the Phoenix airport, for the two-day High Performance Driving course at Radford Racing School. Radford is the former Bondurant Racing School, and while the name and ownership have changed, the curriculum still is firmly based on the instructional philosophy that Bob Bondurant originally implemented in 1968. Some of the older instructors worked for decades under Bondurant’s guidance and are very proud of that heritage. From the moment you enter the classroom for orientation, you feel like you’re in the absolute best hands.

Radford offers programs for all levels of drivers and aspiring racers alike. I was placed in the Performance Street Driving class, which is about 75 percent aimed at street driving, with the rest dedicated to track-driving basics. Radford also offers programs for advanced racers, Formula 4/open wheel, drag racing, and even karting and teen driving instruction.

Like every driving school, Radford begins instruction in the classroom. My classmates were two amateur racers refreshing their skills and a mother-and-daughter team. Mom had taken the same course before and now wanted her daughter to benefit from the same training. Classes are kept small to retain a 3:1 student-to-instructor ratio. After a brief history of the school from chief instructor Danny Bullock, we were given the outline of our course: car control and vehicle dynamics training, accident avoidance and safety techniques, and track driving fundamentals. About 80 percent of the course is spent behind the wheel, out on the track. First, though, we learned some academic basics.

Performance driving, we learned, is all about weight management. Acceleration shifts weight to the back of the car; braking moves it to the front. Simple, but key to everything we’d be doing. Also essential: Always be looking ahead—a longer distance in front of you, not just at the hood of the car. Several of our on-track exercises were built to practice these two concepts. For example, the slalom helped us learn to keep our weight balance even, while the “go, lift, squeeze” exercise helped us look far ahead without automatically slamming hard on the brakes. The point is that even in a full accident-avoidance situation, looking ahead will have you braking and turning earlier to avoid the crash.

With the preliminaries done, it was time to get fitted for a helmet and head out to the course. Radford partners with Dodge SRT, so we were given Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcats. I chose to drive a manual transmission, which put me in a maroon 392 Scat Pack edition Challenger instead. I really appreciated that I was in the same car for the entire school, so I could set all the seating and other adjustments to my liking and have them dialed in every time I got in.

First up were the braking exercises. For the first few, the objective was not to touch the brakes at all. The paddock was lined with cones, making a three-lane roadway scenario. Above each lane was an instructor-controlled traffic light. Red and green. Our challenge was to accelerate to a set speed, which increased after each stage was complete. As we approached the point where the three-lane split emerged, the instructor would light only one path green. The driver was to lift, abruptly turn into the only available path, hit the gas again and drive through. This obviously got harder as the speed increased with each pass, but it really gets you in touch with the vehicle’s weight balance. Avoidance, without braking.

Then came some exercises employing that middle pedal. Cones were rearranged and we set off at the same three traffic lights, this time applying the brakes after the lane switch to stop within a predetermined “cone box” built on one side or the other. This, too, was a level-up challenge as the approaching speed increased. Initial exercises were done without initiating a full-on ABS stop.

This graduated to the final task of the morning, hurtling the Challenger toward a line of cones, with a braking point marked. Success was measured here in being able to stop the car with the nose just at the cone line. I really got a feel for how the car’s weight shifts, and the brake pedal pressure needed. The last few runs were full anti-lock pedal mashes as we sped toward the cone wall. It was both exhilarating and nerve-wracking.

The afternoon of Day One was for drifting. This was the only time we used a car other than the one assigned to us for our course. This unique Challenger was set up with wheels attached to a metal frame built outside the car. These were controlled by a computer with switches and levers on a control box inside the vehicle. This way, the instructor could adjust the amount of “slidability” the car would have.

I was fairly intimidated by this exercise, imagining myself in infinite 360 spins all over the paddock. As I got behind the wheel, instructor Spencer Buckman took me through the apex points where I was to slide and control by opposite steering through a figure-eight setup. My nervousness faded quickly as I slid the car around the paddock. The instructor explained how the different settings he was applying were changing the performance of the car as we modified the direction and speed. Damn, that was a lot of fun. Drifting distilled is merely weight transfer control. Who knew?

Day Two: After a bit more classroom briefing, we headed out to the 1.6-mile raceway. Spencer gave us a track tour in a Charger SRT, carefully explaining the art of corner apexes and the all-important racing line. Then we got to put our new cornering knowledge, and the skills we’d practiced the day before, to use on the Maricopa Oval. It was a perfect space to lap and test two corners, finding the apex point and accelerating out of the turn as we continued to the next.

Finally, I had learned the elusive racing line and was gaining confidence as I picked up speed working this section of track for an hour. Stops to evaluate were encouraged, as were moments to just catch your breath. Spencer would often jump in the car with us, sometimes taking the wheel or riding along as a passenger and providing encouraging feedback.  

Then we did a lead-follow exercise on the entire raceway, all 15 turns of it, at a controlled speed. What an exciting experience to just take lap after lap in the Arizona sun in a great performance car with fresh skills.

My program at Radford culminated in the slalom. Back on the paddock, an autocross course was laid out. Spencer took us on practice runs through the tight series of turns, first in a leisurely manner, and then at full chat, flicking the SRT Charger here and there effortlessly. The first few student-driven laps were practice. Getting a good feel for the layout. The corners. The braking points. Gradually building up speed.

Then, the instructors’ stopwatches came out. Timed runs. I’d done well after I’d settled down in the practice sessions, but being timed brought out the competitor in me. It was a challenge to stay focused and not try to manhandle the Dodge around the course. I couldn’t find a smooth path through a hairpin corner: It was either too much brake on the approach or… not nearly enough. Both slowed me down. Focus. The younger woman of the family pair in my class had it on lock. She continuously made great times, shaving a few seconds off every run. Kudos, miss.

The slalom was a great aggregator for all we’d been taught. Our course was not really about racing, but simply making us better road drivers. Valuable skills, whether you’re a teen or a seasoned racer.

Radford was an exciting, super-informative experience, one every driver should have. Once home, I was proud to apply my gold “High Performance Driving Graduate” sticker to the window of my Focus ST.  A shiny reminder of two days spent meeting great people and the unadulterated fun I had on that raceway in the desert, with not a single minivan in sight.

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post How Radford Racing School Sharpens Your Driving Skills appeared first on Hagerty Media.

April 17 marked sixty years since the Ford Mustang’s public debut at the 1964 New York World’s Fair. The original pony car immediately became a pop-culture and automotive phenom, and it remains one of the most impactful cars in history. Click here to follow along with our multi-week 60 Years of Mustang coverage. -Ed.

The world’s fastest Mustang lined up on the far left at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, one of two drag strips in the country configured to race four cars at once. Besides Bob Tasca’s Ford, there was Austin Prock’s Chevrolet, Matt Hagan’s Dodge, and Ron Capps’ Toyota—every brand that races in the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) Funny Car class.

For Tasca, it was a point of honor to beat the other three manufacturers. Tasca Automotive Group was founded in 1943 by Bob Tasca, Sr., and in 1953 he opened the original Tasca Ford in Bristol, Rhode Island. Just one year later, this dealership was destroyed by Hurricane Carol. Bob Sr. ultimately opened up the new Tasca Ford in East Providence, Rhode Island.

It was here in the 1960s that Bob Sr. and his team became the second largest Ford dealership in the world. This was also the birthplace of the Tasca Racing program and multiple historic muscle cars such as the Ford Cobra Jet, the Tasca Street Boss, and the Mystery race cars. Bob Tasca III carries on the Ford racing tradition, working at the family dealership when he isn’t at the track.

On the afternoon of April 14, those four cars lined up on The Strip. The starting lights flashed, and Tasca was off first, with a 0.34-second reaction time. Even though his top speed of 329.75 mph was only second-quickest to Capps’ 333.00, his quick reaction time was enough to get Tasca’s Mustang to the finish line first. It was Tasca’s first win of 2024.

“When you put together a final round where there’s one Ford, one Dodge, one Toyota, one Chevy, that is why we do it,” Tasca said. “It’s the only reason we come out here to win for all our Ford fans all around the world. That’s going to go down as one of the best final rounds in Funny Car history.”

But it wasn’t in NHRA competition where Tasca earned the honorary “world’s fastest Mustang” title. Since Tasca’s 341.68 mph record run didn’t come at an NHRA event, the sanctioning body still recognizes Robert Hight’s 339.87 mph mark, set at Sonoma Raceway in 2017, driving a Chevrolet Camaro SS.

Where Tasca made history was at Bradenton Motorsports Park, located in Manatee County, Florida, about an hour south of Tampa. Founded in 1974, it’s a quarter-mile asphalt drag strip and considered one of the nicest, most competitive grassroots strips in the country.

Though it may not host any major NHRA races, the Bradenton track held the inaugural PRO Superstar Shootout last February 8–10, an independent competition with a $1.3 million purse, making it the richest drag racing event in history.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Bob Tasca III (@tasca3)

As you would expect, the three-day show attracted the top professional drag racers in the country, including regulars on the NHRA circuit in the Top Fuel and Funny Car classes, which race from a standing start to 1000 feet. With speeds well over 300 mph, the Top Fuel and Funny Cars used to race the full quarter-mile—1320 feet—but some drag strips don’t have enough real estate in the shut-down area for the cars to come to a safe stop.

The official distance was shortened to 1000 feet in 2008, following the death of racer Scott Kalitta after his engine blew during a qualifying run in Englishtown, New Jersey. His Toyota Solara Funny Car’s twin parachutes were damaged by the explosion, and Kalitta’s car vaulted a concrete retaining wall at the end of the strip and hit a steel post, and then a piece of heavy equipment. Kalitta, 46, died as the result of blunt trauma injuries.

It was thought at the time that trimming the competition distance by 320 feet likely meant that Top Fuel and Funny Car records would be frozen, as it would be impossible to go faster in 1000 feet than the cars had gone in 1320. That logic sold short the ingenuity of drag racing crew chiefs and Goodyear, and many major quarter-mile records have been eclipsed by runs on 1000-foot tracks. That includes the world’s fastest Mustang.

Which brings us back to Bradenton.

A perfect run for a nitro-powered Top Fuel or Funny Car is dependent on so many factors: Track preparation, temperature, dew point, prevailing wind, and, of course, the driver’s ability to launch the 12,000-horsepower car and keep it in the dead center of the lane. Worth noting is that the record is for “wheel-driven” cars, which leaves out the handful of jet-powered dragsters out there.

There was something in the air on opening night for the PRO Shootout, a Thursday; it was obvious to the veterans there that the atmospheric conditions were right. Multiple cars had easily topped 330 mph, and fans were speculating which of the rear-engine Top Fuel cars, which are typically a bit faster than the front-engine, full-bodied Funny Cars, would go the fastest.

So it was a bit of a surprise when Funny Car driver Tasca went 339.87 mph in his PPG-sponsored Ford Mustang Dark Horse that Thursday at Bradenton. And it was even more of a surprise when Tasca came back Friday night and went 341.68 mph.

That’s not only a record for Funny Cars and Ford Mustangs—it was the fastest pass in the history of drag racing.

That it happened at a little country track in Florida, and not at one of the major NHRA events at a premiere facility, shocked everyone.

But there’s no argument that it is legitimate, and it makes his car the world’s fastest Mustang. Of course, it’s lost on no one that there are very few parts on Tasca’s car that would fit on a stock Ford Mustang Dark Horse, but that’s to be expected by any vehicle that can go over 340 mph in 1000 feet. That said, Tasca credited Ford Performance for his record pass. “Their support and Ford’s aerodynamic and engineering expertise were crucial in breaking the 340-mph barrier,” Tasca said.

Of course, Tasca, 48, would like to set the NHRA record, but in his opinion, it’s a done deal already. “Now, doing it officially at an NHRA national event, I’d love to do it, but it’s already been done, and I’ve made this point very clear to everyone who’s asked me. It’s already been done,” Tasca told Autoweek. “Whoever does it is going to do it for the second time, not the first time. The first time at a national event, I’d love to do it—but we already did it.”

Tasca went on to say that the next big milestone, 350 mph, probably won’t happen in his lifetime. After all, Tony Schumacher broke the 330-mph barrier in 1999, and it has taken 25 years to creep up to 340.

Regardless of whether it is “official” by NHRA standards, Bob Tasca III did it in the world’s fastest Mustang.

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post At 341.68 mph, the World’s Fastest Mustang Is Also the World’s Fastest Dragster appeared first on Hagerty Media.

For five months—6 a.m. to midnight, seven days a week—Derek Drinkwater’s life was consumed by a race car that competed only once, in the 1950 24 Hours of Le Mans, where it finished a middling eleventh. Drinkwater could never own it: It’s worth too much money, and happily resides in a museum in Naples, Florida, while Drinkwater and his wife, Pat, live in Chiddingfold, England, where he wears several hats—a truck mechanic, a caterer, a race car driver, a popular television host.

The car he’s so taken with is called Le Monstre, French for “the monster,” so named by fans and the media at Le Mans, because the car’s styling is somewhere between cartoonish and hideous.

If Drinkwater couldn’t have the monster, he’d just build one. He told Pat that he’d be eating in the garage for a while. She begged him not to do it. “I have to get it out of my system,” he told her.

It’s all the fault of Briggs Swift Cunningham II, who was the sort of man who could make the average Joe feel good about millionaires. Born in 1907, family money funneled into Cunningham’s bank account from a variety of sources: A growing company named Procter and Gamble, the Pennsylvania Railroad, Citizen’s National Bank, the meat packing industry and multiple other businesses. And this was before he married Lucie Bedford, granddaughter of the founder of Standard Oil.

Cunningham didn’t smoke or drink or carry on like the rich people in The Great Gatsby. He preferred to spend his money in competition: He built a boat and sailed it to victory in the 1958 America’s Cup, and—along with college chums he met at Yale, brothers Miles and Sam Collier—he built and raced cars.

Cunningham was already an established racer when a pair of entries for the 1950 24 Hours of Le Mans fell into his lap. You’d think he would just buy a pair of Ferraris or Talbot-Lagos, but Cunningham was different: If he was going to France, he wanted to take something American.

But what? Cadillac was building a potent 5.4-liter, 160-horsepower V-8; stuff that into a short-wheelbase Cadillac Series 61 two-door, and at least you’d have something that might go the distance.

That wasn’t quite enough for Cunningham and his cohorts: Sure, they sent a stock-appearing Series 61 with an auxiliary 35-gallon fuel tank and twin carburetors as one entry, but for the second, Cunningham noticed the rule book said modifications to the body were allowed. He removed the steel body completely and had an engineer at Grumman Aircraft design something in aluminum that would be lighter and more aerodynamic. It looked like a bar of Procter and Gamble soap. The French dubbed it “Le Monstre.”

Technical inspectors at Le Mans scrutinized Le Monstre, rule book in one hand, fine-toothed comb in the other. No, the rules didn’t say you could replace the entire body, but they didn’t say you couldn’t. It was judged legal. Cunningham, along with tuner Phil Walters, drove Le Monstre. The Collier brothers drove the other Cadillac, which the French were calling “Petit Pataud,” which translates to “Little Clumsy.”

Little Clumsy finished tenth, while Le Monstre was 11th, a victim of Cunningham stuffing the car into a sand bank early on in the race. It took him about a half-hour to dig the car out by hand.

For some reason, all this resonated with Derek Drinkwater, who usually works on and sells Diamond T trucks, known mostly for the rugged six-wheel vehicles built for use by the military in World War II. He uses vintage trucks in his high-profile catering business, and he also appears on several auto-related TV shows.

This may not be the first time he has been obsessed with a famous vehicle: He was profiled in a documentary about director Steven Spielberg’s first film, the low-budget, made-for-TV Duel, about a sinister Peterbilt truck that chases a hapless traveling salesman (Dennis Weaver) driving a Plymouth Valiant. In the documentary, titled The Devil on Wheels, Drinkwater says he “fell in love” with the 1971 movie. He found a vintage Peterbilt attached to a tanker like the one in Duel, bought it on eBay, drove it 2700 miles from Portland to Houston, put it on a boat and had it sent on a four-week cruise to England.

So maybe spending five months building a replica of a car that raced once, years before Drinkwater was born, is not that out of character. After all, he had already built and raced a Cadillac like Little Clumsy, but that wasn’t enough.

It was Pat who actually got the ball rolling: She located a short-wheelbase 1950 Cadillac in Arizona. “We bought that and used its chassis,” Drinkwater said. It would not be easy. Le Monstre and Little Clumsy both remained in Cunningham’s considerable car collection, along with subsequent Cunningham-built cars, many with Cadillac engines. That collection fell into the hands of Miles C. Collier, son of Cunningham’s Yale friend and Le Mans team driver, who houses the collection at the Revs Institute in Naples, Florida. The Revs Institute was of great value to Drinkwater, supplying all sorts of photos and measurements of Le Monstre.

But what they didn’t have was any sort of blueprint. So Drinkwater built a big projector and a huge screen, on which he projected a life-sized side photograph of Le Monstre. He outlined the entire car on the screen, matching the appropriate measurements, and effectively made his own blueprint of the car he would build.

Gradually it took shape. Inside, it used the same Cadillac V-8 engine, down to Le Monstre’s odd five-carburetor fuel system with a Carter carb in the middle, surrounded by four Holleys. The same three-on-the-tree shifter and transmission that, incidentally, made downshifting for sharp turns at Daytona a challenge. The same drum brakes. Drinkwater resisted the urge to update the suspension.

Outside, Drinkwater formed the aluminum panels himself, which he admits is not his specialty. The panels were affixed to a tubing framework by airplane-style Dzus fasteners. Rear lights, like the original, come from a 1948 Ford. The factory Cadillac steering wheel was replaced. A small engraved plate placed on Le Monstre’s dashboard, just left of that steering wheel, read “Custom built by Frick-Tappet Motors Inc.,” of Long Island, New York. A nearly identical plate in Drinkwater’s car reads, “Custom built by Derek Drinkwater Motors Inc.” of Chiddingfold, England. The car was painted white with a big blue stripe down the middle, which was a Cunningham staple.

On Facebook, a growing number of people watched Drinkwater’s build take place. He let it be known that he was in search of a special gauge like one used on Le Monstre: Two people responded. The first guy had one he’d sell Drinkwater for $3000. The other guy also had one. He wrote, “I’ve been following you on Facebook. You can have it for what I paid for it 20-odd years ago: $200. I’m honored to be part of the build.”

Drinkwater finished his monster in 2018, and began driving it at some racetracks in Europe, including Brands Hatch and at the Goodwood Festival of Speed. He also raced it at Le Mans, in the Le Mans Classic, a series for vintage cars.

At Goodwood, both the original Le Monstre and Drinkwater’s tribute car showed up, and he had the opportunity to compare them side by side. The tunnel behind the driver’s head, containing the roll bar, is two inches taller and wider than the original, because, Drinkwater said, that’s what the rules require now. And the white on Le Monstre’s body has turned to more of a cream color, likely due to age. Otherwise, they appear to have emerged from the same factory.

Last November, he drove his car at the Classic 24 Hours at Daytona, an annual event patterned after the Le Mans Classic. The event was designed for cars raced in 1965 or newer, but Drinkwater asked the organizers, Historic Sportscar Racing, if they would allow him to come, “and they said, ‘Of course, we’d love to have you.’” His car hit 142 mph in practice, faster than Le Monstre went at Le Mans.

This month he returned to Daytona—his car wintered in Florida—and Drinkwater fabricated a trailer hitch for the car, hooked up a teardrop camper, and he and wife Pat hit the road, leaving Daytona and bound for California. He spoke to Hagerty during a quick stop, about 40 miles east of Austin.

“No roof, no windshield wipers, no heater—what could go wrong?” Drinkwater said, laughing.

“So far, the trip has been fantastic. We’re taking the scenic route.” He and Pat have basically taken a year off from work, so there’s no hurry to get home. Surprisingly, there’s no chase car full of parts and a mechanic following them—“We’re on our own, just me and Pat in the little camper. Tonight, though, we’re getting a hotel room. The camper is great, but a hot shower, you know…”

So far, only one thing has gone wrong: A couple of days before our conversation, Drinkwater said he received an email from the vaunted Monterey Historics, held at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca each August. Drinkwater had asked to race there, but he was turned down because his replica of Le Monstre wasn’t, well, Le Monstre.

“They said the car’s not original, and I know it’s not the original car, but underneath, everything is a 1950s short-wheelbase Cadillac. It’s still an historic car, there’s no new aftermarket parts or anything else.” He said there are multiple well-positioned automotive enthusiasts advocating for him, “So I hope we still have a shot.” After all, he said, the event’s first race is even called “The Briggs S. Cunningham Trophy.” Even if he’s refused an entry, he plans to park it in the spectator lot.

Drinkwater’s car is scheduled to return to England in November, and he and Pat have a lot of America to see between then and now. A couple of days ago, he checked in to their Instagram account from the Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo, Texas. It was colorful.

Taking a year off doesn’t mean they’ll be relaxing. On the morning we spoke, Drinkwater and Pat had spent nearly two hours using the free internet at McDonald’s updating their social media accounts and returning texts and emails.

“The response has been fabulous,” he said. “The way people slam on the brakes to take a video of us on the freeway, I’m sure there’s going to be an incident.”

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post Le Monstre: Coast to Coast in Cunningham’s Head-Turner appeared first on Hagerty Media.

While many enthusiasts would love to spend a weekend at a racetrack exploring a vehicle’s limits, the reality is most of us get more track time on YouTube than in real life. I know I do at least, so that’s why it was so exciting to start my Monday with 12 minutes of Goodwood Members’ Meeting highlights.

After all, what better way to get into the groove of the week than with a smorgasbord of vintage iron dicing it up on the 2.36-mile Goodwood Circuit located in West Sussex, England? The 2024 Members’ Meeting is also a celebration of ten years since the event was revived in 2014. Just about anything that goes fast is allowed to join in, and this year there were some real heavy hitters on the starting line. The best part is that Goodwood is really, well, good about sharing coverage for those who aren’t able to make it to the track in person, and we think the highlights from the weekend are better than coffee.

Most of the clip offers no commentary, no music, no BS: Just the sounds engines and tires trying to put power to the ground. The right-heavy Goodwood circuit often hosts close racing and the camera spots are perfect for catching the slip that the drivers put into the cars as they turn laps. The first section of highlights is full of that, with Jake Hill hard charging, often with a healthy dose of opposite lock, in a Ford Capri. Then the video steps up to the on-track debut of the Gordan Murry Automotive T.50 supercar. It might not have been running wheel to wheel with anything, but the scream of its 3.9-liter Cosworth V-12 is worth playing back more than once.

Of course, for those who prefer two (or three) wheels, there was plenty of vintage racing to see, too. The wild sidecars who put up scalding pace during the open practice and qualifying for the first sidecar shootout. The 600-cc inline four engines were really howling as the passengers leveraged their mass to keep the motorcycles within the edge of control. It’s impressive how smooth those passengers can move about on a motorcycle running every bit of 100mph.

The highlights from Saturday close out with some gutsy moves from the Goodwood-video famous Darracq land speed racer, a bare-bones vehicle made up of a massive V-8 sitting on two spindly frame rails and just enough stuff to make the whole thing operate. Seeing cars like this from over 110 years ago driven at speed is so incredibly rare, let alone in a group like the one the Darracq dices through.

If this video is up your alley, be sure to scroll the rest of Goodwood Road & Racing YouTube page to see what other feats of speed have been posted lately. This recap was the perfect way to start our week, but we’ll gladly watch vintage and rare racers anytime.

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post Start Your Week with Some Highlights from Goodwood appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Editor’s Note: The 29^th annual Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance, held last March on Amelia Island, Florida, named Rick Hendrick its 2024 honoree. As you likely know, Hendrick is the owner of the Hendrick Motorsports NASCAR team, chairman and CEO of Hendrick Automotive Group, and a major classic car collector. Hendrick brought a sample of his collection to the Hagerty-owned Amelia celebration, including the Garage 56 Chevrolet Camaro that ran at the 2023 24 Hours of Le Mans and was built by Hendrick Motorsports.

Last weekend was the 40^th anniversary of Hendrick Motorsports’ first NASCAR Cup win, at Martinsville Speedway in Virginia. That race was to be the last for the team, because supporting it was draining Hendrick, putting his car dealership business in jeopardy. They put driver Geoff Bodine in the car, planning to shutter the team after the race. All that could save them was a win.

Against all odds, the team did just that. A major sponsor signed on as a result, and Hendrick’s NASCAR team, as well as his dealerships, flourished. Hagerty’s media team prepared a story for the Amelia’s program, in which Hendrick pinned most everything good that has happened to him and wife Linda on that first victory.

Last weekend, Hendrick’s initial victory was celebrated at Martinsville with over 1500 of Hendrick’s employees in attendance. (Rick and Linda stayed home in Charlotte, North Carolina, where he was having knee surgery.)

What did they miss? A remarkable 1-2-3 finish for Hendrick Motorsports, with drivers William Byron, Kyle Larson and Chase Elliott, in that order, claiming the podium. Jeff Gordon, presently the vice-chairman of Hendrick Motorsports, where he earned four championships as a driver, stood in for his boss. “Sunday was awesome,” Gordon posted on X. “Thank you to our friends, family, teammates and all of the fans for celebrating with us.”

For the first time, we’re publishing the Amelia Concours cover story here. If you’re not a fan of Rick Hendrick now, we think you will be after reading it.

***

Rick Hendrick, the 2024 Amelia Concours d’Elegance honoree, has a car collection that now numbers more than 300 vehicles. But it had an unassuming start 60 years ago when Hendrick, now 74, was barely 14.

“I was going to a drag race in Virginia with my dad, and we pulled over into a service station to get gas. Sitting on the side of the building, painted in primer, was a ’31 Chevrolet.”

Hendrick, the Charlotte auto megadealer and NASCAR team owner, had never seen one. “So we approached the guy at the station about selling it, and he finally said he would for $250.” But Hendrick didn’t have $250.

Hendrick’s father, “Papa Joe” Hendrick, had a small tobacco farm in Palmer Springs, Virginia, where Rick grew up. “My dad gave my brother and me a quarter-acre of tobacco for working during the summer, and that would always bring us $250 or $300, so I asked him if he would buy the car and let me pay him back. So we bought it and brought the car home.

“My grandad had a general store that was a converted schoolhouse, so it had a girls’ bathroom and a boys’ bathroom, and he wasn’t using the girls.’ So we cut a hole in the wall, took the stools out and put a 55-gallon drum in there for heat, and that’s where my dad and I built that car. I ended up drag racing it.” That was Hendrick’s first experience with motorsports, and he was pretty good at it.

“The car stayed in the family all those years, but I hadn’t seen it since I left home. On my 40th birthday, my dad drove it into City Chevrolet,” Hendrick’s first major Chevrolet dealership, located in Bennettsville, South Carolina, “with my wife and two kids in the rumble seat. He’d converted it back to a street car and surprised me with it. So that’s the most important car in my collection.”

The second most important car is a Corvette, which Hendrick lost, and then found again. “I had this love affair with Corvettes, but I never thought I’d be able to own one. I was going to school and I was working in a gas station and a friend of mine said, ‘Hey, I’ve got a buddy who’s going to college and he’s got this 1963 Corvette that won’t crank.’ I went over to diagnose it and when I opened the hood, I saw water standing on top of the air cleaner.

“I took the top off the air cleaner and I saw a little bit of water in the carburetor’s butterfly. We put a battery in it and I couldn’t get it to turn over, so I said, ‘I think it’s locked up.’ The guy asked me how much it would cost to fix it, and I told him I don’t know—you’d have to rebuild the motor or put one in it.

“He said, ‘Well, do you know anybody who might buy it?’ I asked him how much he wanted for it, and he said $1000. I got my mother to get me a 90-day note from the bank where she worked and I bought it.”

They overhauled the carb, “but we still thought it was locked up. I pulled down on the crankshaft and it turned over. We put some gas in it and cranked it, but it had a knock. This was at night—when I turned the light off, I could see a spark down around the harmonic balancer. I shut the engine off, and I could see where the water-pump pulley was hitting the harmonic balancer.

“In true redneck fashion, I took a belt off it, cranked it again and held a file against it while it was running. And the motor ran pretty good. That was my first Corvette.” Both the Corvette and the ’31 Chevy will be on display at Amelia.

Hendrick had to sell the Corvette to buy his first dealership—more about that in a moment—“but I started looking for it and I found it about 25 years ago. Pulled it apart, put a new chassis under it—it was a pretty amazing deal, to be able to find it.”

Hendrick’s all-time favorite car is the Corvette, and his favorite Corvette is the 1967 model. “It’s the side pipes and the 427 motor, and the stinger hood. That was the model I remember seeing on a Chevrolet showroom floor, and I thought it was the prettiest car I’d ever seen.

“I started collecting them in 1977. I have every color they made in a big-block ’67 Corvette. Right now, if you include the newer ones, I have somewhere around 130, 135 Corvettes.” (It’s actually 147, nearly half of his collection.) “It represents a 40-year love affair with cars.”

He became especially interested in Corvettes with a “1” in the vehicle information number (VIN) years ago. “Jim Perkins, then the head of Chevrolet, got me the first serial number of a 1990 Corvette back when the first ZR1 came out.” Having the first car of specific models resonated with Hendrick, and he started seeking them out.

“I’ve got the very first 1955, the first ’56, the first ’57, and we just found the first ’58. It’s in bad shape but we’re working on it now.” Later-model “1” Corvettes are sometimes featured at major car auctions with the proceeds going to charity, and Hendrick has bought several of them. “I also found the only Corvette ever raced in NASCAR. We found it in a basement—a guy was pulling cable for a cable company, and he called and said, ‘There’s a car under all these boxes.’ It was a 1954 model, and it raced at Bowman Gray Stadium, and we’ve got it almost back together. I have 8-mm video of it racing, plus a story in the local paper about it, and I’ve got a picture of the lady we bought it from, when she was 17—the car had the number 17X on it—and I’ve also got a picture of her sitting in it a year or two ago. She’s about 90 years old now.”

Hendrick’s collection started with the Corvettes, “and then it was Camaros—I went through a period when I was trying to get different Z/28 Camaros, and then would come the COPOs and then the ZL1 aluminum-motor cars, then it jumped over to the first 2010 Camaro that came out, serial number one, then the first convertible, then the first new Z/28, then the ZL1 and the 1LE.”

Back to the story about Hendrick having to sell that 1963 Corvette, and almost everything else he and wife Linda owned, to afford his first dealership. Before that, things were actually going quite well for Hendrick. At 23, he convinced Raleigh, North Carolina, super dealer Mike Leith to give him a job running Leith’s import division. “Then I got recruited by General Motors and Chevrolet.” Hendrick wanted to own a dealership, and in true be-careful-what-you-wish-for fashion, Chevy said “Okay.”

The dealership GM had in mind was a failing store in Bennettsville, South Carolina, a tiny burg southeast of Charlotte. In the mid-1970s, Bennettsville’s population was around 7900. “My wife and I had just built a new house. I was driving a BMW, she was driving a Mercedes. This store in Bennettsville was a nothing deal, but GM said if you want a bigger store, you got to start there.

“So we sold our new house, bought a $28,000 house in Bennettsville, and sold everything else we had. That included our ’63 Corvette. Went down there—they were only selling 200 cars a year. There was no showroom.” Rent was a whopping $1700 a month. “They had two mechanics, who didn’t have tools. It was open, but it was out of business. That’s where I had to start.” He became the youngest Chevrolet dealer in the country. Hendrick dove in headfirst, working day and night to turn Bennettsville around. Turn it around, he did—soon it was the most profitable Chevy store in the region.

“GM lived up to what they had told me. They said if you can turn this one around, we’ll see you get a bigger opportunity. Eighteen months, three days, four hours and 46 seconds later, I got the call that City Chevrolet was available. Other opportunities started coming our way, and it just grew from there.”

He parlayed that little store in Bennettsville into Hendrick Automotive Group, the largest privately held dealer network in America, and the seventh-largest in the country. “We have about 11,000 employees, and we’re selling about 200,000 cars a year. We’re servicing about 2.5 million. From nothing, really. It’s been good.”

Hendrick has had opportunities to sell out, and he could have taken his company public. “But that’s not me. I want to take care of my people. You have to put people before profit. And I believe if you do that, you’ll make plenty of money. I don’t want to have to deal with analysts, I don’t want to have to attend board meetings. I like the private way, and I’ve grown to where I am today and I don’t need to be any bigger. The car business and the racing deal both started the same way, just a handful of people. I don’t really know how it happened. Good people, in the right place at the right time.”

Ah, the racing deal. He owns Hendrick Motorsports, a four-car NASCAR Cup team with drivers Kyle Larson, William Byron, Alex Bowman, and Chase Elliott. Previous drivers include Jimmie Johnson, Dale Earnhardt, Jr., and Jeff Gordon, who now works for Hendrick as vice-chairman of the racing group. They’ve won 14 championships, including seven for Johnson and four for Gordon, and more total races than any other team.

But Hendrick Motorsports had a beginning that was every bit as modest and unlikely as Hendrick Automotive Group’s was. It was 1982, and Hendrick was racing drag boats. Hendrick drove one, his brother drove another one, and world-record holder Jimmy Wright drove a third one, named Nitro Fever. That September, the team was racing at Lake Lou Yaeger, a 5.5-mile-long reservoir in Illinois.

Wright was clocked at 213 mph when something went wrong, and Nitro Fever crashed into the embankment. Wright was killed. He was 47. It put an end to Hendrick’s drag boat racing. “After that, I went back one time and I just couldn’t do it anymore.”

Hendrick was always involved with auto racing, working on the crew for the legendary Flying 11 dirt modified driven by Ray Hendrick (no relation) when he was a teenager. In 1983, Hendrick had been helping out his friend Robert Gee, a dirt car racer who also owned a NASCAR Grand National series (now Xfinity series) race car, and who also happened to be Dale Earnhardt, Jr.’s grandfather. “I became partners with Robert, and in our first time out, Dale Earnhardt, Sr., won a 300-mile race in Charlotte in our car. I thought, ‘Well, this is easy!’”

He’d learn soon enough that it wasn’t.

Hendrick had been keeping his drag boats at the shop of Harry Hyde, a NASCAR crew chief. The next step of the journey was a genuine twist-of-fate moment. Max Muhleman, a journalist who went on to be a noted sports promoter, “had been working to find a sponsor for one of the boats. For some reason, NASCAR called him.” C.K. Spurlock, who was singer Kenny Rogers’ manager, was looking to get into NASCAR, and had cut a deal with Richard Petty to drive for them. They were looking for a partner.

“Max called me one day and asked, ‘Hey, would you like to be partners with C.K. Spurlock and Kenny Rogers, and be part of a team that has Richard Petty driving?’ I thought it was a trick question. Who wouldn’t want to do that?” Hendrick had already been talking to Hyde about NASCAR, so it seemed like a logical step to have him involved with the team, which would be called All-Star Racing, recognizing the star status of Rogers and Petty.

On October 9, 1983, Hendrick and Hyde were in the garage at Charlotte Motor Speedway after the running of the Miller High Life 400 race. “Harry and I were waiting for Richard Petty. He was going to sign the contract to drive for us.” Petty won the race, but was caught in tech with a 382-cubic-inch engine (358 was the legal maximum). Still, he was allowed to keep the win, because that’s how NASCAR rolled back then.

But when it came time to sign the contract, Petty backed out. “He wanted to keep the STP sponsorship with him in Level Cross,” the North Carolina shop where Petty was based. “And when he did that, Spurlock said they didn’t think they could go forward.” That left All-Star Racing with no stars, and Hendrick and Hyde holding the bag. “There I was—no sponsor and no driver,” Hendrick said, “but we had built a couple of cars and had five people working for us, so Harry and I hired Geoff Bodine to drive. We started a few races, wrecked a couple of times. We were going to quit.” Hendrick couldn’t continue to fund the team out of his pocket.

“Harry said, ‘Well, let’s go one more time, to Martinsville, because Bodine is good there.’” Hendrick didn’t even make the trip to the half-mile Virginia track for the Sovran Bank 500. “I had promised my wife we’d go to a church service in Greensboro.”

After the services, Hendrick found a pay phone to find out how All-Star Racing had done. “I called my mother and she said, ‘You didn’t hear? He blew up.’ And I said, ‘Well that’s that.’ I told Harry we were going to shut the doors after that race.”

Then his mother laughed. “Naw, he won!” Recalls Hendrick, “So we went to Bodine’s house and wrapped his yard in toilet paper!

“You know, thinking back, what it took to get into racing then, compared to now—we were working out of Harry’s shop, we were renting the equipment from Harry, I was renting the Chrysler transmissions and rear ends, running them in a Chevrolet. It was a shoestring operation, but we made it, and actually won three races that year, which is unheard of for a new team.”

They made a movie in 1990 based on the story: Days of Thunder, starring Hendrick’s friend Tom Cruise as fictional driver Cole Trickle. Randy Quaid played Hendrick (the character’s name was Tim Daland), and Robert Duvall played Hyde (Harry Hogge). It was no coincidence that Cole Trickle drove a car with City Chevrolet on the side. That movie car is part of Hendrick’s Amelia display.

After Martinsville, the sponsor problem was solved when Northwestern Security Life Insurance stepped up. “It was a $400,000 sponsor, which was like $4 million today,” Hendrick said. “And before the end of the year, we got Levi Garrett. We won the last race of the season.” It was a trying time, obviously, but it was fun. Is it still as much fun as it was then? “No way. It’s too big, too much pressure, too much money… you have to have big sponsors. Back in that day, I would decide I’m going to drive a race, or Paul Newman, or Jim Fitzgerald, and we’d just pull another car out of the garage and go race. No, it was a lot more fun back then. It’s big business today.” Hendrick, as a driver, is credited with two NASCAR Cup starts, and one start each in the Xfinity and Craftsman Truck series. He’s also driven in the Mille Miglia in Italy.

“Big” and “less fun” sound like it could apply to selling cars, too. Is Hendrick ready for the future in retail, which everyone tells us is electric? “I’m a dinosaur, man, no! But we’ll sell what the people want. The customers will decide what cars are built. You can only force so much on them.”

He’ll revel in hydrocarbons this weekend at the Amelia Concours d’Elegance. Has he been here before? “I’m embarrassed to say I have not. Ray Evernham,” Jeff Gordon’s longtime crew chief, “has been after me to go year after year, but between racing and everything else, I’ve just never been. This’ll be my first trip.

“I’m looking forward to it. I’ve been a car junkie my entire life.”

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post Rick Hendrick Eyes the Future, Now 40 Years on from His First NASCAR Win appeared first on Hagerty Media.

This article first appeared in Hagerty Drivers Club magazine. Click here to subscribe and join the club.

The first thing you should know about Snowball Bishop is that he was a racer. It’s also the second and third thing you should know about him. Don’t ask how Snowball got his nickname; nobody knows. The eldest of 10 children, he grew up in the hardscrabble hills of southwest Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains, where Snowball’s daddy and his daddy before him gouged a living out of the lead and zinc mines of Wythe County.

Although they worked the mines for a living, the Bishops lived for racing. Snowball’s youngest brother, Biggen (nicknamed because of his stature; Snowball gave everybody nicknames) remembers their daddy taking the motor from an old washing machine, fitting it to a shaft with a drill bit, and using it to bore out the intake of an old flathead Ford.

Snowball inherited his daddy’s talents. One year, he took the rusted-out shell of a ’37 Ford coupe from the open field of his farm there on Major Grahams Road, stuffed a big Mopar engine in it, then headed out to the local dirt track and won—often. But after a few racing seasons, and for reasons nobody can quite remember today, Snowball hung up his helmet and parked the old coupe.

It sat for more than 30 years, until Tom Cotter, host of Hagerty’s Barn Find Hunter, entered the picture. Cotter first met Snowball in 2008, when he was searching for 427 Fords and happened upon Snowball’s field full of Galaxies. Five years later, while working on his book, Barn Find Road Trip, Cotter found his way back to Snowball’s farm again and met the old race car. In a drawl as thick as the fog that hangs in the Blue Ridge’s hollers, Snowball told the tale to Cotter:

“I was running a flathead in this coupe until the small-block Chevys got to be something I couldn’t beat. I decided I was gonna start running a Mopar engine. Richard Petty had started to run Hemis, and I found out he had a bunch of stuff left over at his place, 426 wedges and stuff. I thought maybe I had better learn more about that.

“When I pulled up in the driveway, Lee Petty [Richard’s father] was sitting on the front porch. Lee said to me, ‘Boy, can I help you?’ I said, ‘I’m looking for some parts. I’m thinkin’ about runnin’ Plymouth. I been runnin’ Fords and I can’t run with the Chevrolets.’ Lee yells back into the shop, ‘Hey Richard, how much do we want for that stuff?’ Richard comes out, wipes his hands on a towel, and says, ‘Would you give me 12 hunnerd for it?’ I said, ‘That sounds reasonable enough, but I ain’t got 12 hunnerd with me.’ Richard said, ‘How much you got?’ I said, ‘I got a thousand dollars, all my money right here.’ Lee said, ‘Richard, would you take a thousand for that stuff?’ Richard said, ‘Yeah.’ But I said, ‘Now wait a minute here. I got to have some gas money to get home. I’m a hunnerd and 50 miles away. And I’m gonna need a meal.’ Lee said, ‘Gimme nine hunnerd dollars. Load it up.’ And that started the ball rollin’. We won the championship in 1972. I run ’em and run ’em till we run outta 426 stuff and then I run 440s.”

Snowball always wanted to return his coupe to its racing glory. That dream started to become reality when Jordan Lewis, a cameraman for Hagerty Media, came up with the idea to bring the car back to Hagerty’s headquarters in Traverse City and have Davin Reckow restore it as part of our Redline Rebuild series. Snowball—after some convincing—agreed to the project. Reckow hooked up the trailer to Hagerty’s Ford F-350 and headed south to collect Snowball’s coupe. “I raced dirt track for almost 20 years, so that made the project appealing to me,” Reckow recounted to us later. “And being an old car made it even cooler.”

Once the car was in his shop, Reckow took stock of it. “It’s a ’37 split-window coupe with the rear-window divider and window center posts removed,” he said. “They used the frame from a ’55 Chevy and a front solid axle from a Ford. Leaf suspension all around.

They had a beautiful roll cage in it. I didn’t change a thing on that. You could tell they were very close to NASCAR country.”

The 440 engine, likewise, was a mix of vintages. “We could tell by the date code on the block that it had been cast on the night shift of January 3, 1972,” recalled Reckow. “One of the heads was from ’68 and the other was from ’78. I found a pair of ’68s, cleaned them up, and installed them.” Once the engine was back together, it was time for the dyno. Reckow was surprised by the numbers the stock motor made—403 horsepower and 489 lb-ft of torque—but knew he could do better. After tweaks and upgrades—long-tube headers, an MSD distributor, a new intake, and a Holley 750 carburetor—the engine cranked out 489 horsepower and 532 lb-ft.

With the engine installed and the car completed, it was time for the coupe to head home. But time had passed, and the checkered flag had dropped for the last time for Snowball when he died on October 14, 2021. He was there in spirit on the farm, though, and with the family and friends who had gathered for the coupe’s homecoming. “When Davin fired it up, it was just like back when Snowball would get the car ready for racing back in the day,” son Jimmy said, his voice breaking up from the memories. “He would rev that thing up and you could hear it for miles.”

***

Having reunited with the family, it was time to reunite with the dirt—specifically, the dirt of the track at Wythe Raceway, where Snowball and the coupe had opened the racing season in 1970. “A static display of a race car is fine,” Reckow noted. “But to really enjoy it, it needs to run on a track.” And run it did, with Jimmy Bishop taking the first turn at the wheel. “Back then, I never did drive the car, I just warmed it up for Daddy,” he told us. “It was exciting. The adrenaline was up there—whew! You wanna go faster, but hey, I wanna take it home!” Jimmy’s younger brother, Ricky Joe, was next. “It wasn’t that bad for noise,” he said as he took off his helmet. “But it was right there where you know it was at.” Then Jimmy turned to his niece, Amanda—Ricky Joe’s daughter and Snowball’s youngest granddaughter. “Hey, you aren’t gonna be satisfied unless you go around here, girl.” Amanda hesitated at first. “It wasn’t even in my mind to drive it,” she recalled to us. “I was just happy to be there, to be honest.” After a few laps, she was glad she got a chance. “I don’t know if I’ve ever heard a 440 before, being around Fords all my life. I try not to cuss, but it was badass!”

That night at the track, Snowball’s coupe ran a few parade laps with Reckow behind the wheel and an American flag flying off the rear bumper in a holder he had modified for the purpose. Later that evening, the ’37 coupe ran as the pace car for the Modified feature race. “Having private time at the track was great,” said Reckow. “But putting it in front of the public and running some laps was really special, because there were people there that night who remembered the car racing back in the day.”

The fans will certainly remember when Snowball’s coupe came home, as will Jimmy, Ricky Joe, and especially Amanda. “After I finished my laps, I asked Davin, ‘Can I do a donut?’ And he was like, ‘Heck, yeah!’ So he showed me what to do, and I did a donut. That was the highlight of my life!”

Somewhere—probably where the cars are fast and the tracks are hot and the dirt-track racing never ends—Snowball Bishop is laying a smokin’ patch of rubber in celebration.

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post Snowball’s Second Chance: We Save a Barn Find Race Car from Rusting into the Virginia Soil appeared first on Hagerty Media.

When the season-opening Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg takes the green flag March 9 of 2025, two new cars will debut in the NTT IndyCar series. They’ll be fielded by PREMA, an Italian team that was founded in 1983 by Angelo Rosin.

PREMA, with more than 80 titles in multiple series, may be the best open-wheel organization that you’ve never heard of.

Though PREMA may not yet have raced in Formula 1 or IndyCar, graduates of the multiple ladder-type series that PREMA competes in certainly have. Those series include FIA Formula 2, Formula 3, Formula 4, the GP2 series, and other championship series that race in Europe and Asia.

And those drivers include F1 world champion and Indianapolis 500 winner Jacques Villeneuve, and IndyCar racers like Ryan Briscoe, Felix Rosenqvist, Marcus Armstrong and Callum Ilott. In F1, PREMA grads include Charles Leclerc, Oscar Piastri, Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly. The team is the partner of choice for every Formula 1 driver development program.

PREMA already has a deal with Chevrolet for use of its new, 2.2-liter twin-turbocharged hybrid V-6 engine, and it’s building a “brand-new, state of-the-art facility” in the Indianapolis area. The addition of PREMA will increase the IndyCar grid to 29 cars, and the Indianapolis 500 entry list to probably 35.

No drivers have been selected, but you can bet resumes have been rolling in. PREMA has long had a good eye for talent: Members of its racing family include Rinaldo Capello, Kamui Kobyashi, Lance Stroll, Mick Schumacher, Daniel Juncadella, Arthur Leclerc, Jamie Chadwick, Robert Kubica, Renger van der Zande, Enzo Fittipaldi, Sebastian Montoya, Eddie Cheever III, Ben Hanley, this year’s IMSA Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring winner, Louis Deletraz, and the lone American competing in F1, Logan Sargeant.

IndyCar will become the 12th series that PREMA currently participates in. PREMA also operates Lamborghini’s new SC63 GTP program, which just debuted at the IMSA Mobil 1 Twelve Hours at Sebring.

“PREMA Racing, with their global reach and extraordinary presence in open-wheel racing, will be a great addition to our growing and highly competitive paddock,” IndyCar President Jay Frye said.

“This new chapter will also be beneficial for PREMA Racing and its people, producing amazing learning opportunities and know-how transfer,” said Rene Rosin, team principal. “We want to thank IndyCar for the warm welcome and Chevrolet for supporting this project. We cannot wait to start operating in our new Indiana shop and get on track as soon as possible.”

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post IndyCar Gains Two New Teams for 2025, Thanks To PREMA Racing and Chevrolet appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Hyundai’s sporting N division has taken its most potent EV, stripped it down and sped it up to create a race car to compete in a new one-make series.

The Ioniq 5 N EN1 Cup cars throw out the family-friendly seats and most of the interior trim, with just a single bucket seat and harness put back. A roll cage and EV-specific fire suppression system is also installed, while the quirky retro bodywork gets a new aerodynamic kit, with wider arches to house bigger forged alloy wheels. The hood is replaced with a fiber-reinforced plastic version, and the windows are polycarbonate. These measures save around 500 pounds compared to the road-going model, although at 4,340 pounds it’s still no lightweight.

A bigger 84 kWh battery pack and a total of 650 horsepower go some way to mitigate the mass, while two-way adjustable dampers with camber and ride-height adjustment allow race teams to tune the suspension. Six-piston front calipers and four-piston rear units apply serious pressure to the discs for fade-free braking, and grip comes from slick tires on 18-inch rims.

Race teams will be allowed a free choice of rubber, and are also permitted to customize the digital noises produced by the car’s NGB Overboost, virtual shift and amplified active sound systems.

2024 will serve as a trial for the eN1 series, with racing kicking off on April 27 at Inje Speedium, not far from Seoul. The eN1 Cup cars will then race at Hyundai’s N Festival where the recently-introduced Avante/Elantra N1 one-make series will also be competing.

“Through the eN1 class, our ultimate aim is to establish Hyundai Motor as a true leader in the EV motorsport platform, fostering the growth and development of Korea’s vibrant motorsport culture while making a resounding impact on a global scale,” says Joon Park, Head of N Brand Management Group. “With the eN1 class, we are poised to redefine the future of racing and pave the way for a new era of electrifying motorsport achievements.”

The post Hyundai Takes its EV Charge to the Track with Ioniq 5 N Cup Racer appeared first on Hagerty Media.

The new Maserati MC20 GT2 is very cool, very new, and Henry Catchpole has driven it.

What’s more, it just might spawn a road car to rival a Porsche 911 GT3 RS. For the moment it is the freshest entrant to the Fanatic GT2 race series, competing against cars such as the Lamborghini Huracan, Audi R8, Mercedes-AMG GT and KTM X-Bow as well as a Porsche 911, obviously. It is also the successor to the legendary MC12 Corse.

With the same 621bhp, turbocharged Nettuno V-6 as the Maserati MC20 street car, the GT2 version is definitely not lacking in performance, but it is also intended to be more approachable than a GT3 car. Catchpole reports that it is designed to be approachable for an amateur as well as incredibly quick in the hands of a professional. To put this to the test, Catchpole was given eight laps to get as close as possible to the time of Maserati’s multiple championship-winning test and development driver, Andrea Bertolini.

Just to add to the pressure, the track is the Autodromo di Modena, a circuit that Catchpole has never driven before. And he had to talk to camera while driving. And, if you just turn to page 439 of the BIG Book of Racing Driver Excuses, you’ll know that a brioche for breakfast makes you slower. Thankfully, the MC20 GT2 has both adjustable ABS and traction control to lend a hand, and the secondary controls were all laid out according to the teachings of a certain Michael Schumacher.

The bodywork is carbon fiber but the brakes are steel. The GT2 category doesn’t prioritise aero like a GT3 car, but nonetheless it will generate over 1,000kg of downforce with its splitter, wing, diffuser and flat floor. The gearbox is still paddle-operated, but the ratios are in a six-speed sequential rather than a dual clutch ‘box. The dihedral doors remain from the road car and the GT2 can also be fitted with a second seat, to allow for training (or just very fun passenger rides). Catchpole shares that all in all, the MC20 GT2 is quite the balanced package.

So, how did Catchpole’s times fare against Bertolini’s? Not too bad, and the two shared a debrief to understand where our man could make up some time. See how he did in the video above.

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post <em>The Driver’s Seat:</em> Henry Catchpole drives the Maserati MC20 GT2 appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Jack Swansey holds a degree in anthropology with a focus on car culture, and he is the world’s leading ethnographic authority (by default, if you must know) on NASCAR fandom. His love of the automobile fuels him to discover what cars mean to the people who own, drive, and love them. —EW

After seeing Michael Mann’s Ferrari in theaters, what stuck with me the most was the gore.

Mind you, the motorsport history from which the film was adapted is familiar to me. I knew that Alfonso de Portago’s tragic crash in the 1957 Mille Miglia claimed the lives of 12 people—ten of them spectators, five of them children. Knowing it was coming, I still felt sick to my stomach as the red 355 blew a tire and launched into a telephone pole. The film did not cut away before the rubber projectile ricocheted into a nearby crowd. In the next scene, as the camera panned slowly along the visceral devastation, I wanted to look away but felt like I shouldn’t.

Francois Truffaut, theorist and filmmaker of the French New Wave, once wrote: “Every film about war ends up being pro-war. To show something is to ennoble it.” To Truffaut, even a critique of violence or immorality, by virtue of showcasing it on a screen, deems it worthy of the audience’s attention. Put simply: Movies make violence look cool.

That fateful, gut-wrenching scene in Ferrari begins with the family watching the Mille Miglia live on television. By the end, they’re all dead, killed by the very same race that made for exciting dining-room-table viewing just minutes before. Mann’s critique of auto racing doesn’t spare the spectators who represent its 1950s popularity, but that same violence provides an element of thrill to captivate us, the audience in the 2020s. Truffaut would argue that their real-life death is rendered somehow noble, in service of our entertainment.

In the modern era of halos, fire suppression, and HANS devices, danger means something very different in motorsports. You’re not likely to hear FOX Sports commentator Mike Joy remind viewers of the risks that NASCAR drivers take every time they strap in on any given Sunday. It is far more likely, as the feed plays a high-resolution, slow-motion replay of a crash, for Joy to draw viewers’ attention to the roof flaps and SAFER barriers working as they should to reduce the risk of harm.

Most of the auto racing audience follows the sport on TV or social media. Because fans overall visit the track at most a few times a year, broadcasters and hosts play a powerful role in initiating new fans into the sport and keeping veterans abreast of its evolving tenor. Their words have power, and their choice to emphasize safety advancements rather than valorizing the danger of days long gone is conscious. 

James Hunt, 1976 Formula 1 World Champion and icon of perhaps the most dangerous era of racing, said: “There’s a lie that all drivers tell themselves. Death is something that happens to other people and that’s how you find the courage to get in the car in the first place.”

We don’t talk about death in motor racing because it’s less common these days, but we also don’t want to think about it. We talk of racing tragedies—Dan Wheldon, Jules Bianchi, Justin Wilson—in terms of the safety innovations they brought about: the DW12 chassis, the Halo, the Aeroscreen. These are innovations meant to ensure that no driver ever suffers the ultimate fate again. Death is something we can beat with research, something that happened to people in the past. In some sense, this is true, but the risk remains. Many fans decry those who watch NASCAR races only for the crashes.

In anthropology, the word “taboo” is a linguistic relic born from an 18th-century mistranslation of a Polynesian word (tapu) and further misinterpreted by everyone from Captain Cook to Sigmund Freud. It most commonly describes anything that a community rejects so thoroughly that it becomes offensive to even discuss. (Freud is rich with examples on the subject.) 

Taboo reveals a culture’s morals. What do people consider so bad that they can’t even talk about it? Often, it’s tied to base biological functions like digestion, reproduction, disease, and death—basically, anything that reminds us we’re not so different from animals.

Niki Lauda was uncommonly forthright on the subject, quantifying the risk of death he was willing to accept at 20 percent. That candor contrasted starkly with other drivers of his era, who, both in real life and as depicted on screen in Ron Howard’s Rush, shied away from such blunt discussion. It’s an uncomfortably high figure. Hard to face. Better to lie, even to yourself, or say nothing at all. 

Which brings us back to Truffaut’s critique of violence in cinema. Merely by advocating for caution in the face of potential death, as Lauda did in Rush when he urged his competitors to cancel the 1976 German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring over safety concerns, all the more “ennobles” the other drivers, like Hunt, who vote to go ahead anyway in pursuit of victory.

Maybe it isn’t surprising that YouTube’s algorithm continually serves me crash compilation videos. NASCAR’s own TV ads rely heavily on crash footage. And while there’s a more-or-less unspoken rule to not use fatal crashes in this manner, people outside the racing fan community don’t know the difference. A high-speed car wreck threatens violence, injury, and death—that much is clear. 

Death is taboo, but danger sells. And here’s a fun wrinkle: The Polynesian word tapu doesn’t mean “forbidden.” It translates as “sacred.”

British anthropologist Victor Turner is best known for his work on rites of passage. He identifies the in-between stage of a ritual: the literal or metaphorical liminal space on the very edge of social structure. By passing through it, participants of a ritual break down old social structures before adopting new ones. And there’s no better way to pull back from social norms than by facing base, biological functions—like death—that would otherwise be taboo. Think about the horror stories you’ve heard from fraternity pledge weeks; this stage is generally defined by “ordeals and humiliations” of a “grossly physiological” nature. 

Liminal spaces are edgy. Their absence of societal order gives people a sense of permission to break taboos in a temporary, controlled manner. Edgar Alan Poe called it the “imp of the perverse.” Looney Tunes figures it as the devil on Bugs Bunny’s shoulder. Smokey Yunick called it innovation. Whoever you are, human beings have a strange fascination with doing things we know we’re not supposed to do. It’s neurological as much as sociological—the hit of dopamine you get while you’re waiting for the dealer to turn over the next card, temporarily straddling the line between winning big and losing everything. Checkers or wreckers. 

To see a driver like Kyle Larson hold a stock car an inch from the outside wall at 170 miles per hour—“on the edge of out of control,” in the words of Days of Thunder’s Harry Hogge—is riveting. It’s spectacular. And it’s that edge that makes the difference, turning Larson from just another guy on the street to a special kind of person whose signature we call an autograph, whose face we want to wear on a t-shirt.

That edge is racing’s liminal space. There lives the power to compel, to thrill, to transform, and it requires risk. As much respect as I have for the skill required of professional sim racers and the Indy Autonomous Challenge, only real cars with real drivers get my blood pumping. Deep down in our animal brains, we know that big fiery crashes are scary, and we’re impressed by the people willing and able to face that danger and come out on top. It could be a NASCAR driver, an F1 pilot, or that guy at the go-kart track who always finds an extra tenth. 

Ultimately, I don’t have an answer for how to reconcile the mix of fascination and horror I felt watching Michael Mann’s Ferrari. Yes, it’s a good thing that sanctioning bodies have prioritized safety as much as they have over the last half-century. And I’ll always be in favor of erring on the side of caution when it comes to deciding when to wave that yellow flag. We should keep designing safer race cars. Make that line between life and death, crossed in every crash, as close to symbolic as possible.

That’s my rationalization, anyway. Hunt and his ilk surely had theirs, despite knowing the risks. Human beings are complex, imperfect, and often inexplicable; the societies and governments we’ve made are no different. Yet we always make room on the edges for liminal spaces, where we break taboos. Where the forbidden takes on an air of the sacred.

Confronting the reality of these spaces can mean accepting something immoral about them. Or something amoral, at least. For better and worse, that’s where that deep-down appeal of racing lies. 

The edge.

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters. 

The post Auto Anthro: Racing Crashes, Taboo, and the Edge appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Earlier this year we weighed in on the news of a lawsuit hoping to end racing at Monterey’s historic WeatherTech Raceway at Laguna Seca. We poked fun at the absurdity of the lawsuit and also did some real journalism to bring the facts to light. Now we can pass on the news that Laguna Seca plans to operate its 2024 season as planned, as a settlement has been reached.

Those who brought the suit secured a commitment that a sound impact assessment will be conducted (though such an assessment had already been in the works), and that the track will make improvements to sound mitigation where feasible. Now that the suit has been settled, the County of Monterey may move forward with its agreement, authorized in July 2023, with the non-profit organization Friends of Laguna Seca for management of the facility.

In February, we spoke to Bruce Canepa, long-time vintage motorsports enthusiast, racer, restorer, and Vice President of Friends of Laguna Seca, the organization responsible for overseeing operations at the county-owned facility. At that time, he was confident that the law and the will of the public would both be in favor of continued racing at the storied track. After the settlement, Canepa was quoted in a story published on the track’s website:

“I grew up watching races at Laguna Seca and have raced there since the late 1970s, I have a lifetime passion for this facility and want to see it be preserved for future generations. With Friends of Laguna Seca, we’ve built a team of individuals who share the same passion, paired with business acumen, to make Laguna Seca the place we’ve always hoped it could be.”

This certainly seems like a win for the county as well as enthusiasts. We hope that this settlement brings stability to the venue, and that Friends of Laguna Seca can keep the beautiful and challenging track updated to remain a Monterey Car Week highlight as well as a bucket list destination for racers of all kinds.

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post Laguna Seca Lawsuit Is Settled, Racing Set to Continue as Planned appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Last summer, Mr. Beamer emailed me the following tale. By the second line, I was hooked by his direct but plain language that so eloquently communicated not just the who, what, and where but also the emotions behind the facts—rare, even among professional writers. We endeavor to present Member Stories as they were sent to us, editing only for clarity, length, and style, but we loved Beamer’s original prose so much that we’re presenting it in its entirety. Let me know what you think. — Larry

My father bought this ’38 Chevy when I was one year old. I would call it mine but in my mind it will always be his.

He left the Virginia farm at 17, in 1956, for the Army. When he was discharged in 1959, he had saved enough money to marry my Momma and buy a new Impala. 348 with three deuces, three-speed, and Posi-Traction.

He told me he knew so little about cars, the first time he tried to change the oil, he screwed out the drain plug in the transmission. Pisser. Over the next few years, he sure educated himself. Soon the Impala had a 409 with two fours, a four-speed, and 4.56 gears. Drag racing was his thing. He had a ’59 El Camino he used to tow Impala to the track. Transmission came out of the El Camino one night coming up Fancy Gap Mountain, so he fired the Impala up and with the help of Roby Felts steering pushed it home.

He used to ride around on weekends looking for parts he could use or make a dollar on. Junkyards and garages. One weekend, he saw this ’38 Chevy sitting at Lucky Carson’s garage with no motor. He knew the car from drag strips, probably Farmington or East Bend. Lucky priced it to Daddy for $225. Sounds cheap today, but the man only made a dollar an hour at a local knitting plant that closed about 40 years ago. The car still had its original paint.

He and Momma went back the next week with his money, and some he had borrowed from friends. Lucky said he’d changed his mind and wasn’t interested in selling the car. Daddy said he was there for the car and Lucky was a man of his word so he started writing a receipt. Daddy said he had $200 in what we used to call a trucker’s wallet, which was attached to him with a chain, and the other $25 in a money clip. He gave Lucky the $200 and was reaching for the $25 when he saw Lucky write the price of $200 on the ticket, so he kept the other $25 in his pocket. Money has always been hard to come by. My dad was an honest man, but that’s how he bought the car. He and Lucky were friends and I know had a few laughs about it later.

They towed the coupe home and soon it was hitting the tracks with a 409 and two fours. It evolved to have a 375-hp 396. I was riding shotgun on a warm-up pass when the big block dropped a valve.

That ended its racing career. Daddy had plans and bought a mid-’60s Vette to build a better dragster. The coupe was not ignored. He thought it too nice of a car to ruin on a drag strip, so he went to work making it what I guess we now call a street rod. New 370-hp 350 LT-1 with angle-plug heads, Crane roller valvetrain, and tunnel ram. Interior benefited from the remains of a ’67 SS Chevelle. In its day, for our part of the world, it was showworthy. Then it mostly sat.

I always claimed it as my car. During and after high school, I had some pretty good hot rods, but in the mid-’80s I was lured away by the speed of motorcycles and stayed there for about 20 years. Fast forward and commitments keep me from killing myself having fun, and Daddy thinks what I really have always thought about as my car needs to move. I told him knowing what it might be worth I couldn’t afford to buy it.

One day in the mid-2000s, I was working on the farm and I saw his rollback coming down the road with the coupe riding along. It needed some work and it took a while, but I got it up to spec. He was proud of it. When I had it about right, a few years ago, we went riding around on Father’s Day.

I don’t have my father anymore but I sure understand how he felt as a younger man, and his need for speed.

I need to wipe away a few tears now. I’d been thinking about sending you this but didn’t know how to send you the pictures I wanted you to have. I had an accident and have been broke down for a couple of months.

I’m rolling the dice and hitting send before I sober up.

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post In My Own Words: Dad’s Memory Lives in This 1938 Chevrolet Master appeared first on Hagerty Media.

When Kevin Burke learned that his YouTube exploits had opened the door to a fully-funded season of time attack, he felt like he’d finally arrived. When he was told that the car he would drive was the one he once posted on the wall of his college dorm, he had to pinch himself. It all sounded like a fairy tale. Getting to drive and develop a 2010 Viper ACR Voodoo Edition in one of Southern California’s most competitive time attack series was a dream come true.

Fantasy Foray

Even though Torco, his sponsor, was footing the bill, Burke had obligations outside of rockstar driver duty. In addition to turning the wheel, Burke was responsible for determining which class would suit the car and Torco’s budget. That’s not as straightforward as it sounds—there are plenty of variables in play that can impact how well a car will perform in a given class. Ultimately, Burke elected to run the Viper with Toyo RR tires in NASA’s TT1 class. Even if they had to add ballast to meet the minimum weight requirement of 3,750 pounds, they still stood a chance of being competitive, since not every car in these fields boasts over 600 horsepower.

Turned out, competitive was an understatement. Burke dominated his first event, and soon the complaints came rolling in. “People accused me of cheating; saying the car was lighter than I had claimed. Nothing that heavy on medium-grip tires should be that fast through the slow sections, they believed.”

Burke’s initial success didn’t come without some fine-tuning, particularly to his driving style. The heavy, high-horsepower Viper required a different approach to the one he’d grown accustomed to. He’d cut his teeth in a Honda S2000, and that high-revving, lightweight roadster was a good bit different than the beast he was now piloting.

The Viper, despite being a surprisingly precise weapon for its size, was not as chuckable as the S2000. It almost had a split personality; surefooted and confidence-inspiring in the fast sections, but a bit clumsy in the slower stuff. That was partially explained by Dodge’s factory aero package, which the company says nets over a thousand pounds of downforce at 150 mph. The lower the speed, though, the more that the big car became reliant on mechanical grip.

He learned quite quickly that he’d have to drive the car in the point-and-shoot fashion through the second and third-gear sections. Even if it meant sacrificing some entry speed to ensure the car, doing what he could to straighten the Viper a tenth of a second earlier allowed him to deploy that power more efficiently. The sooner he applied the throttle, the better the delta on his lap timer got.

Despite figuring out how to make the most of the car as it sat, its handling was still a challenge. Burke continued to find success, but the reality was that the Viper was in poor form until the final event of that season. There, he began to understand why it was trying to bite his head off.

“We tried to change the alignment a few times, but nothing worked. It was just a handful everywhere we went. At the last event of the season, fellow Viper driver Shawn Romig showed me how Dodge had set the car up. After we made those changes, I could get in harmony with the car, but it was still far from perfect. It was finally semi-stable at corner entry, but it still had too much off-throttle understeer to commit completely.”

Seeing the effect of a few tweaks, Kevin had a hard time focusing on his day job over the following weeks. Daydreaming about improving on the halo car he’d fallen in love with was now a legitimate time sink. He could only look forward to the promise of the next season—until he received the call he hoped would never come. Despite their frugality and careful planning, the Torco coffers were empty at the end of the season. There would be no time attack in ’22.

The car’s owner offered to sell the car to Kevin, but the asking price was too steep. After that offer came and went, Kevin kicked himself for not taking out a loan. And so the car sat for a year. 

With all that frustration of not being on the track with the car he adored, Kevin didn’t hesitate when the owner reached out again and offered the car at a reduced price. This time, he’d stretch himself thin if necessary—he had to make it work. 

Shedding Skin

The first order of business, stripping the car’s red wrap to reveal its original black paint, felt like the kickoff to a new chapter for Burke. Armed with a better understanding of the Viper’s flaws (and having had time to think about solutions), he had an idea which direction he had to follow. At the outset, he declared that this next iteration had to be done in an exacting fashion.  

When word of his new acquisition made its way around the scene, several local shops offered free parts and support. However generous these shops were, Burke declined their offers, choosing to stay on his very specific path.

When it came to suspension upgrades, Burke pursued the right person rather than chasing what were regarded as the best top-shelf products. “I don’t shop hardware. I find a good tuner and buy whatever they know best, since they’re the ones who’ll be getting the most out of it.” 

At the recommendation of suspension guru Guy Akenny, Burke replaced his KW suspension kit with a set of Penske 8300 two-way adjustable coilovers. As Burke relayed his driving impressions on the old KWs, Akenny sketched out his ideas for valving and spring rates. Akenny assembled them in-house, turned a few knobs, and then put them on his shock dyno to verify the values were met. 

With the Penskes, he was afforded a chance to improve its on-track performance without any penalty on the street. “We went up in overall spring rate and also stiffened the fronts relative to the rear; 500/1000 to 700/1200,” he said. 

It still felt soft on track, though, and springs could only account for some of that. “It was either soft bushings or a flexing chassis,” Kevin deduced. To get to the source of the Viper’s sponginess, Burke spoke with Doug Shelby Engineering, who taught him about the car’s shortcomings and offered some bushing solutions. Though he found their metal spherical option intriguing, the added NVH, maintenance, and cost dissuaded him. This car still had to be reasonably civilized on I-405 and the odd canyon road. He made a compromise and installed a set of their capable yet more-comfortable delrin bushings.

The resulting crispness and control from the shocks and bushings transformed the car. Even the first backroad blitz was encouraging; even at apace somewhere between a trot and a canter, Burke could trust the car and place it much more precisely than before.

Preliminary suspension changes made, Burke turned his attention to the drivetrain hangups—the Viper’s gearing was far from optimal for road courses. The factory transmission ratios and 3.07 final drive were better suited to Texas Mile events than a fast lap around Buttonwillow Raceway Park. “They’re ridiculous,” he shares: “Third gear goes to 125 and fourth goes to 161!” 

A quick consultation with an online wheel speed calculator suggested a 3.55 final drive would keep the motor humming happily in the meat of its powerband more of the time and improve acceleration by effectively shortening every gear. The new final drive reduced each gear’s top speed by ten to fifteen miles per hour. Though this came at the cost of dropping the top speed from 187 to 175, he wasn’t concerned. At a medium-speed circuit like Buttonwillow, it’s acceleration that counts. 

To optimize the drivetrain without improving power delivery in such a traction-limited car would be silly, so Burke went to address the Viper’s wheelspin issues. “I knew the diff was broken the first year, but we made do with what we had. This time around, I went to Unitrax for a Wavetrac clutch-type diff. Honestly, I wanted an OS Giken LSD, but they were backordered with no ETA. This one time, I broke with my ethos; I had to choose an imperfect part.” 

Shakedown

After months of eager anticipation, the day of reckoning arrived. Kevin eagerly awoke and started the two-hour trek north for the first outing in the car since 2022. For all that the focused track mods promised, Burke wasn’t anticipating such an improvement in road manners, but Dodge’s recommended alignment, Nankang CR-S tires, and the new Penskes made his experience infinitely more enjoyable than similar drives on his prior setup. While he couldn’t call the ride comfortable, at least he wasn’t wincing any longer as he crossed over railroad tracks. 

After a comfortable drive from Temecula to Streets of Willow, he could see that all he’d been striving towards was getting closer. “The spring rates felt fantastic, the car was responsive and predictable, and the way it soaked up the bumps was a little shocking. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever driven on any shocks that were as supple as these Penskes were—out of the box, anyways. Yes, Guy turned a few knobs, but we’re still far off the right settings at this point.” 

Improved body control did not mean the driving experience was made dull by any stretch. It was even more eager than before, but the Viper now turned and planted itself with a sure-footedness that Burke hadn’t previously experienced. This additional precision was a good start—the more dialed-in suspension helped mechanically address some of the Viper’s slow-corner shortcomings while providing Burke a more communicative chassis with which to work.

That said, the burly-chested counter steering was still there. The car remained finicky with trail-brake application, and its stump-pulling grunt available off idle requires a surgeon’s precision to apply the power without converting the rear rubber into long, black stripes on the pavement. The latter task wasn’t made any easier by the recent gearing update. On top of that, the brisk 35 degree temps on his shakedown run further compounded matters—that’s well cooler than where track tires are happy. There weren’t many sections where Burke didn’t have his hands full, as witnessed below:

Even so, Burke came away happy from the shakedown run. A 1:18 around the Streets of Willow is plenty quick, and between the temperature and a bit more dialing in, he’s confident he’ll bring his times down more. He’s eager to get the Viper to Buttonwillow—the track that he’s optimized the car for, and one where Southern Californian time attackers make a name for themselves. 

Burke’s new role as a father leaves less time to develop cars, but nevertheless, from a time attack perspective, he’s in a better position now than he was in 2020. Having a knowledgeable shock builder on his side should expedite the setup process; Guy Akenny’s offered to join Burke on his next outing and help find the Penske’s potential. Plus, Torco still provides all his fluids for free. Burke’s in good hands to pursue his main aim: Beating the fifth-gen ACR’s record on street tires at Buttonwillow 13CW. That time is 1:47.7. 

It’s not perfect, and it probably never will be, but that’s OK—this raw character is so much of the Viper’s charm. It’s an experience that could never be called efficient or anodyne. “It’s a bear on bath salts. I don’t know how else to explain this glorious piece of engineering. I see lots of tweaks ahead, and I’ll enjoy it even in its unfinished state. There just isn’t anything out there that’s as rewarding or challenging as this car.”

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post This Time Attack Viper Is a “Bear on Bath Salts” appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Los Angeles is a town with a well-earned reputation for a short attention span. You’re only as good as your last 90 minutes, goes the old saying in the movie business, and the hook is always waiting to yank off stage anything or anyone who isn’t killing it. That rule applies to race tracks, too. The Los Angeles Motordrome, a board track erected in 1910, lasted just three years, and Beverly Hills Speedway, which opened in 1920, only four years until the real estate developers got it. Riverside Raceway managed an unforgettable 32-year run before it was plowed under to make way for a shopping mall. Perhaps the ghost of Ken Miles still haunts the place; after years of decline, the mall boasts hundreds of thousands of vacant square feet.

Given the long odds, Auto Club Speedway, aka California Speedway, did pretty well—26 years from the day the 2.0-mile D-shaped banked oval opened to host 240-mph Indy-car laps to the day the wrecking ball arrived. Drone videos surfaced in November of chomping excavators tearing away at grandstands. In posterity, it joins the “Indianapolis of the West,” the short-lived Ontario Speedway (10 years, ending in 1980) which was just up the freeway. Its land now hosts a CarMax, a Benihana, and an El Torito, among its other pearls of suburban banality.

Auto Club’s demise leaves a metro area of nearly 13 million with only one circular track within its environs: Irwindale Speedway, a strictly amateur venue, which somehow has dodged decade-old plans to convert it into a mall. Likely because the mall business, thanks to Amazon, etc., is in even worse shape than the racing business. Vows by NASCAR to eventually replace Auto Club with a half-mile oval on what remains of acreage that has mostly been sold off to a developer intent on building logistics warehouses (for Amazon, etc.) have no firm timetable.

It’s a sad fact that in places, racing struggles to pay the bills for the increasingly expensive land that it occupies, and the forces of redevelopment never sleep. To the north, Monterey County, the deed holder of Laguna Seca, was in December sued by locals aiming to curtail or eliminate the famed track. You can shout until you are blue in the face that the circuit, opened in 1957, predates all of the surrounding McMansions. But those people don’t care who was first, they really don’t. They have money and lawyers and they are game to try their luck in court.

It’s a challenge that race tracks share with local municipal airports. The airport where I keep my Cessna is a former U.S. Army Air Corps training base built in 1939, now under attack from a small but vocal clique of residents who wish it gone. They have already tasted blood in nearby Santa Monica, where an airfield that opened in 1923 and supplied thousands of Douglas Aircraft during World War II is set to close in 2028 so that developers can dine on its bones.

Once upon a time, a bolder America accepted and even celebrated these facilities as proof that the world’s greatest economy produced vital and thrilling pursuits that enriched our lives and supplied a creative outlet to our energy and industry. Now, a more flaccid nation that prefers to sit at home streaming and shopping foreign-made junk online sees nothing in these venues but noise, pollution, and risk. They are unwittingly being stoked by gimlet-eyed developers who are salivating over the land and willing to fund legal teams and sympathetic council candidates. Replacing a track or an airport with warehouses or 20 to 30 high-density housing units per acre will line the pockets of the developers, but it won’t do much for noise and pollution in the community. Everyone is bound to be disappointed—except the developers of course.

But the relentless demand for more housing drives cities to flatten anything in their path that appeals only to a minority. And like it or not, we are a minority. Unless we fight, unless we write letters and go to council meetings and support candidates who believe there should be recreational room for everyone, we will end up like the misfits in medieval times, hounded out the city gates and banished to the countryside so that we can continue enjoying activities that were once popular in an earlier, more energetic age. At least, until the city inevitably sprawls in our direction.

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post When We Lose a Race Track, Everyone Loses appeared first on Hagerty Media.

A pair of rare two-liter Porsche flat-six engines, discovered in a storage unit by Hagerty’s editor-in-chief Larry Webster, are up for auction.

Unearthed in Michigan, the magnesium-cased motors both came from 1968 U.S.-market 911s, although the same engine was also installed in the 904 and the 914/6.

These early engines produced around 130 hp at 6200 rpm, were designed to meet tight American emissions standards and were often mated with Porsche’s Sportomatic transmission.

That was certainly the case with the first of the engines uncovered by Webster, with its serial number showing it’s a 901/17 unit. The engine is said to partially turn over and comes with its fan assembly, fan shroud, and flywheel.

The second discovery is a 901/14, which was previously a restoration project for a pair of students at Rutgers University in New Jersey, although they don’t appear to have got terribly far with it. It also turns over, but there is some corrosion to the magnesium and steel studs and the air-injection lines have been cut.

Porsche built over 5500 two-liter 911s between 1965 and 1968 (4636 coupes and 986 Targas) but they’re a pretty rare sight today.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by 2.0L Cup (@2litrecup)

In the high-stakes world of classic motor racing a spare engine or two would certainly come in handy, or perhaps they could help get another couple of classic 911s back on the road? The two engines are being offered without reserve on Hagerty Marketplace now. Click here and here for details.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Hagerty (@hagerty)

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post Need an Early 911 Engine for Road or Race? We Found a Pair appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Whether it’s the Top Gear bit trying to kill a Hilux or the owners who proudly cross off 100,000-mile increments with apparent ease, the 1990s were an era that put Toyota on the map for its reputation for durability. Now, thanks to a partnership with Banks Powersports, one Toyota pickup can also say it’s crazy fast in a standing half-mile. Like, 173 miles per hour fast.

The truck was built by Chuckles Garage, better known as the outfit that built “Old Smoky,” the diesel-powered 1949 Ford F-1 that raced up Pikes Peak. After a crash put that truck back into project status, this Toyota entered and became a slightly smaller but just as beastly project.

According to the video it is built to run at the Bonneville salt flats in the stock body division, which is why it retains enough features to be instantly recognizable despite having a 2JZ inline-six stuffed under the hood. According to Scott Birdsall, the man who built the truck, it is making roughly 1200 horsepower with the wick turned all the way up. Since this test and tune was the truck’s first outing its output was never supposed to be that close to the edge. However, the electronics of the truck had other plans.

After a first pass to shake out any potential issues, the onboard data collection shows that the engine was making a righteous 42psi of boost. That is hardly a mild tune, and it explains why the 225-section tires on the rear were never really able to hook up and convert all that power into forward motion. Modern tuning can be incredibly complicated, but the data collection capabilities of modern sensors and ECU modules are amazing and enable us to learn more with less damage since we are no longer testing to failure to find the limit.

This truck didn’t get the luxury of a measured approach, though, and on its second trip down the track, Birdsall went for it and planted his right foot all the way through the timing stripe. With some tuning and sorting, we expect this truck to do something interesting should it make a few clean runs on the salt flats this year as it takes on the 189.460mph record set in 2020.

The post How Fast Could a Toyota Pickup Go, if a Toyota Pickup Could Go Fast? appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Three-time NASCAR champion Tony Stewart’s professional drag racing debut lasted fewer than five seconds and was over before 10:30 a.m. Sunday.

Leading up to the 55th annual NHRA Gatornationals, the opening event of the season, Stewart’s move to the pro ranks of Top Fuel got the top billing in the NHRA’s pre-race television commercials, over second-billed John Force. (Interesting that the sport, anxious to attract younger fans, focused on a 52-year-old rookie, Stewart, and a 74-year-old, 16-time Funny Car champion. But whatever works.)

Stewart’s 11,000-horsepower Dodge Direct Connection dragster faced Justin Ashley’s Scag Power Equipment car in Sunday’s first Top Fuel matchup. Both left the line about the same time, and both cars began to lose traction about halfway down the 1000-foot track.

Stewart and Ashley both “pedaled” the cars—getting on and off the throttle, trying to let the rear tires stop spinning without losing too much forward momentum—and the more experienced Ashley was able to resume racing a split-second before Stewart, beating him to the line with a run of 4.414 seconds, to Stewart’s 4.453.

But the reviews were good for Stewart. Ashley, 30, is the Top Fuel’s best “leaver,” shorthand for someone who is particularly adept at minimizing the time it takes them to get the car going after they see the green starting light, giving them a head start. In this case, Ashley turned in an excellent .031-second reaction time. Stewart took only .021 seconds, which was actually the best Top Fuel reaction time all day.

Stewart was buoyed by his performance. “I’m extremely pleased with my first Top Fuel weekend, even with the first-round loss today,” said Stewart. “I cut a 0.21 light against the best leaver in the Top Fuel division and beat him off the line. We were the first pair of cars down the track on Sunday morning, so we really didn’t know what to expect.” Indeed, the Gainesville asphalt proved very hard to get a handle on, even for the most experienced teams.

“I feel we showed a solid performance with the car and myself,” said Stewart, who qualified ninth with a 3.725-second pass at 310.34 mph. “There is zero shame in my eyes, even losing to Justin. Seven other guys went home after the first round, too.” The eventual winner was Kalitta Racing’s Shawn Langdon, who defeated Billy Torrence.

Stewart was not expecting to take over the driving duties of the Top Fuel car he owns, but wife Leah Pruett, the regular driver of the car, stepped aside for the 2024 season as she and Stewart try to start a family. He raced in the less-powerful Top Alcohol class last year. Stewart is also co-owner of a four-car NASCAR Cup team, Stewart-Haas Racing, which competed Sunday at Phoenix Raceway.

“I’m not leaving here thinking I know everything about Top Fuel racing,” Stewart said. “I know it’s going to be a long learning process. It’s a tough situation for Leah not being in the car right now, but she has been the best coach for me. I would have liked to advance further today, but that’s racing and I’m still learning with each run down the track.”

The next NHRA race in the 20-event season is the Winternationals at Pomona Raceway in California on March 22–24.

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post Tony Stewart’s Pro Drag Racing Debut Was Over in Less Time Than It Takes to Read This Headline appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Michèle Mouton is the most successful woman ever to compete in the World Rally Championship. At the height of rallying’s fearsome Group B era, she won international rallies outright and placed second overall in the 1982 championship. Beyond WRC, she even smashed the Pikes Peak Hill Climb record and enjoyed success at Le Mans. Given this year marks 50 years since Mouton’s first rally in 1974, it’s an appropriate moment to revisit her incredible career highlights, hear recollections from the woman herself, now age 72, and learn how her achievements shifted perceptions of women in motorsport more widely. – Ed.

Michèle Mouton grew up in Grasse in the south of France and began codriving for friend Jean Taibi on the 1972 Tour de Corse. A switch to the driver’s seat came from 1974 in an Alpine A110—a sports car gifted by her father Pierre on condition she proved herself that year or called it quits.

In fact, Mouton ultimately proved so quick that male drivers pressed the FIA to tear the Alpine down and check for irregularities. Needless to say the car was legal. In 1975, Mouton also proved her mettle at Le Mans, winning the 2.0-liter class as part of an all-female crew sharing a Moynet LM75 chassis.

But rallying was her focus, and for 1977 she switched to a privately entered 911. She did enough to earn a Fiat France works drive the following season, but it was with Audi that Mouton achieved the most success, and their relationship began in the Quattro’s debut year of competition.

“I was called by Audi in 1980, June I think, but I can’t remember who it was,” she says. “English was hard for me then, so I went to Ingolstadt with a teacher who could translate.”

A test in Finland with [Quattro engineer and one-time Audi Sport team boss] Walter Treser earned her a works contract for 1981, but first Mouton had outstanding commitments with Fiat. She remembers how terrible the championship-winning Fiat felt in comparison on another test shortly after.

“I drove 500 meters then came back and said to the team boss, ‘The steering is wrong, something is wrong with this car. You try it.’ Then the team boss drove the car and said, ‘Michèle, the car is fine. I wonder if it is because you drove the Quattro…’” She laughs at the memory.

“The Fiat 131 was like a truck in comparison. The Audi had more power and power steering, so it was physically easier for me, but I had to get used to it. I didn’t like technical things so much, so I had to learn and adapt and understand how it worked.”

When Mouton lined up at the 1981 WRC season-opening Monte Carlo Rally with codriver Fabrizia Pons alongside, she knew the PR potential of an all-female crew was a bigger pull for Audi than any likelihood of her winning. She had it all to prove—and did so spectacularly.

Not at first, though. The Quattro was plagued by reliability issues and by the new team’s own operational problems in the early days, mainly because Audi took crew members from its production line, not other rally teams.

Nonetheless, Mouton finished the season eighth overall and won the 1981 Rallye Sanremo outright, the first and only woman ever to win a round of the WRC. It would not be her last.

A crash on the season-opening Monte Carlo got Mouton’s 1982 campaign off to a disastrous start, but she won outright in Portugal despite spectators crowding onto the stage and—at times—dense fog, and then followed up that success with wins in Greece and Brazil.

By the time she and Pons lined up at the Côte d’Ivoire—the penultimate rally and a notoriously tough African event covering 750 miles on gravel—it was a straight fight between Mouton and Rothmans Opel driver Walter Röhrl, the championship leader.

Devastatingly, Mouton was preparing to start the rally when news that her father had succumbed to cancer filtered through.

“My father died at 7 a.m., and the race started at 8:30 a.m.,” Mouton says. “I wanted to go home but my mother said to drive.” Without telling anyone of the news but Pons, she jumped in the Quattro and set out to win the world championship.

“I was 1 hour 20 minutes up on Röhrl, then lost 1 hour 15 minutes on a gearbox change, then had more problems,” she says.

Ultimately Mouton pushed hard in an attempt to recover the time and crashed out, losing the maximum 20 points she looked set to clinch in the process. Röhrl’s win put him beyond Mouton’s reach as her father’s death began to sink in. “I lost the world championship, but I missed my father more.”

Mouton was assured second place in the championship overall, however, and her second-place finish on Rally GB helped Audi clinch the manufacturer’s championship—a first for an all-wheel-drive car. No woman has ever achieved more in the WRC.

Mouton finished fifth in 1983 (teammate Hannu Mikkola won the title), was offered only a part-time drive for 1984, as Audi signed two-time champion Röhrl, and was entered in only one event for 1985.

However, in 1984 and ’85, Audi of America asked Mouton to represent it at the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb in Colorado, a daunting 12-mile ‘race to the clouds’ on a dirt-and-gravel surface with huge drops off the side. Again she found success, taking a class win in her inaugural year despite engine issues and the ballast of codriver Pons, and going one better on the 12-mile gravel course for ’85—by now familiar enough with the 156 turns to go it alone.

“The Americans weren’t prepared for us at all at Pikes Peak—they didn’t know about turbo engines or European driving and I was a woman!” remembers Mouton, the indignation and determination still raw in her voice. “When I started to go quickly in practice [for 1985] they made life very difficult for me. The speed limit was quite low and I was over it by a small amount for five miles, and I had to go to the race director.

“He said Audi would have to pay a fine, plus I would have to run to my car at the start, like an old Le Mans race. So, they don’t mind if I jump into the car and don’t do the seatbelt up properly while I’m rushing to drive up the mountain?! I held a press conference to say how dangerous their idea was, and in the end I had to start with the car out of gear.”

Despite the penalty, Mouton charged up the Colorado mountainside in 11 minutes and 25.39 seconds, beating established names like Bobby Unser to the 14,110-ft summit to the win that year, and bettering the overall course record, set by Al Unser, by 13 seconds. “They didn’t know how determined I am!” Mouton sums up.

During her time with Audi, Mouton drove all iterations of the WRC Quattro, from a production-based Group 4 competitor to the far more radical short-wheelbase versions engineered specially for Group B. Which did she prefer?

“The first short-wheelbase Quattro [E1 S1],” she says, without hesitation. “It was the best and I really liked the twin-clutch PDK gearbox. The car only became too fast at the end with the second short-wheelbase car [E1 S2] with 530 bhp on asphalt. It was really hard to read the limit and, when you found it, the time to react was too short. Gravel always showed you the limit. You could feel it.”

The S2 was only keeping pace with the competition, of course, but things really were getting out of control; Lancia’s Attilio Bettega died on Corsica in 1985, then a Ford RS200 ploughed into a crowd during Portugal 1986, killing spectators.

By then driving a Peugeot 205 T16, Mouton was contesting the 1986 Tour de Corse when disaster again struck Lancia, and the sport as a whole: Henri Toivonen and codriver Sergio Cresto perished in a fireball that ultimately triggered the end of Group B.

“Henri was a very good friend, and I had retired two stages before the accident, so I was in the service park when we heard. It was terrible. Terrible,” Mouton recalls.

She went on to win the 1986 German Rally Championship that year and tackled various rally raids with Peugeot through to 1989 before retiring and raising a family (her daughter, in fact, was born in 1987). But Toivonen’s death never left her, and in 1988 she helped found the annual Race of Champions, in part to honor his legacy.

Initially conceived as a showdown between WRC champions in identical cars, Race of Champions continues to this day as the only event where drivers from multiple disciplines compete in such a format.

More recently, from 2010 until her retirement in 2022, Mouton served as president of the FIA’s Women in Motorsport commission, which encourages female participation in all aspects of the sport. In 2021, her career was chronicled in the Emmy-winning Queen of Speed documentary. It’s a compelling watch.

There were others before, and her legacy has inspired others since, but today Michèle Mouton remains not only one of the greatest female drivers of all time, but a woman who beat the best men when rallying couldn’t have been tougher.

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post Michèle Mouton Took on the World and Won appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Art Cars have been fixtures at BMW for almost 50 years, but the idea to create automotive artworks came from a man whose canvas was the racetrack, whose only painted lines were the elevens drawn as he left the pitlane.

A racing driver and auctioneer from France, Hervé Poulain dreamed of competing at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, his country’s most famous sports car race. In 1975, he came up with a way to bring his twin passions together on the track.

The 35-year-old Poulain approached the boss of BMW Motorsport, Jochen Neerpasch, with an idea: Instead of wearing a typical corporate livery, his car would painted with the design of a well-known contemporary artist. Neerpasch agreed. He provided the #93 “Batmobile” 3.0 CSL, and Poulain secured the services of American sculptor Alexander Calder.

Poulain did make it to Le Mans, and Calder’s bold use of contrasting colors ensured that the BMW stood out on track. Unfortunately, Poulain and his co-drivers, Jean Guichet and Sam Posey, failed to finish the 24-hour race. Nonetheless, the car was such a hit with fans that BMW has continued to commission artists to paint its cars ever since.

To date there have been 21 such commissions, officially termed by BMW as Art Cars, created by some of the world’s most renowned artists. Let’s take a view of this exhibition of acceleration.

Alexander Calder’s 3.0 CSL

Poulain started the series in 1975 when he presented Calder with a scale model of the 3.0 CSL over lunch. “OK to paint the car of Poulain and his colts, regards to everyone,” Calder wrote in lieu of any official contract.

Frank Stella’s 3.0 CSL

For the following year’s Le Mans, in 1976, Calder’s compatriot Frank Stella was entrusted with the #21 CSL. Stella’s graph paper–like design was inspired by technical drawings. “My design is like a blueprint transferred onto the bodywork,” said Stella. Driven by Brian Redman and Peter Gregg, its 750-hp motor expired just three hours into the race.

Roy Lichtenstein’s 320i Turbo

In 1977, an Art Car finally completed the grueling race in Le Mans. Poulain was again behind the wheel, along with Marcel Mignot, and their 320i Turbo came in ninth overall and first in class. The car’s artwork came from pop artist Roy Lichtenstein, who employed his trademark Ben-Day dots to fine effect in a landscape-like design.

“I wanted the lines I painted to be a depiction of the road showing the car where to go,” said Lichtenstein. “The design also shows the countryside through which the car has traveled. One could call it an enumeration of everything a car experiences—only that this car reflects all of these things before actually having been on a road.” 

Andy Warhol’s M1

The most famous of all the art cars made only one race appearance: at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, in 1979. Unlike preceding designers of Art Cars, who handed their designs to the BMW paint shop, which actually applied the paint to the car, Andy Warhol was determined to paint his Art Car himself.

In just 28 minutes, Warhol applied more than 13 pounds of paint. “I attempted to show speed as a visual image. When an automobile is really traveling fast, all the lines and colors are transformed into a blur,” said Warhol. The weight of Warhol’s brush strokes didn’t seem to hinder the M1, and it finished the race in sixth place.

Ernst Fuchs’ 635 CSi

Austrian artist Ernst Fuchs was the first to create a road-going Art Car for BMW. His 1982 635 CSi is called “Fire Fox on a Hare Hunt,” and features almost hot-rod-style flames licking the bodywork.

“I see a hare at night running across the autobahn and leaping over a burning car,” explained Fuchs. “A primeval fear and a bold dream of surmounting a dimension in which we live. It shows me its colors, I read them in its lines, in its contours, I hear its voice calling out emphatically and see that beautiful hare leaping through the flames of love, averting all fears.”

Robert Rauschenberg’s 635 CSi

A second 635 CSi was handed over to American Robert Rauschenberg in 1986 who used an innovative foil technique to apply photographic images to the sheetmetal and create a collage typical of his style. It remains the only BMW Art Car to have been driven on the road by the artist himself. “I think mobile museums would be a good idea. This car is the fulfillment of my dream,” said Rauschenberg.

Michael Jagamara Nelson’s M3

BMW describes its 1989 exhibit as “a dream car” because Australian artist Michael Jagamara Nelson said that he worked his dreams into the design, which reflects the culture of the Aboriginal people. “A car is a landscape as it would be seen from a plane—I have included water, the kangaroo, and the opossum,” he said. 

Ken Done’s M3 Group A

1989 was a Down Under double: Born in Sydney, Ken Done designed his M3 Touring Car to represent modern Australia. The country’s beaches and wildlife adorned the car, which won the Group A Driver’s Championship in the hands of Jim Richards before it became a museum piece. “I have painted parrots and parrot fish. Both are beautiful and move at an incredible speed. I wanted my BMW Art Car to express the same thing,” said the artist.

Matazō Kayama’s 535i

Japan’s Matazō Kayama used foil printing to transfer his river landscape–inspired design to the body of a 1990 535i. “I wanted to give the impression of snow crystals in my work,” he said of the piece.

César Manrique’s 730i

For the avante-garde design he applied to a 730i sedan, Spaniard César Manrique took inspiration from the island of Lanzarote, off the coast of West Africa, using the black of its volcanic rock, the green of its forests, and red for life as the key colors. “My idea was to design the BMW in such a way as to give the impression of it effortlessly gliding without any resistance,” offered Manrique.

A.R. Penck’s Z1

For once the unusual drop doors aren’t the most striking feature of BMW’s 1991 Z1 roadster. Germany’s A.R. Penck looked back to humanity’s earliest artwork, cave paintings, to come up with a bold black-on-red creation.

Esther Mahlangu’s 525i

1991 would be the first time that a female artist designed a BMW Art Car. South African Esther Mahlangu paid homage to the culture of her homeland in a design which, she said, evokes “how my tribe decorate their houses.”

Sandro Chia’s M3 GTR

 “All eyes are upon an automobile. People look closely at cars. This car reflects their gaze,” said Italian painter and sculptor Sandro Chia of his 1992 M3 GTR race/art car, which features a series of faces. The idea is that the observer feels observed.

David Hockney’s 850 CSi

In 1995, it was the turn of British national treasure David Hockney. BMW had been trying to get Hockney to paint a car for some time, and, eventually, the German company’s persistence paid off. Hockney elected to turn the car inside out, with his paintwork presenting the artist’s idea of what lies beneath its metallic skin. Look closely and you can see Hockney’s interpretation of the engine, the driver, and even a dog on the back seat.

Jenny Holzer’s V12 LMR

1999 marked the return of BMW-commissioned art to a race car thanks to American artist Jenny Holzer and a V12 LMR. Holzer took BMW’s traditional racing color palette of blue and white, but, where perhaps one might expect sponsors’ logos, she expressed thought-provoking statements: “Protect Me From What I Want”, “The Unattainable Is Invariably Attractive”, “Lack Of Charisma Can Be Fatal” and “Monomania Is A Prerequisite Of Success”.

The car took part in pre-qualifying for the 1999 24 Hours of Le Mans but didn’t start the race. A second V12 LMR was driven to victory by Joachim Winkelhock, Pierluigi Martini, and Yannick Dalmas.

Olafur Eliasson’s H2R

There was a gap of eight years before Denmark’s Olafur Eliasson was recruited by BMW to create an artwork out of the hydrogen-powered H2R racing prototype from 2007. Unlike the designers of other Art Cars, Eliasson devised a cocoon-like structure to house the car. This was then doused in water in a cold room to create “an armor of ice.”

“By bringing together art, design, social and environmental issues, I hope to contribute to a different way of thinking-feeling-experiencing cars and seeing them in relation to the time and space in which we live,” said the artist.

Jeff Koons’ M3 GT2

In 2010 the Art Car went back to its roots: American Jeff Koons’ M3 GT2 was a riot of pop art color. “These race cars are like life, they are powerful and there is a lot of energy,” said Koons. “You can participate with it, add to it, and let yourself transcend with its energy. There is a lot of power under that hood and I want to let my ideas transcend with the car—it’s really to connect with that power.” Sadly, that power didn’t lead to success at Le Mans: The drivers of the M3 GT2—Dirk Werner, Dirk Müller, and Andy Priaulx—were forced to retire the car with a fuel sensor issue after 53 laps.

Cao Fei’s M6 GT3

Chinese digital artist Cao Fei embraced augmented reality with her 2017 M6 GT3 art car. In real life all the viewer would see is a jet black race car, but when seen through an app, the car becomes the centerpiece of a vivid ‘Quantum Garden.”

“The Digital Art Mode gives the BMW driver the chance to experience the ever-changing digital landscapes of a multifaceted universe in a screen world, where abstract poetry and sensory pixels intersect. Its network of open-ended spectra are connecting our hearts to the call of goodwill from the depths of the universe,” said Fei.

John Baldessari’s M6 GTLM

California-based Baldessari describes his 2016 M6 GTLM race car as “definitely the fastest artwork I ever created!” “I entered unchartered territory, not just in terms of the subject, but moving from two- to three-dimensional art,” said Baldessari. “The ideas came all at once: for instance, the red dot on the roof, so you can see it from above, FAST on one side, and a picture of the car on the other side. I like the ambiguity, having two-dimension and three-dimension at the same time.”

Julie Mehretu’s M Hybrid V8

The 2024 running of the 24 Hours of Le Mans in June will mark the debut of Ethiopian artist Julie Mehretu’s first Art Car, so we still have no idea what it will look like. Expect an “unconventional style of painting and drawing that confronts viewers with a visual articulation of contemporary experience, social behavior, and the psychogeography of space,” says BMW.

Esther Mahlangu’s i5 Nostokana

The latest art car is a tribute to Mahlangu’s 1991 original. This time it’s an electric i5 covered in a special E-ink film which can show electronic animations inspired by her artistic language. These animations are accompanied by a soundscape designed by BMW Creative Director Renzo Vitale, featuring Mahlangu’s voice and brush strokes. “It is fascinating to me to see how modern technology can expand my art and make it accessible to a completely new audience,” says Mahlangu.

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post Art in Motion: 21 Times BMW Turned a Car into a Canvas appeared first on Hagerty Media.

The F.A.T. Ice Race in Aspen, Colorado, must be the coolest car event on the planet. Where else could you hope to see the 1998 Porsche 911 GT1 that won Le Mans sliding around on snow alongside a genuine police Mini? At the inaugural running of the U.S. edition of the F.A.T. Ice Race, Henry Catchpole soaks up the atmosphere, hitches a lift in a Group B Audi Sport Quattro S1, and drives three very different cars… and a piste basher!

The F.A.T. Ice Race is the brainchild of Ferdi Porsche. In order to understand more about the event and the F.A.T. International brand, Henry jumps into the passenger seat of Ferdi’s rare 964 Carrera 4 Lightweight. One of just 20 cars ever produced, it is effectively a 964 RS with manually adjustable four-wheel drive. Needless to say, Ferdi drives it with gusto and no little skill.

First of the cars that Catchpole gets to drive is the Corvette E-Ray. It proves to be one of the quickest cars around the snowy course, thanks to its clever hybrid all-wheel-drive system that utilizes an electric motor on the front axle in addition to the 6.2-liter, naturally aspirated V-8 powering the rear wheels. It also has heated seats and a heated steering wheel, which is nice. Sideways, but snug.

Second on the driving list is NISMO’s Safari Z, which was created as a working concept for the SEMA show in 2023. Its classic front-engine, rear-drive balance was perfect for some snow drifting, and the spot lamps were perhaps only outdone by those on the Ford Escort WRC car that was also in attendance.

The last car on the list for Catchpole is also the most extraordinary—Ryan Tuerck’s 1966 Toyota Stout pickup. This is no ordinary Stout, with a custom chassis, a beautiful, exposed cantilever rear suspension, and a turbocharged four-cylinder under the bonnet that delivers 600 hp. All the considerable steering lock is certainly put to good use!

As well as driving cars, we also take time to interview some of the other entrants. We chat with Tuerck, obviously, but also with Le Mans winners Stéphane Ortelli and Emanuele Pirro, 911 guru Leh Keen, and all-round legend Jeff Zwart. Jo Scarbo is also quizzed about his brand-new creation, the SV Rover, which made its debut on the ice in Aspen. Paying homage to Land Rovers, but with a mid-mounted 1000-hp supercharged V-8, 30 inches of Baja-truck wheel travel, and movable bodywork, it is quite the piece of kit.

Strap in and hit the ice!

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post <em>The Driver’s Seat:</em> Henry Catchpole Goes Ice Racing appeared first on Hagerty Media.

It is 1986. Somewhere, on an unrestricted section of German autobahn, the speedometer of a BMW 5-Series clicks upward, hurtling toward maximum. Inside, two young computer programmers chatter excitedly as the revs rise, the top speed modest by European standards, but double the highest limits in their native Japan. There’s no ticking clock, no announcer shouting “Checkpoint!” But at the wheel is a renegade gearhead and Sega employee, and he’s in the process of creating one of the greatest driving games of all time: OutRun.

Note carefully: that’s driving game, not racing game. Released in 1986 to become almost instantly the most popular arcade game in the world, Sega’s OutRun was all about the feel of driving at high speed, rather than competing against rivals. At the wheel of their own convertible Testarossas, thousands of kids poured in quarter after quarter chasing that thrill.

Ferrari’s Testarossa is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, and it has long been a staple 1980s poster car, rivaled only by the Countach. The most famous example has to be the white 1986 Testarossa that first showed up in the third season of Miami Vice. But the runner up, and arguably more important to a generation, was OutRun’s digitized Testarossa, and its Ferrari roots run deeper than you expect.

First, an introduction is needed to the Sega employee at the wheel of that BMW 520i. His name is Yu Suzuki, and his influence on video game design over the decades is so vast as to have his Virtua Fighter—one of the first games to use 3D characters—enshrined in the Smithsonian as the only video game on permanent display. But from the very beginning, he never had an interest in playing video games.

“The reason I started making games is I joined a video game company,” Suzuki told Eurogamer in 2015. “That’s it! It’s not like I wanted to be a game designer. I just entered the game company.”

That company was Sega, and Suzuki was about to hand it the first of a series of hit games. After successfully launching a boxing game, he turned his focus on pushing the limits of technology to create a gaming experience faithful to his love of motorcycles. At the time, Suzuki was mostly interested in motocross and Dakar, but he had expanded into watching circuit racing thanks to the success of American racer Freddie Spencer.

Spencer, who was born in Louisiana, started racing for Honda in the late 1970s, and gave the company its first superbike win in 1980. In 1983, he rode a viciously quick two-stroke Honda NS500 to the 500cc Grand Prix world championship, becoming the youngest-ever rider to do so (Marc Márquez would break this record, but not for three decades). The success of a Japanese motorcycle maker on the world stage came with an explosion of growth in new fans of the sport at home in Japan. Suzuki was among them.

His breakthrough arcade cabinet game was called Hang-On, and it was the first of Sega’s “taikan” games. These were a series of games with hydraulically activated controls, where the cabinet would actually move—action not just on-screen, but in real life. In the case of Hang-On, riders sat on a scale-sized motorcycle and leaned into the turns displayed on a screen in front of the handlebars.

Launched in three styles (a rideable bike plus two simplified versions with just handlebars), Hang-On was projected to sell a few thousand units. Instead, it exceeded expectations by four times, and became Sega’s bestseller. Obviously Sega executives wanted Suzuki to make lightning strike twice. He did, and then some.

Originally, the concept behind OutRun was 1976’s Cannonball Run. Suzuki’s plan was to head to the U.S. and drive from California to Florida, noting the terrain he passed through on the way. Instead, Sega sent him to Europe, along with a superior to keep an eye on things, and a video camera to capture the trip.

In that rented BMW, Suzuki and his project manager, Youji Ishi, started out from Frankfurt with no firm directive other than a need to depart from Rome for Japan in three weeks. They drove Germany’s Romantic Road through Bavaria, crossed into France, traveled through Chamonix to Nice and then Monaco.

And it was there, in Monte Carlo, that Suzuki found his hero car. After driving the F1 course, he stumbled across a street-parked Testarossa and instantly knew that this was the perfect fit for his game. On return to Japan, he and a small team of artists tracked down one there and photographed it exhaustively for reference.

All this effort to create a series of pixelated sprites may seem overkill, but game designers were pitting their imagination against the limits of technology at the time. Suzuki wanted the feel of high-speed driving to be as accurate as possible, and the exotic shape of the Testarossa would set things off.

OutRun was released in September 1986. By 1987, it was the highest-grossing arcade game in the world, and Sega’s best-ever performer for the entire decade.

In the game, which features a style influenced by digital artist Hiroshi Nagai, players start off on a California-style stage, just as Suzuki had initially planned for his trip. The terrain then transitions to a more European look, heavily based upon the Romantic Road. Tires screech as the terrain rolls and the scenery blurs past. It’s hardly a simulator, but it’s still a thrill to play even now.

With two knockout hits under his belt, Suzuki was a rockstar at Sega. This was handy, as he was hardly a corporate drone, not the kind to keep to early morning starts and a regimented work week. He formed his own sub-studio, called AM2, away from Sega’s main offices, and he was known for keeping night-owl hours.

Suzuki’s success through the 1980s and 1990s and beyond extended to the point that he was able to buy his own Ferrari, to add to the Ducati and Hayabusa motorcycles he kept in his garage. It wasn’t a Testarossa, but a F355, one of the best-looking cars Maranello ever made.

He would go on to use it to develop another standout automotive arcade game, 1999’s F355 Challenge. This racer was a lot more hardcore simulator than lighthearted OutRun, and it was developed with on-track data collected in Suzuki’s own F355. There are rumors that then-Ferrari F1 racer Rubens Barrichello was so impressed by the game’s accuracy that he even used it to practice a little.

In addition to titles like Daytona and Virtua Racer, F355 Challenge and OutRun cement Yu Suzuki as one of the greatest automotive video game designers of all time, which is to say nothing of the best-selling games in other genres he created. He still says he doesn’t have much time for actually playing games, despite enjoying the work of designing them. He’d rather be riding or driving for real.

But because he tried to make OutRun feel authentic to his genuine passions, Suzuki gave many a kid their first taste of driving freedom. Maybe that kid never grew up to be able to afford a Testarossa, but perhaps an old Alfa Romeo wasn’t entirely out of reach.

So, grab your keys, because that clock never stops ticking. Get out there and hit those checkpoints.

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters. 

The post A Gearhead Programmer, an Epic European Road Trip, and the Creation of <em>OutRun</em> appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Low sun flickers through straight rows of evergreen firs. In the air there is a song of rustling branches and snow crunching under the weight of winter boots. The Rocky Mountains look painted on the horizon in pale whites, blues, and browns. The whole scene is a Bob Ross piece come to life.

A race car slices through the canvas, sliding, snorting, shifting. Hold on to your brushes, Colorado, we’re going ice racing.

Earlier this month, a bunch of people who like cars and don’t mind the cold gathered for the F.A.T. International ice race in Aspen, Colorado. Fans and racers were greeted by an invitation-only car roster that contained everything from the Le Mans-winning Porsche GT1 to a Meyers Manx dune buggy. And the competitors were equally eclectic, with stunt drivers, road racers, circle trackers, influencers, engineers, and even Hagerty’s very own YouTube video host of The Driver’s Seat, Henry Catchpole, charging out onto the snow.

The temporary track, which was constructed along with a paddock and clubhouse on a sprawling tree farm, was a technical series of twists and turns with plenty of opportunities to get sideways. For three days, drivers tackled the slippery snow-ice surface, sending clouds of the white stuff sky-high.

The festival, held just outside of America’s winter-skiing mecca, was the first of its kind in the United States. The affair has plenty of history overseas. Its roots harken all the way back to 1952, in Zell Am See, Austria, where several skiers tethered themselves to the back of motorcycles and raced around a frozen lake. This sport, called skijoring (look it up later on YouTube), marked the beginning of Porsche’s ice-capades.

Zell Am See is a winter sports utopia in the Austrian Alps and served as the location of Porsche’s family estate. The first ice race was held to honor Ferdinand Porsche, who was laid to rest in the town a year earlier.

After the first go in 1952, Austria’s frozen speed fest became an annual tradition, and for over two decades, glove-wearing thrill-seekers gathered to compete on the frozen surface of Lake Zell. Then, in 1974, the event was canceled after a snow plow fell through the ice and its driver drowned. Zell Am See’s ice racing scene went dark for over four decades.

In 2019, the great-grandson of Ferdinand Porsche, Ferdi, championed the event’s revival. Along with college friend Vinzenz Greger, Ferdi brought the ice race back to life.

“We studied together at the University of Vienna and wondered why only a few young people of our generation are as interested in motorsport as we both are,” Ferdi said in a Porsche press release. “One day, when we were skiing in Zell am See, we noticed the studded tires on my father’s Porsche 550. I knew a little about the events that had taken place there many years ago—but unfortunately far too little. It was incomprehensible to me that ice racing had not taken place for many years.”

The two joined forces, with former F1 driver Hans-Joachim Stuck and ex-Porsche factory driver Richard Lietz also on board to launch the rebirth.

The first three years of the GP Ice Race, as it was initially called, were a hit. However, the ensuing events were delayed due to the pandemic. By the beginning of 2024, Ferdi and friends had reloaded and rebranded: GP Ice Race became F.A.T. Ice Race.

Motorsport history buffs might recognize the brand as a sponsor that adorned the side of Porsche’s fiercest race cars. Hello, 962! Back then F.A.T. was a German logistics company. Now, F.A.T. International is a projects and events company, co-founded by Ferdi.

“The name F.A.T. International caught our eye,” said Ferdi, who was searching for a name to reestablish the event. “The brand wasn’t there anymore so the intellectual property was up for grabs. We felt that it was the perfect roof brand for the whole event going forward. And because it said ‘international’, we decided to go beyond Austria.”

First stop: America. Aspen, Colorado, specifically.

In its first year, the Aspen ice race brought the heat. “If you ain’t sliding, we ain’t providing,” said Ferdi. Indeed, the on-track action was awesome, and set against Colorado’s scenic backdrop, it was a photographer’s day dream.

Mobil 1, Chevrolet, VW, Ford, and obviously Porsche got in on the fun. The result was a group of cars that looked more like a Gran Turismo selection screen than a race paddock: a Baja-suited Land Rover, a Mercedes Gullwing, two Ford RS2000s, and a school of safari-style 911s, just to name a few.

“The amount of amazing race cars and road cars that were brought in was something to drool over,” said Ryan Tuerck, who supplied two rides for the exhibition: a V-10-powered Supra and a 1966 Toyota Stout drift truck. “The Toyota Stout, being a proper drift car with a lot of steering angle, really allowed me to throw it around and not worry about hitting an icy spot which would normally spin you out.”

Most of the runs were timed, though fast laps were probably the last thing on everyone’s mind (aside from Tanner Foust who laid down an absolute heater in a stock VW Golf R). “It’s not so much about like split seconds or being the fastest,” says Ferdi. “It’s more about enjoying the time together, sitting in the sun, having a beer after discussing cars.”

Drivers swapped notes and cars, creating some uncommon pairings along the way. Stéphane Ortelli, the French driver who won Le Mans in the GT1-98 R that was supplied for the event, hopped in a Porsche 991 GT3 Cup car, and Henry Catchpole borrowed the “keys” to Tuerck’s drift truck.

The final two days ended with an awards ceremony and, of course, an electronic dance DJ set. “The car is the centerpiece, what brings us all together, but in the end the people bring the party,” said Ferdi. Consider it brought.

We’re already looking forward to next year’s slippery festivities.

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters. 

The post F.A.T. Ice Race Delivers Big Slides, Big Smiles to the Rockies appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Most forms of auto racing have seen only limited participation from Black Americans. Drag racing in my hometown of Chicago, on the other hand, is a whole different story. The toddlin’ town has bred many Black racers who competed on both strip and street. Black History Month is a good time to share fascinating chapters of this history, especially those that people still living today can recall.

Raylo Riley, a successful Black drag racer and the unofficial historian of the Chicago scene, speaks with reverence about the early days. “Frank King was among the first black drag racers that I know of,” Riley told Hagerty. “In 1962, King’s Chevy-powered Henry J was the car to beat at street races late at night. So when a race promotor named Bill Schade organized an indoor drag race at Chicago’s International Amphitheater, Frank was there. Clyde Hopper was there too. He was a Black drag racer who ran some badass Mopars on the street and at the track. I’m not sure if there were other Black racers at the Amphitheater drags,” Riley continued, “but Messino might know.”

Dick Messino is an octogenarian Chicago drag racer who was featured on the Hagerty site last year. He’s a white guy who did business with Black drag racers for many years and has a near-photographic memory. He told me that Hopper and King weren’t the only Black racers at that first indoor drag event. “There were at least half a dozen Black guys,” Messino said, “and most of them were fast and making big-dollar side bets.” According to Messino, Hopper died in a long-ago street race on South Chicago Avenue—a lightly traveled artery that was the scene of many races back in the day.

Messino recalls another successful Black racer known to him simply as “John Junior.” In the late ’60s, Junior put together a ’67 Camaro race car with an engine from Simonsen’s Auto Parts, a speed shop on the South Side that built motors for pro drag racers. The Camaro sported a 427 Chevy with high-compression pistons, a racing camshaft, and other goodies, all backed by a Clutchflite transmission—a then-popular mating of a Chrysler TorqueFlite and manual clutch.

“Junior raced a moonlighting pro drag racer on Interstate 57 for $1000,” Messino recalled. “The highway had been completed but wasn’t open to traffic. Hundreds of people lined the sides of 57 to watch the race, which Junior and his Camaro won going away.”

Another early hotspot of street racing where Black racers were the majority was a McDonald’s restaurant on the South Side’s 71st Street. Messino recalls that dozens of Black racers would gather there every weekend night. “White or Black, you could count on getting a race there,” Messino said. “There were very few posers.”

Not far from there, on 69th and State Street, was Sammy Scott’s New Tuff Rabbit Lounge. Scott was partners with a drag racer of renown named Ed Burrell. They campaigned a series of potent cars that wore the Tuff Rabbit name and were the pride of the community, dominating their class at local tracks. Scott’s bar was a busy watering hole where many drivers hung out, but it’s best remembered as the focal point of some of the most outrageous and dangerous racing ever to take place on Chicago streets: the flying mile.

I heard about the flying mile from pro drag racer Austin Coil and his pal, Merle Mangels, in the mid ’70s. They built motors for some of the Black racers who pursued this extreme, illegal sport. When I asked how I could learn more and maybe photograph the races, they sent me to the Tuff Rabbit and told me to ask for the Rabbit. That would be Bobby “Rabbit” Parker. Coil and Mangels had built a 500-horsepower small-block for Parker’s Corvette. They were among only a few people other than the racers who knew that, late at night, when there was virtually no traffic on the Chicago Skyway Toll Bridge, very hot street machines would race for a full mile from a rolling start.

I made my way to the Tuff Rabbit one summer night, armed with a camera and hoping to get a story about the mile-long drags for High Performance CARS, the only magazine of the day that was either foolish enough or courageous enough to cover street racing. When I walked through the bar’s front door, many eyes found me and conversations turned muted.

That initial quiet quickly broke: “It’s that magazine guy,” said a friendly voice from the back of the bar, which I would later learn belonged to Harry “Dawg” Cannon, buddy to Parker who was seated at a table wearing a Blue Max hat and a diamond-studded rabbit pendant. Cannon wore an Orange County International Raceway jacket with a Black American Racers Association patch. Next to him was a huge man named Big Fred, invoking images of Bad Leroy Brown. Years later, I learned that Dawg, Rabbit, and Fred were highly successful drag racers at local tracks but were best known for their street racing exploits.

“We’re gonna show you how mile racing goes down,” said Big Fred. “Frog here will drive you up to the starting line.”

Ronald “Frog” Williams and I followed Parker, Cannon, and Fred onto the seven-mile-long Chicago Skyway. There, high above the city streets, two Corvettes with loud, loping exhaust and fat tires left the starting line just north of the 87th Street toll booth, racing pedal to the metal for a full mile, braking only at a finish line about half a mile before the State Street exit, which was just a few blocks south of the Tuff Rabbit Lounge. The Skyway wasn’t smooth, and at high speed the cars bounced violently—a frightening scenario I witnessed while clinging perilously to the side of the bridge.

Such craziness is part of the city’s past, although I hear it still happens occasionally despite the danger and illegality. I do not endorse such activity, though the guys who raised hell 50 years ago helped build a movement that ultimately inspired many Black Chicagoans to formally compete at nearby dragstrips. First, it was at US 30 in Gary, Indiana, which closed in the ’80s, and today at multiple tracks in the Midwest, including US 41 Motorplex in Morocco, Indiana; US 131 Motorsports Park in Martin, Michigan; Byron Dragway in Byron, Illinois; Great Lakes Dragaway in Union Grove, Wisconsin; and Cordova Dragway in Cordova, Illinois.

Raylo Riley, who told me about some of the first Black drag racers in Chicago, has raced at every one of those tracks. He is, however, best known as the online historian and #1 fan of Gary’s US 30 drag strip. “I try to keep the memory of US 30 alive,“ said Riley. “I organize reunions, post about the old track regularly, and sell US 30 T-shirts that feature some of the stars of that great old track.”

Riley is also a successful bracket racer. He tours nationally with his ’95 Camaro. It’s a full-tilt race car with a 421-cubic-inch small-block Chevy under the hood, a roll cage, and a complement of top-shelf racing components. He runs only bracket races with big-dollar payouts and has won $10,000 twice at national bracket-racing events. In the quarter-mile he runs 10.20 at more than 125 mph; in the 1/8th mile, the track length at which almost all bracket racing is contested, his car covers the distance in 6.40 seconds. Consistency, a product of both car preparation and driver skill, is key to success at bracket racing, where each racer dials in their projected elapsed time and the start is staggered to reflect those numbers. Get to the other end too soon or too late, and you lose.

Drag racing is a family thing for the Rileys. “My father, Edward Riley, started racing at U.S. 30 more than 50 years ago,” said Riley. “I remember he bought a new ’70 Camaro and was taking it to the track before the little rubber dingles had worn off the tires. He was very successful running ET 5 at U.S. 30, a class for cars running in the 11s, much faster than the muscle cars of the day.”

Raylo’s brother Kyle was successful in racing, both in the highly competitive NHRA Stock Eliminator class and as a bracket racer. Today, his SFG Promotions is prominent in the sport. SFG paid a record $1.1 million to the winner of a July 2023 bracket race at US 131 Motorsports Park. That’s far more than Top Fuel and Funny Car winners were awarded at the recent PRO race in Bradenton, Florida, billed as the richest race in drag racing history. I’m comparing apples to oranges here, but Kyle Riley’s achievements with SFG Promotions are beyond impressive.

Raylo Riley introduced me to Richard Davis, known to his compatriots as “Big Drag.” Davis has been drag racing since 1976. Among his stable of nice machines are a Jerry Bickel Camaro that he runs in Pro Mod, a ’63 Split-Window Corvette that is primarily a street-race machine, a ’57 Chevy wagon that can easily lift the front wheels at launch, and several others. He got the drag racing bug from his dad, a Mopar guy who hung around Grand Spaulding Dodge back in the Gary Dyer/Mr. Norm days. He grew up loving Mopars but switched to Chevys for the availability and ready access to tuning information.

In the 1970s, Davis was one of Chicago’s most successful street racers. Parker, aka Rabbit, put him in his first car and taught him to shift a four-speed. “Rabbit had a brother that we called CW—his real name was Charlie Wilson,” said Davis. “He had a black Chevelle called ‘Bullet’ that won a lot of races, a Pontiac called ‘The Judge’, and a ’66 Chevelle called ‘Do It Any Way You Want’.” He got in trouble and died young. Rabbit died young, too.”

Both Davis and Riley remember a guy I knew well: Freddy Kemp, a Black drag racer who was paralyzed from the waist down. He got around on crutches and was razor-sharp, kind, and gentle. He owned a potent Dodge called “Breaking Point.” He had outfitted it with home-built hand controls for braking and throttle and competed successfully at local dragstrips.

In the late ’70s, I was teaching high school English and sponsored an auto shop club on the side. The students and I were building a dragster that we planned to race locally. Kemp would come by from time to time to lend a hand. I left for a New York journalism job in March 1980 and lost track of Kemp. Davis told me Freddy was allegedly killed by police in some kind of altercation long ago. I have no way of verifying that, but I’m dumbstruck.

Today, Davis, who is now 61, organizes races, including events that are known as gambler races: Entrants buy their way in and the lion’s share of the pot goes to the winner. Davis says he takes nothing but just wants the guys to have a good time and make some money. He also sponsors grudge races, which are essentially street races at the track. In those, competitors arrange private bets (my car vs. yours) frequently for big money. The “Christmas tree,” or electronic starting system, makes everything fair and square. With an electronic start, a car can be given a handicap by staging the slower car on the rear tire rather than the front. Thus it begins the race almost a full car length in front of its competition. It’s much more accurate than trying to stage such a competition on the street.

“Who are the best of Chicago’s Black racers today?” I asked Davis.

“That depends if you’re talking South Side or West Side,” he said. “On the South Side, you got Forgiato Zae. He does all the wrench work on his car and builds his own engines. His uncle was a street racing legend known as Starchild Mike. Another guy called Von is darn good. On the West Side, you got a young guy named Petey, and a racer they call Peanut is up and coming.

In all, there are hundreds of fast racers in the parts of town where most of the people who look like me live. It’s a good time to be a Black drag racer in Chicago.”

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters. 

The post The History of Black Drag Racers in Chicago Runs Deep appeared first on Hagerty Media.

If you think that size or cylinder count are deciding factors in what makes a race car successful, you probably aren’t familiar with Porsche’s 718 RSK.

Under its softly curving aluminum body is a four-cam, four-cylinder engine, a design that established Porsche as a dominating force in international racing in the 1950s. That domination began with the 550 A, which the marque calls its first “thoroughbred” race car, and was cemented with this model, the 718. From 1953 to the early ’60s, versions of the 718 racked up over 1000 victories in the hands of both Porsche factory drivers and privateers, and few have survived competition as successfully as this 1959 718 RSK Spyder, known as Lucybelle III, offered by Broad Arrow at its Amelia Island auction.

Porsche only made 34 RSK Spyders. Chassis numbers 718-001 through 718-010 were reserved for factory werks drivers. Only 24 were built and sold to customers, beginning with chassis #710-011—Lucybelle III is chassis 718-024. Delivered to Ed Hugus at Le Mans in 1959 wearing Silver Metallic with a beige interior, the model was powered by the engine for which Porsches had become famous: A four-cam four-cylinder designed by Ernst Fuhrmann.

Born in Pennsylvania, Ed Hugus was a WWII paratrooper who, shortly after returning from Japan in 1946, started an MG dealership in Pittsburgh. Five years later, in 1951, he joined the SCCA and ran his first race. He had quite the hand for it, though his friends remember him as someone who “never beat his own drum,” and over the next 20 years raced many times at premier sports car events such as the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the 12 Hours of Sebring. The “III” in the name of this car harkens back to the original Lucybelle, a 550 Spyder with which Hugus won the 1500cc class at Le Mans in 1957. (The second Lucybelle was a Ferrari.)

Since Hugus was a proud American, he had his 718 RSK repainted (overnight while trackside at Le Mans!) in the appropriate American racing livery: two blue stripes over a white base. 20 hours into the race, it looked like he had his second class victory at Le Mans in the bag: after 240 laps, he was first in class and in fourth place overall. Then the engine dropped a valve: Hugus, his co-driver Ray “Ernie” Erickson, and Lucybelle III were out of the race. In hindsight, they were an agonizing 30 laps short of the class winner, a Lotus Elite. Le Mans in the ’50s was a cruel mistress: Of the 11 cars in Lucybelle’s class, only two finished the race; four others did not finish, and four failed to start.

According to the book, Porsche Carrera, the engine was repaired and put into a 356 1600 GS/GT Coupe; Lucybelle III was shipped back to the U.S. with a fresh engine.

After her foray on the international stage, Lucybelle III continued to race in the U.S. thanks to her second owner, an avid SCCA racer named Don Ives. Phoenix, El Paso, Road America—she crisscrossed the continent, even notching a fourth-place finish at the 1962 Pikes Peak Hill Climb, then sanctioned by USAC, in the under 2.0-liter class. She finished her in-period racing career at Aspen Raceways in 1963 and disappeared from the track for over a decade, until she was bought by William Franklin, who ushered her into an appropriate retirement. She raced at the Monterey Historics in ’77 and ’78 and again in ’84 and ’86.

From there, Lucybelle III entered what one today might call her hermit era: Once entering a private collection in 1994, she was seen in public only once for the next 25 years, when she emerged in 1998 at the Amelia Island Concours to claim the Road & Track Trophy. Then, it was back into the shadows until her first public sale in 2018.

After that, it was time for a restoration. As they began their efforts on Lucybelle III’s bodywork, the restorers at Rare Drive Inc. fully expected to find period repairs that are so typical with race cars of any vintage. They were shocked to find the body in surprisingly original shape, and elected to leave the aluminum body on the frame. They did, however, source a proper engine: An unstamped 547/3 Carrera four-cam. Once it was rebuilt by Peter Hofmann and Karl Hloch, along with fresh suspension components, she needed a new tan top, a new rearview mirror and driving lights, a set of date-coded alloys, and a painstaking repaint—and here she is, looking just as she did when Ed Hugus first named her Lucybelle III at Le Mans in 1959. The 30-month restoration has already earned her entry into one of the world’s most prestigious concours: At Pebble Beach in 2021, she won third place in the Postwar Racing Class.

As a Le Mans veteran, she’s eligible to return there, before the modern running, to compete against other vintage race cars in the Le Mans Classic. She’s also, of course, eligible for other vintage events of that prestigious caliber, but we can think of no more fitting tribute to Porsche’s racing legacy than to hear that four-cam engine singing down the Mulsanne Straight. She may wear a remarkably pretty face, but make no mistake: this Porsche represents the legacy of a little Goliath.

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post Lucybelle III, A Glorious Little Porsche 718 RSK, Is Ready to Head Back to Le Mans appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Nowhere were the good times of the Fabulous Fifties more evident than in Detroit, the town that ate, drank, and slept cars. If you drove northeast on Gratiot Avenue from the heart of Detroit, you would pass the under-construction interstate highway that Eisenhower had ordered and the numerous new car dealerships that dotted the avenue before coming upon Gratiot Auto Supply. The big parts store and speed shop had opened just a few years previous and was growing exponentially as it tried to supply the burgeoning ranks of hot rodders who were hungry for more of everything that made cars go fast.

You would pass shops where young men were building race cars and storefronts where ordinary folk were creating businesses that would help supply parts and equipment for the rapidly growing auto industry. If conditions were right, you might hear the roar of racecars doing battle at Motor City Speedway. For a car guy in the ’50s, there was no better place to be than here, in the capital of the automotive universe—and Al Bergler was a car guy.

At a used car lot on Gratiot, in 1952, the 16-year-old Detroit native was cleaning and polishing automobiles for 50 cents an hour. It was his second job; his first was selling peanuts and popcorn at the speedway. At the lot, Bergler was close to the action and loving it. Occasionally, he’d get behind the wheel, too: To stock the lot, the owner bought trade-ins from new car dealers all over the city, and Al was part of the crew that would herd the new rolling stock to the lot. “I always looked for the coolest car,” he said, “and then I would drive that one back to the lot.

If one of the new acquisitions showed signs of having been driven by a teen, like fender skirts, a spinner knob, or mud flaps, Al would remove the offending parts and add them to his personal hoard of car goodies. When a ’41 Ford convertible rolled into the lot, Al took a shine to it. After borrowing $75 from his grandparents, he bought the car. Thus began a personal love affair with automobiles that still keeps him busy today at a spry and very lucid 87.

When he wasn’t at the used car dealership or cruising with friends, the young Bergler was a student at Pershing High School. However, while the teacher was explaining subordinate clauses, Al was thinking about cars he would build. With his parents’ blessing, he left Pershing and enrolled at Washington Trade School in Detroit, where he studied academic subjects in the mornings and learned to weld and straighten damaged sheetmetal in the afternoons. During his last semester, he chopped the top of a ’36 Ford for a teacher. The result was far better than one would expect of student work in a shop class.

It soon became obvious that shaping metal was Al’s art and calling. After graduating from the trade school, he went to work in a body shop. In between making damaged customer cars new again, he set about building a car for himself. The first one he built was a ’34 Ford Coupe. Hankering for a street-rod roadster, Al cut the top off the Ford, prettied it up, and planted a stock Chrysler Hemi under the hood. Not yet fully aware of the physics of internal combustion engines, he mounted six Stromberg deuces atop the bone-stock engine. It took that gasping Chrysler a while to catch its breath under full acceleration, but the build was a start.

Bergler’s next build was a rear-engine Crosley drag car, powered by that same stock Hemi. Al ran it for a short time, including an appearance at the ’59 US Nationals in Detroit. However, “I didn’t have the money it would have taken to make that car right,” he said.

Without a major investment, the Crosley would never be competitive, so Al set about building his first competition coupe, using a long-extinct design that was never common but always exciting: essentially dragster frame rails with a body at the rear and the driver draped over the rear axle.

Of course, no passenger car body was ever meant to be mounted on a narrow dragster chassis with the driver moved far to the rear, but some small European cars could be modified to serve that purpose. The Austin Bantam was among the more popular choices. Of minimal weight and modest proportions, the Bantam was a nice fit for a dragster chassis.

Unfortunately for Al, whose sole source of income was his body shop job, a finished dragster chassis would have been a stretch. Instead, he ordered a Chassis Research kit, essentially a box of cut and bent tubing from which an aspiring racer might build a copy of the dragster chassis that was selling robustly on the West Coast. Al built his car using gas torches and an arc welder.

Around about this time, Al met Ron and Gene Logghe at a Michigan Hot Rod Club event. The Logghes were just getting their feet wet in the race-car-building world, turning out accessory parts like front axles. Al mounted one of their axles on his Chassis Research frame. His venerable Chrysler engine was now sporting a supercharger, and the blower moved the little coupe with some urgency, although with the engine’s near-stock internal parts, the car was still not capable of beating the top dogs on a national level. Always game, Al and his coupe—which he had named Aggravation—gave it a try, competing at NHRA’s 1960 U.S. Nationals, which were once again held in Detroit.

Active duty with the National Guard gave Al some time to think about what was next. Once free of that obligation, he got together with the Logghe brothers to build a first-class competition coupe on a brand-new chassis. For power, he purchased a long-stroke, highly modified blown Chrysler engine from Connie Kalitta, another Logghe customer. Again, Bergler chose a Bantam body. Like every car Bergler has built, this one was beautifully finished, with the Bantam body seamlessly joined to the dragster, lots of chrome, flawless paint, and every part finely detailed. He named it Aggravation II. 

Back then, many racers would premier their new drag cars at Detroit’s Autorama rod and custom show. Even though it competed against many purpose-built show cars, Bergler’s pretty coupe won the first Ridler Award in 1964, the nation’s most prestigious award for custom cars.

With its stout Logghe chassis and potent stroker Hemi, Aggravation II was a winner on the drag strip as well as on the show floor, and Al demonstrated that by winning Super Eliminator and the Best Appearing Car award at the 1966 NHRA SpringNationals. The car set AA/C records numerous times and recorded a best of 8.10 seconds at 184 mph on gasoline. Aggravation II appeared at Metro Detroit’s Woodward Dream Cruise a few years ago and is now in a museum.

At some point in the mid-’60s, Al decided Aggravation II needed a nose piece that would cover the front of the chassis, a look that was becoming common on the most attractive Top Fuel dragsters. He asked a guy who had done aluminum work for Logghe how much it would cost. $300 was the answer. At the body shop where Al spent his days, that was three weeks’ pay, so he decided to do the work himself, bending the aluminum over a four-inch pipe. Soon he was doing almost all the aluminum work for Logghe-built dragsters and funny cars. Hundreds of aluminum race-car bodies and interiors later, he’s still using the 4-inch pipe to bend metal.

“I made a bench on which I could clamp the pipe down. Still have it. Still using it.”

Al built one more competition coupe, a ’23 Model T roadster on another Logghe chassis, powered of course by his big-inch blown Chrysler motor. Ahead of its time, this “coupe” sported a canopy much like those used on today’s Top Fuel cars. At the ’67 Winternationals in Pomona, California, he won the competition coupe class and another Best Appearing Car award. The ’23-based coupe would later win Super Eliminator at the .67 SpringNationals in Bristol, Tennessee.

Bergler didn’t always work at the same body shop; for a brief period, he ran his own outfit. “During the late ’60s, I had a shop on Gratiot,” said Al. “One day, ‘Diamond’ Jim Cavallaro of Diamond Racing Engines called and said that Tom Ivo was in town and needed a place to work on his car. I told Jim he would be welcome at my shop. Ivo is a great guy but he likes to sleep days and work nights. While working at night, he played loud music. Neighbors complained, and I lost that shop.

“But that started a thing where guys on tour with their race cars would stop by for some aluminum work or just to service their car and hang out. I learned a lot from other racers, and I think they benefited as well.”

For 1970—now working from a shop on Groesbeck just around the corner from Logghe—Al remade the AA/Comp car as an AA Gas Dragster (AA/GD) with a digger-style body on the same underpinnings and raced to the runner-up spot at the 1970 NHRA Summernationals.

But the writing was on the wall. You couldn’t make much money with a gas dragster, and the fuel dragster boys with their faster, nitro-methane-burning cars weren’t doing much better. Funny Cars, on the other hand, were getting substantial appearance money from track operators all over the country, so Al teamed up with Tom Prock and built a Vega flopper on a Logghe chassis. Prock took the driver’s seat and Bergler handled the wrenches and build. A generation-two 426 Chrysler Hemi replaced the venerable gen-one Chrysler motor.

At first, Bergler and Prock drew blanks when trying to come up with a name for the car. Having previously rented out a corner of the shop to Pete Seaton and his funny car, named Seaton’s Shaker, they drew inspiration from that team. Thus was born the Motown Shaker, a funny car that would serve Bergler well for years to come. Prock, however, got an offer he couldn’t refuse—a chance to drive the Castronovo family’s Custom Body funny car—and left for the East Coast. Butch Maas then took the driver’s seat of the Motown Shaker, with Al filling in from time to time.

Most of the team’s appearances were match races, because that’s where the dollars were in the early ’70s, with the occasional national event rounding out the schedule. The Motown Shaker was a regular at the storied eight-car flopper shows held Wednesday nights at the U.S. 30 drag strip in Gary, Indiana. At one of those events, the blower exploded at half track, breaking the roof supports and leaving Al blinded. He recalls trying to spin the car out. Instead, it made a hard right turn and headed off between the light poles and out into a field. It continued across the field, which tore up the car a bit before it rolled to a stop. The track safety people couldn’t find Al and the car. He recalls standing up next to the broken car, shouting and waving his arms until he got their attention.

At some point during those profitable days of funny car racing, Al’s son Ron Bergler came on board as a wrench and crewman. In ’73, Al took over the driver’s seat full time and a Mustang body replaced the Vega’s. In ’77, the Mustang gave way to a Corvette, and in ’80 a Firebird became the last Motown Shaker.

“The match race money was drying up,” Al said, “and it was time to focus on my business.” Al brought the curtain down on his career as a pro racer, but his contributions haven’t gone unnoticed. He’s a member of both the Michigan Motor Sports Hall of Fame and the International Drag Racing Hall of Fame. NHRA has also recognized his work, honoring him with a Lifetime Achievement Award.

Racing a funny car full-time in the ’70s meant you would spend far more days on the road than at home, leaving little time for anything else. So with those days behind him, Al decided that in addition to focusing more on his race car fabricating business, he would devote more time to his personal life, and he soon married his high school sweetheart, Nancy, who has now been Mrs. Bergler for some 40 years.

Al and Nancy bought a beautiful home in a forested neighborhood in Shelby Township, Michigan. A large pole barn behind the house serves as Al’s shop. Touring racers still stop by. Bob Pacitto, who worked for Logghe and has driven top drag cars including some for Connie Kalitta, stops by every day to hang, do some bench racing, and lend a hand on a job when needed. Although Al, at 87, is taking on less work, he’s still building race car bodies. When this reporter stopped by to see Al just after Christmas, Al was building a nosepiece for a customer’s dragster.

Although he hasn’t raced in over 40 years, All has done a lot of cackle tests, events where nitro-burning supercharged cars are started so the fans can hear the wonderful sound of the monster motors. At many events, dragsters and competition coupes are push-started, just as they were 60 years ago, adding an extra bit of old-time flavor. Al has cackled the Ridler-winning Aggravation II, along with various dragsters.

Al credits Ed Golden, a former Ford designer, with getting him involved. Golden had purchased the Probe AA/FD and took it to Al’s shop for restoration. When NHRA staged a cacklefest at the 2003 Hot Rod Reunion in Bowling Green, Kentucky, Golden asked Al to sit in the car and start it as it was pushed down the track. Al managed to wiggle into the seat of that old fueler and took the wheel. At the right moment, he clicked on the magneto switch and the fuel-burning supercharged Chrysler engine roared to life.

“It was an emotional experience,” said Al. “It’s like I was young and taking on the best at 200 mph with the sound of the exhaust pounding in my eardrums and flames shooting skyward to either side of me. I was overcome by memories of great times.”

“I was awe-struck; it was like I had been reborn,” he says. “When it was over, I was crying. I tried to call Nancy to tell her about it, but could barely speak.”

“’Call me back when you get yourself together,’ she said.”

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post The Ridler Award’s First Winner, Now 87, Is Still Building Hot Rods appeared first on Hagerty Media.

As fool’s spring winds down and second winter descends on some of us, we keenly anticipate driving season, which, we just have to trust, is right around the corner. When the roads finally do clear up and the weather is right, do you know where you are headed this year? Nothing wrong with a humble road trip but this is the time to think ahead and make plans to do or see something cool in 2024.

It’s also the time of year when many motorsports venues announce their schedules, so now is the perfect time to pick something and start making a plan for how to make it happen. That’s why we rounded up five under-the-radar motorsports events that are worth your consideration. As a bonus, most of these events do not require the top-tier budget of more popular events, like F1 Grands Prix or Goodwood or Le Mans.

SCCA Runoffs

SCCA Runoffs comprise a full week of racing that includes competitors of all various skills and budgets. Want to cheer for an underdog? Easy to find one. Want to see the bleeding edge of engineering a car to fit within the rulebook? You’ll find that too, along with just about any other racing trope or technique you can think of. SCCA Runoffs is the peak for many hobby racers and a jumping-off point for aspiring pros. It makes for great racing with a great atmosphere, and this year’s event will be held at Road America in Wisconsin. What more could you want?

Vintage weekend at Road America

There are multiple big vintage events in America throughout the year, but there is something about the charm of Road America in July that just can’t be beat. The track has remained relatively unchanged since 1955 so sitting on the hill above turn five and watching the drivers brake deep into downhill braking zone into the tight left could be the closest thing to time-travel you can easily experience. Add in the ability to walk the paddock and enjoy the sights, sounds, and smells of vintage iron as it warms up and cools down between track sessions, and you have a great weekend. Plus, there are great cheese curds.

25 at Thunderhill

Endurance races have a certain mystique to them. The heavy hitters of Le Mans or Daytona are obvious bucket-list events, but if you want to get closer to the action and are also on the wrong coast for the Florida races, the 25 Hours of Thunderhill at Thunderhill Raceway Park just outside Willows, California, might be the perfect adventure. You have a little bit of extra time to plan as the organizers have elected to suspend the 2024 event and instead put more effort into the 2025 race. Mark your calendars for November 2025 and dress for any weather. It can get cold, and that makes the racing that much more interesting.

Barber Vintage Festival

If you like motorcycles, block off the first weekend in October. Held at the manicured facility of Barber Motorsports Park in Leeds, Alabama, the Barber Vintage Festival has multiple racing disciplines running at once, along with a large swap meet and plenty of other wonderful attractions. The vintage motorcycle racing is run by the American Historic Racing Motorcycle Association and from a spot in the shade overlooking turn two you can watch everything from hand-shift Harley Davidsons of the 1940s all the way to brand-new Euro supermotos dice it up. A pavement oval race takes place up on the test track portion of the grounds, and off-road trials and cross-country races take place in the woods just off of one of the camping lots. A little bit of everything—and that’s before you go through the facility’s world-class museum or join one of the seminars.

24 Hours of Lemons

When racers and teams are encouraged to lean into the absurdity of racing, a weekend at the track gets wild. Sure, there are teams working to go as fast as possible for as long as possible, but the vocal majority of Lemons racers are there to conquer the challenge of making some less-than-ideal race car finish the race.

The attitude of a Lemons race is unlike that of so many other motorsports events. People are working to solve automotive problems that should basically never exist. There was no reason to put a diesel turbocharger on a Mopar slant-six, for example, but there is no shortage of people excited to not only see such a thing exist but to make it work and work well. Lemons racing is a different kind of fun. Before you pass judgement, check it out for yourself.

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post 5 Under-the-Radar Motorsports Events You Should Attend appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Consigning interesting and varied live auction lots can be a tricky business these days, especially in the mid-range of the market that has been so dominated by online sales over the last few years. Which is why Iconic Auctioneers’ Race Retro sale catalog is so refreshing.

The sale takes place February 22–23  at Stoneleigh Park, Coventry, in the UK, and Rob Hubbard and team have brought together a fascinating collection of cars both on day one, which focuses on competition vehicles, and on day two, which caters to mainstream classics.

For anyone still looking for an appropriate car for the Hagerty Hillclimb on May 11, there are some tempting prospects. A 1999 Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VI with hillclimb championship wins in 2017–18 looks like a lot of car for the £23,000–£27,000 ($29,000–$34,000) estimate, but if you have a little more in the bank, a 1987 ex-works Peugeot 309 GTi (estimate £70,000–£80,000, or roughly $88,400–$101,000) that gave Richard Burns his first “factory” seat at the 1991 RAC Rally would certainly draw the attention of the Shelsley crowd.

If fast Fords are your thing, Iconic is offering a great selection, from a seemingly very usable 1972 Escort Mexico fitted with a red-top Vauxhall 2-liter engine mated to a Quaife five-speed gearbox (estimate £18,000–£22,000, or $22,700–$27,800), right up to an ex-Valentino Rossi/Henning Solberg 2007 Focus M-Sport WRC (estimate £340,000–£380,000, or $429,350–$479,850).

If you’re more inclined toward Hagerty’s RADwood, a celebration of 1980s and ’90s turbo-era cars, the Saturday sale is for you. There are a couple of Ford Sierra RS500 Cosworths and even an unused factory engine to go with them. Estimated at a strong, although not unexpected), £120,000–£140,000 ($151,500–$176,800), there is also an extremely low-mileage, one-owner 2004 BMW (E46) CSL that could easily set a record. One of the five Mitsubishi Evo VI RS Tommi Mäkinen Monte Carlo Edition cars, possibly the ultimate Evo, is also for sale, with an estimate of £100,000 to £120,000 ($126,300–$151,500), as is one of Hagerty UK’s 2024 Bull Market picks: a low-mileage 2002 Honda S2000 GT that Iconic believes may hit £40,000.

But they’re only the teasers. The 1998 Subaru Impreza 22B-STI, number 29 of 400, may have been given a tempting low estimate of £190,000 ($240,000). For those whose pockets are not quite so deep, there’s also an Impreza P1 and an STi 555 Version 2 on offer. There are famous cars, too, including an ex-Richard Burns 1998 Mitsubishi Lancer GSR Evo V with fewer than 800 miles on the odometer (estimate £100,000, or $126,300) and a 1996 Honda NSX-T that was the UK press car. It is described as being in excellent condition, but its high estimate of £85,000 ($107,350) is still lower than the top Hagerty Price Guide value.

Then there’s an ultra-rare 1984 Peugeot 205 Turbo 16 (estimate £235,000–£275,000, or $334,650–$347,300) and—for me—the star of the show, the #002 1987/2001 BMW E30 M3 Enhanced and Evolved by Redux. As anyone who follows Redux on social media knows, these cars have been re-engineered to a phenomenal level, and this is the very first time one has hit the open market. Currently the lone UK-registered road version, this may be the only opportunity to buy one (estimate £200,000–£250,000, or $252,550–$315,700) given that Redux’s order book is reportedly full. Stoneleigh Park may be a busy place.

But in amongst these modern-day collectible icons, a very unusual car also caught my eye. Tucked away in the competition sale is a kit car, a Formosa 120GR, estimated at a fair £22,000 to £26,000 ($27,800–$32,800). Based on a 2-liter 1963 Triumph Vitesse and clad with a fiberglass body, “kit car” seems unfair, as the lines on this thing are superb, reminiscent of an HWM Jaguar or even a Ferrari 750 Monza. Created by a team who cut their teeth building Sunseeker yachts, it’s the sort of car that would draw attention whenever you drove it, for all the right reasons. I love the look of it; we’ll see if bidders agree.

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters. 

The post Iconic’s Race Retro Catalog Is Full of Dreams appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Unless you live there, or you have family or friends in the area, why would you visit Lincoln, Nebraska? You might visit to see the state capital. Or the University of Nebraska, home of the Cornhuskers. But heading the list of “top things to do in Lincoln” is the Museum of American Speed.

“This is an amazing collection of everything related to early speed development,” one online reviewer enthuses. “There are … vintage racing cars and touring cars and more engines than I ever thought existed … also metal lunch boxes, movie posters, pedal cars, record album covers, hood ornaments, vintage car parts and so much more. This is a Smithsonian-quality collection and exhibit, and each display is artistically created to demonstrate that quality… I highly recommend a visit and if you are a ‘car person,’ it should be on your bucket list.”

Modest Beginnings

“Speedy” Bill Smith was a winning racer, team owner, race car builder, entrepreneur, and a passionate collector of anything and everything about the history of speed in America. In 1952, he and his hard-working wife Joyce founded Speedway Motors to sell automotive and competition parts and accessories in Lincoln. Then, 40 years later, they opened their Museum of American Speed, “dedicated to preserving, interpreting, and displaying physical items significant in racing and automotive history.” As they liked to say, every car in it has a story.

“Our dad started this business right out of college,” said son Clay Smith, when we visited while researching hot rod guru and Autorama show founder Bob Larivee’s latest book. “And my mom loaned him $300 to get it started. She had a good job, so when he had sales, that money could go back into the business. He didn’t have to use it to support the family. In the early days, he raced motorcycles, then roadsters. He was driver, mechanic, painter, truck driver, everything … and he became a better car owner, builder, and fabricator. Bill had a great ability to build and field very competitive cars. It was serious business; he was there to win … [and] he won more than his share.”

Because he was involved in the formation of SEMA (Specialty Equipment Manufacturers Association) and had friends who were manufacturers, Bill Smith was well connected with the entire industry and always knew what was happening elsewhere despite being based in Nebraska. “We were advertising in Speed Mechanics magazine in 1953,” Clay Smith recounted, “and there was a list in that same issue of every speed shop in America, hundreds of them. And the only one that survives today is Speedway Motors.”

The elder Smith was enamored with what early engineers could do. Many were backyard engineers, or “practical” engineers as he called them, who worked at a trade—very bright people but not trained engineers. He wanted to collect their work and believed an object could tell its story better than its creator could, so his original motivation was to preserve that part of history.

“We had a mezzanine in the building,” Smith said, “and Bill’s ‘stuff’ would get parked up there. And we had the good fortune through all those years to be included in the process. With the toys, for example, Bill and Joyce would go to events each year—a toy show in Chicago or Atlantic City—and I would go with them to negotiate buying toys. We also went to all the swap meets with them, displaying as a vendor but really there to acquire ‘stuff.’ His stuff was always stuffed into one of our warehouses, and this museum is its second home.”

The Museum

The museum moved to a three-story, 150,000-square-foot building in 2001, across the parking lot from Speedway Motors, and it recently completed a 90,000-square-foot addition to house its rapidly growing displays, which include more than 300 cars and 800 historically significant engines. With over 30 unique gallery spaces, the museum educates visitors about all forms of American racing, including Indy, drag racing, NASCAR, SCCA, land speed, Pikes Peak, sprint car, midget, quarter midget, board-track, go-kart, motorcycle, BMX, and more. It also celebrates the history of hot-rodding, show cars, and historic production cars. The meticulously designed displays and dioramas spread over three floors display these vehicles and other artifacts in settings where viewers can see them as if in their original environments.

It boasts the largest collection of pedal cars on permanent display. The Eric Zausner-EZ Spindizzy Gallery features the most comprehensive collection of gas-powered tether cars. And the Darrell Mayabb Automotive Art Gallery shows an assortment of rare bronzes, auto design studies, and paintings from artists Tom Fritz, Peter Vincent, Stanley Wanlass, and many others. There are also significant displays of rare auto-related movie posters, signed musical instruments, tin toys, lunch boxes, die-cast cars, and space toys—truly something for everyone.

“One of my dad’s first jobs as a kid was working at an En-Ar-Co gas station a block from his house,” Smith relates on our tour. “So we re-created it here. This track roadster was on the cover of Hot Rod with Linda Vaughn. This blue ’32 is one of few cars that has been on Hot Rod’s cover twice, first as a kit that you could buy for $3995, then again after it was completed. We have Bonneville racers here, drag racers there, and NASCAR and show cars over there, including three that we bought from Bob Larivee’s collection. The most iconic one is the ‘Red Baron,’ next to the ‘Outlaw’ and the ‘Boothill Express,’ which is the actual funeral hearse that carried James Gang member Bob Younger, subsequently turned into a drag car by Ed ‘Big Daddy’ Roth.”

Clay Smith shows us the many “Icons of Speed” dioramas for people who were important in America’s pursuit of speed, including Mickey Thompson, Smokey Yunick, Vic Edelbrock, and Carroll Shelby, who was a good friend. “When Shelby created this Series One car, Bill helped him find engines for it. He had bought a train car full of overhead-cam Oldsmobile Aurora engines for hot rodding, and Shelby used them in the last run of his 249 Series Ones.”

Bill always wanted a Tucker because of its innovation, so there sits one alongside a regal Duesenberg. “The Duesenberg brothers originally were racers,” Smith says, “and this is one of their Model Js from 1930.” Next to that is a hand-built Bucciali. “The original won the Paris salon in 1931, then was destroyed in World War II. William Tishman of Los Angeles went through an arduous 10-year process to re-create it from pictures. My dad had this recreation car in his garage and on Friday nights, he would take it to get ice cream at the drive-through.”

Also on our tour was museum curator Tim Matthews. “This is our Land Speed Record area, with cars from Bonneville and the dry lakes,” he says. “Most of these cars are record-setters in their classes, including Ron Main’s ‘Flat Fire,’ the world’s fastest flathead Ford. This red Speedway Motors car, built by John MacKichan here in Nebraska, set a record at 348 mph for the Small-Block Chevy Streamlined class.”

Smith points to a charred race driver’s suit in a display case: “This is one of our favorite displays. Bill Simpson created fireproof driving suits, and my dad was his first customer. That suit is the one he wore when he set himself on fire in the pits at Indy to prove its quality.”

Second Floor

Up one floor is the Soap Box Derby area, with a variety of creative derby cars and drivers’ helmets through the years. Then comes the Model T room. “Almost everything in here is Ford Model T speed equipment,” Smith says. “My dad was enamored with the Model T era, because that was the beginning of the aftermarket. The Model T was so simple that almost everything on it could be improved, so that created a huge market for accessories to make your Model T run better, faster, cooler, or look distinctive. You could get an accessory body to turn your Model T roadster into an enclosed car, or you could turn a Model T into a snowmobile.”

There on display is the only Model T that ever raced at Le Mans, #19 in 1923, plus Model T–based accessory cars made for businesses: a painter’s car, a bakery car, and one that looks like a house. “This is a prototype six-cylinder Model T engine from 1912, which is rare because Ford did not make six-cylinder engines back then,” Smith continues. “This is a double-overhead-cam head for a Model T engine that was built in the teens. This is the five-millionth Model T, which was built in 1921. This is a twin-engine T. This is a special suspension system. We think we have over 5000 accessories made for the Model T.”

Another room shows the evolution of midget race cars and a huge variety of midget racing engines. “They ran everything, including boat and motorcycle engines,” Smith explains, “and this one is a version of an Offenhauser.” In the Model A room are all kinds of speed equipment for, you guessed it, the Ford Model A. “When you think about how few years those cars and that engine were in production,” he says, “the variety of speed equipment made for them was amazing. And here on the wall we have 311 different intake manifolds for flathead Fords.”

Another huge room is chock full of original, unrestored, old pedal cars, probably the world’s largest collection, some said to be more valuable than real cars. And just around the corner are hundreds of examples of probably all the auto-related kids’ lunchboxes ever made.

Third Floor and More

Another level up is what was said to be Joyce Smith’s favorite floor. “She would come up here and tell stories about all the different things,” Smith says. “All the pedal cars up here are restored, good as new. And here is Joyce’s Yellow Cab collection. She had a thing about Yellow Cabs. Over here is Buck Rogers and all of Bill’s childhood toys. The Spindizzy Foundation gallery is devoted to gas-powered tether racers, which zip around in circles on a cable anchored to a pole in the center. Later, they put them on rails on miniature board tracks. These cars date back into the early 1930s, and they’re incredibly complex in the amount of engineering that went into them.” Matthews, the curator, adds that, with recent donations, this is now the largest and most complete collection of Spindizzies available for public viewing in the country, “and we have ambitions to make it even greater!”

Back on the ground floor, we see some special areas with historian Mike Kelly. “This is our Harry Miller room,” he says. “Harry was the godfather of racing in the early days. Though he dropped out of school at 13, he was a great engineer but not a great businessman. He went belly up in 1933, but every car on the Indy 500 starting grid in 1934 had a Miller engine in it. When Miller went bankrupt, Fred Offenhauser bought the tooling and the rights to his four-cylinder engine, and for the next 27 years, Offenhauser engines won 24 of the 27 races. And from 1946 to 1962, Offenhausers won every single IMCA championship race.”

Kelly points out a sprint car that won over 200 races and championships in 1955, ’56, ’57, and ’58. “This Blue Crown car won more championship points than any other single car in history,” he says. “See the ‘Speedway Cocktail’ on this car number 45? Joe Lencki made Speedway Cocktail oil additive in his bathtub, bottled it, and sold it to the other racers. When Joe went to Fred Offenhauser and asked him to build a six-cylinder Offenhauser engine, Fred at first refused, then relented. But Lencki would have to assemble it and call it a Lencki-six, not an Offenhauser. They made just three of those engines, and this is one of them. A second one is in the brown car over there that looks like a Watson roadster.”

Through the years, another Smith son, Carson, got to know a lot of his father’s drivers. “He had some of the very best,” he says. “The business was built around making money for the race team to function and using the race team to promote the business. It was all tied together. His early focus was on racing engines, because racing engines were almost always somebody’s passion, the most important things they worked on, and racing evolves pretty fast.”

The museum’s Indy Galleries have been going through a major expansion. “In 2023, our museum merged with the Unser Racing Museum in Albuquerque, New Mexico,” Matthews says. “The Unser family is one of the most storied families in automotive and racing history. We have had racing partnerships with members of the Unser family for over 38 years and are honored to welcome the Unser collection to our museum. We just completed the relocation of over 40 vehicles and 60,000 artifacts here and are building galleries to house and display items that will educate visitors for many generations to come.”

When legendary race-car builder and chief mechanic A.J. Watson passed away, his daughters worked with the museum to have everything from his last shop transported to Lincoln for a special display. “Everything in there is exactly the way it was when our team got there,” Matthews says. “We took hundreds of pictures, so every piece of pipe, every drill bit, oil stains on the floor, everything is exactly the way it was before we took it out. The car in the shop diorama is none other than the Watson-built winner of the 1958 Race of Two Worlds in Monza, Italy. It is on loan to us by our great friends at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum.”

All of the museum’s Indy cars are era-representative: “This Shrike is representative of the ’60s,” Matthews says. “This Mallard was the last front-engine car to race at Indy. Al Unser drove this car when he and brother Bobby were both on the front row in 1970. Every engine in this section has raced at Indianapolis. This pair of original Gasoline Alley garage doors is one of only two that got away when they bulldozed and rebuilt it. We built this diorama so we could utilize the original doors and give people a sense of what the pit garages were really like.”

One fun story concerns the Mallard that Jim Hurtubise raced the last year the car qualified for the Indy 500. Then, for the next nine years, he took it back, got in the qualifying line, went out, and just drove around waving at everybody, with everyone waving back at him. “The last year he took it there,” Kelly relates with a grin, “he parked it in the line and waved around everyone who came up behind him. And when the gun sounded at six o’clock Sunday, he was still sitting there in it. When the other drivers came over to tell him how sorry they were, he took the cowling off, and there was a cooler of beer in there instead of an engine. That was his way of saying thanks for putting up with him for the last several years.”

Finally, the “Bill and Joyce” room is full of things important to their sons, which they added after Bill and Joyce Smith passed away. “When I first came to the museum,” Kelly says, “this chair was sitting over there, and Bill was in it. He would sit there and talk to you, but you didn’t go through those doors [to the second and third floors] without a guide. This place was his toy box, and you could not just come in here and wander around.”

The museum has been a strong focus for the entire Smith family, partially because they created it as a foundation, so things that they personally owned were donated. “When you give away things that are prize possessions, creating a museum to preserve them is the best step of all,” Clay Smith enthuse. “The foundation was set up in 1994, but it really changed from a collection to a museum when it moved to this building in 2001, and it has evolved over the years. We always try to think about what makes it special and how it can be better tomorrow than it is today. I’m really proud of the fact that we’re the number one tourist attraction in Lincoln, according to Trip Advisor.”

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post A Jaw-Dropping Tour of Speedway Motors’ Museum of American Speed appeared first on Hagerty Media.

In just over a week, NASCAR will take to the high banks for its “Super Bowl of Stock Car Racing”—the Daytona 500. More immediately, this coming Sunday, the Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers will grace the gridiron in Las Vegas for Super Bowl LVIII. What would happen if you put these two events in a cocktail shaker? A high-profile race set inside a stadium?

Well, somebody already did, and the results were mighty sweet.

Here’s how the 2023 Castrol Gateway Dirt Nationals went down: Last December, more than 200 race teams filed their way into downtown St. Louis’ stadium for the big event, arriving in a parade of semis, trucks, and trailers. Every winter since 2016 (aside from 2020’s cancellation due to the pandemic), the Dome at America’s Center has welcomed the nation’s top dirt late-model and modified drivers for a weekend of dirt-slinging and door-banging on a temporary fifth-mile banked clay oval. In its short history, the show has grown from an experiment to one of the discipline’s most renowned affairs.

The first-ever midget race was held in 1933 at Loyola High School Stadium in Los Angeles. Crowds grew quickly, and before too long, purpose-built arenas like Gilmore Stadium across town hosted races. (Hagerty Media editor-in-chief Larry Webster even sampled indoor dirt at the famous Chili Bowl midget contest.) Stadium racing is not limited to pint-sized roadsters, though. NASCAR has turned laps at venues like Chicago’s Soldier Field and Bowman Gray Stadium remains a bucket list attraction for stock-car thrill seekers. The idea of racing on an arena floor is not new. However, the idea of racing inside a football stadium in the middle of the NFL season—that’s a whole different ball game.

Football fans will recall that, in the early Nineties, St. Louis was in the market for an NFL franchise. The city’s beloved Cardinals left for sunny Arizona in 1988 and America’s gateway to the west was searching for a team to fill the void. Public bonds helped fund a newly proposed stadium to be built next to the city’s convention center. By 1995, a full-size football arena capable of holding over 67,000 fans was complete. Midwest football fans eventually got their wish as the Los Angeles Rams were moved to St. Louis later that year.

The new St. Louis Rams developed into a high-flying, high-scoring squad, earning the nickname “The Greatest Show on Turf.” The move lasted for twenty years, resulting in one Super Bowl win in 1999. Before the start of the 2016 NFL season, St. Louis Rams relocated from their home at the Dome to L.A. (the franchise’s home city from 1946–1994). The Rams were back in California, leaving the St. Louis dome with plenty of vacant dates on its event calendar.

Enter Cody Sommer, a fresh-faced mover and shaker within the dirt world. The 36-year-old has a history of big projects with varying degrees of success, from a three-year partnership with the dirt racing’s most popular driver, Scott Bloomquist, to an indoor midget race in the Indiana Pacer’s field house. In December 2016, Sommer and a crew hosted the inaugural Dirt Nationals in Gateway. While other projects have come and gone since then, the Dome has remained a staple on the dirt track calendar.

Part of its staying power has come from the incredible finishes and unlikely heroes. Tyler Carpenter comes to mind—a blue-collar from West Virginia who bested a roster of cars with better equipment to take consecutive titles in 2019 and 2021, winning $30,000 in his most recent triumph. His brash attitude and aggressive driving style are perfect for the track’s tight confines.

And he’s consistently good at providing a decent soundbite.

“It’s either make the move or be moved,” Carpenter told reporters in 2021. “I don’t want to crash them guys. Hell, I like ‘em all. We’re here to race … they’ve had their opportunity to win big races. This is the only shot I got as of right now. I ain’t got the backing they got (to win at bigger tracks).”

Indeed, indoor etiquette differs from the typical farm field dirt oval. “There’s definitely a different code of conduct at the Dome,” says Minnesota modified driver Jake Timm. “Everything happens so fast and the races are so short, you don’t have any time to waste. If you are faster than someone you need to be willing to throw an elbow to get by or you might as well not try!”

The sport’s purists may be quick to critique the on-track product, which more closely resembles a WWE match with plenty of contact and lots of hurt feelings. The temporary surface often develops deep ruts and the on-track speeds never hit triple digits. However, most are happy not to be sitting at home fighting winter boredom and accept the race for its minor flaws, understanding that no race at all would be a greater evil.

And so, tens of thousands of fans filled the Dome last December. This year, the event’s attendance had grown so substantial that organizers opened another section of seating for Saturday’s big dance.

The event is a three-day pressure cooker and reaches a massive crescendo on its final day. Preliminary races in the two days leading up to that night pare down the competitive field from over 120 late-model dirt cars to just 20 for Saturday’s feature race. “You have to segment out the night and not think too far ahead,” says Illinois driver Brandon Sheppard. “If you can’t qualify well and you’re buried in your heat, there’s no point in thinking about the feature until you’re in it. The key to going fast is balancing risk versus reward.”

He adds: “And keep it between the walls, baby.”

Tyler Erb did just that in 2022, winning his first Dirt Nationals in his Days of Thunder-inspired green and yellow paint scheme. The 25-year-old fan favorite from Texas captured the checkered flag just four days after losing his father to a heart attack. An emotional Erb stood on the roof of his car to celebrate as fans whooped and hollered.

Erb was back this year to defend his title, joining perhaps the strongest field to ever start a Gateway late model feature. The final night’s pre-race festivities are yet another thing that sets the December dance apart from the other thousands of dirt races run throughout the rest of the calendar year. After the Dome lights went out, fans held up their phone lights and sang “Proud to be an American,” which was followed by indoor pyrotechnics that sent heat waves into the lower seats. Each of the 20 drivers walked out of a smoke-filled tunnel, one by one, like pro wrestlers entering the ring. Dirt racing’s hottest driver, Ricky Thorton Jr., even wore a giant gold championship belt; other drivers opted for costumes or disparaging signs that took shots at their competitors.

The 40-lap late model feature was one of the cleanest yet, with only a few on-track incidents. Sheppard, who started on the front row, quickly assumed the lead and built up a decent gap on the rest of the field. Not to be discouraged by his lackluster starting sport, Thorton quickly charged through the field. With less than 10 laps to go, he was in second place and taking chunks out of the leader’s interval.

With one to go, the two were bumper to bumper. Thorton went low, and Sheppard went high.

Thorton’s shot was just short as he slid behind Sheppard, clipping the wall. Thorton ultimately settled for second. The crowd erupted as a new champion was crowned: King Sheppard, the Seventh. “To win in front of a home crowd that big is insane,” says the man who cut his teeth running on the dirt tracks that surround St. Louis. “It’s hard to put a number on it, but definitely a top 10 moment in my career.”

Sommer and crew have already announced that the Gateway Dirt Nationals will be back in December 2024, so mark this weekend on your calendar. Football be damned, this indoor contest might be the “Greatest Show on Dirt.”

The post Former NFL Stadium Now Hosts the “Super Bowl” of Dirt Racing appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Hammertown: A desert fantasyland in which a temporary encampment of nearly a hundred thousand off-road fanatics and their side-by-sides, custom modified trucks, ATVs, and dirt bikes pack more than three square miles of the Mojave for the annual ten-day festival known as King of the Hammers. Regulars call it “Burning Man for off-road racers.” Bloomberg reporter Ashlee Vance called KOH a “party for cars” in this must-see video. Both descriptions fit the wonderful madness of this singular event.

Races happen nearly every day, with different classes of vehicles running a tortuous course of about 100 miles that encompasses wide-open sections and boulder-strewn climbs known as “Hammers.” These rock-crawling sections are as entertaining for (often drunk) spectators as they are challenging for drivers, who frequently are required to winch their extreme machines past obstacles and who are prone to tumble down hillsides like a Tonka truck in a sandbox. Over half of the competitors don’t finish. The Ford Bronco that won this year’s production class averaged less than 15 mph and, with what I imagine must have been a great ripping sound of metal against rock, lost its passenger door to a boulder along the way.

The highly produced races are broadcast live on YouTube, with drones and helicopters filming the remote action. Considering the brutality of the course, it’s no surprise that most of Hammertown’s inhabitants are there to jeer and cheer rather than compete. Particularly after dark, monstrous crowds hoot and holler as the bravest warriors among them take a stab at the competition course. When things wind down, the crowds zoom back to their Hammertown campers in their 4x4s, flocks of machines storming across the desert floor like a scene from a Mad Max flick.

I’ve been fascinated by KOH for years. Back in 2015, curious to know if the stories I’d heard were remotely true, I sent a reporter and photographer to investigate, and they came back with a gripping tale of near anarchy. The images, sadly, are no longer available, but shooter Chris Cantle snapped an unforgettable photo that he kindly let me share:

Ever since I’d been itching to join the tens of thousands behind the wheel of this vehicular smorgasbord. My people! While I do most of my driving on asphalt, there’s something graceful about off-road driving. On a slippery surface like dirt or sand, you’re not directing your vehicle as much as coaxing it, looking far ahead and working the controls long before you need to slow or turn. Your movements likely are clumsy at first, either too early or late, but with some practice, your machine is floating and gently responding to well-timed inputs. That’s when off-roading is like dancing, not that I know what it feels like to be a good dancer.

Ford, the only manufacturer with a high profile at KOH, not only used the event to prove the Bronco’s off-road chops but also brought along—but did not race—a Bronco DR, so-named for “Desert Racer.” The $300,000 factory-built off-road racer isn’t street-legal but is super cool. Ford will build only 50 DRs, which are seemingly like every other limited edition and instantly collectible. One just sold at auction for $440,000.

Ford also brought an F-150 Lightning electric pickup with an experimental off-road suspension. I rode shotgun as professional off-roader Christopher Polvoorde flung it through the desert. Two things jumped out: Polvoorde had a sixth sense about which bumps he needed to slow for and which ones he could drive over, whereas they all looked the same to me. I also enjoyed the relative silence of the cabin so we could talk without shouting.

The KOH crowd was more welcoming to electric power than I expected. Many buzzed the pits on electric scooters and dirt bikes. The Optima battery company held a rally for EVs and set up a massive solar and hydrogen fuel cell–powered charging station. A host of privately owned EVs, including Rivians and a Tesla Cybertruck, prowled the desert.

I highly recommend you join Hammertown next year. You will not be bored.

As we roll into the weekend, here’s some of the latest and greatest from Hagerty Media:

• The kids are all right — here’s how Kansas college kids made a mark at Pebble Beach “on a ramen budget”
• Learn about America’s Most Beautiful Roadster 2024, from the Grand National Roadster show, this flamed Ford Phaeton
• Feeling grateful for your car heater this winter? Here’s how motorists got toasty in the early days
• The Audi R8 is going away and it will be missed

This week’s podcast covers the aftermarket car parts business and the massive annual SEMA show. Listen on Apple, Spotify, and YouTube.

Thanks for reading! If you’d like to support us, please share our material and join the Hagerty Drivers Club.

Have a great weekend!

Larry

P.S.: Your feedback is very welcome. Comment HERE.

Please share this newsletter with your car-obsessed friends and encourage them to sign up for the free weekly email. The easy-to-complete form is here. And if you’d like to support the efforts of Hagerty Media, please consider joining the Hagerty Drivers Club.

The post Never Stop Driving #85: Burning Man for Desert Racers appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Tony Stewart is a three-time NASCAR Cup champion, an IndyCar champion, an IROC champion, and a USAC Silver Crown sprint car and midget champion.

At 52, he’d like to add one more: The National Hot Rod Association Top Fuel championship.

Beginning with the NHRA season opener, the Gatornationals at Gainesville Raceway on March 7–10, Stewart will take over the driving duties for his wife, Leah Pruett, in the Tony Stewart Racing 11,000-horsepower, 330-mph Top Fuel car. In 2023, Stewart made his drag racing season debut in a Top Alcohol Dragster, finishing the year second in the standings. But while a Top Alcohol car is fast, a Top Fuel dragster is fast.

“I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little bit nervous about it,” Stewart told Hagerty Media. “But I was a little bit nervous when I went to Daytona for my first Daytona 500, I was nervous before my first Indianapolis 500, I was nervous the first time I got in a full-sized sprint car. I would say it’d be more disturbing if I said I wasn’t a little bit nervous.”

This weekend, Stewart is at the big-money SCAG Power Equipment PRO Superstar Shootout at Bradenton Motorsports Park, just south of Tampa. It’s the first major drag race in decades that isn’t sanctioned by the NHRA—it’s sanctioned by PRO, the Professional Racers Organization, whose members are a who’s who in drag racing. Last year, Stewart was elected to the board.

But Stewart won’t be driving this weekend—it’ll be Pruett’s last race before she steps aside, as she and Stewart are trying to start a family (nothing yet to report on that front, he said). The total purse for the PRO Shootout, the richest drag race in history, is $1.3 million, with $250,000 going to the winner of Top Fuel and Funny Car, and $125,000 to the winner of the Pro Stock class. Pruett, 35, has nine NHRA wins and finished a close third in the 2023 championship.

Stewart and Pruett met at an outing hosted in Utah by the late Ken Block in 2020, and were married a year later. Stewart started a drag racing team with a Top Fuel car driven by Pruett, and a Funny Car driven by Matt Hagan, the current NHRA champion. Stewart still plays a large role in NASCAR, as he and partner Gene Haas own Stewart-Haas Racing, a four-car NASCAR Cup team with drivers Josh Berry, Ryan Preece, Noah Gragson, and Chase Briscoe. Stewart also owns the dirt sprint car driven by Donnie Schatz, a 10-time World of Outlaws champion.

But it’s at drag races where you can usually find Stewart on weekends. “I enjoy it. I enjoy the people, I enjoy the atmosphere, the camaraderie—nothing against the other series, but it has an old-school feel that I haven’t seen in a long time. When I say that I don’t mean that it’s primitive at all, but the amount of fun that I’ve had there, even before I started driving, is considerable. On Friday and Saturday evenings, when the fans have all gone home and the crews are finishing up on their cars, we’re visiting with other teams and socializing and doing things we used to do way back in the day.

“That’s almost non-existent in motorsports. Some of the short-track guys will still hang out with each other when they’re traveling down the road in between races, but aside from that, you really don’t see it anymore.”

Some fans have speculated that the PRO race may be causing some friction with the NHRA, but Stewart disagrees. “There was a lot of animosity at the beginning from the NHRA, but we’re trying some different things that, if they work, maybe the NHRA can adapt down the road and keep growing the sport. This is not the proverbial pissing contest. Teams go south and do pre-season testing, and this event includes two-and-a-half days of testing that teams want to do anyway, with two-and-a-half days of an event attached to it. So to be able to race for the money offered up, and to have a unique format—I mean, I’ve never seen a Top Fuel dragster race a Funny Car. To be able to see that with the cars that don’t make the field—that’s going to be unique. I know it’s been done before, but I’ve never seen it.”

Bradenton Motorsports Park has been open since 1974, but has never hosted an event this size. “The group at Bradenton has done an amazing job to accommodate what needed to happen to make this event possible,” Stewart said. “I don’t think there would have been too many venues outside Bradenton that would have had the balls to make changes that we needed for this event—they haven’t blinked, they haven’t flinched, and that’s one of the reasons why we think this event will be a success.”

Stewart also addressed the challenges that face Stewart-Haas Racing, the NASCAR team. The past two seasons have been “miserable,” Stewart said, and its two most experienced drivers, Kevin Harvick and Aric Almirola, left at the end of 2023. Stewart has taken a lot of criticism, especially on social media, about the lack of competitiveness of Stewart-Haas, with many of the comments centered around the fact that Stewart is spending more time at NHRA races than NASCAR races, and he isn’t happy about it.

During the off-season, “I’ve spent more time in the NASCAR shop than I ever have, in all honesty. I can’t tell you what the results are going to be, but I can tell you that whatever they are, it’s not going to be for lack of effort on anybody’s part.

“I’m tired of hearing race fans complain that I’m not at the racetrack enough—somebody has to have the common sense to remind these fans that I’m not the crew chief, I’m not the engineer, I don’t make the pit strategy calls, I’m not the spotter—my job is to put the people in place to do those jobs. Whatever it is we’re missing is not because we don’t have good people.

“It’s frustrating on my side. It shows me how uneducated some of these fans are, and how they start talking before they think about what they’re saying. You can’t be in every place every time, and I’m not going to go to every NASCAR race. Even if I wasn’t racing in the NHRA, I wouldn’t go to every NASCAR event. It doesn’t mean I don’t care about our race teams, it doesn’t mean I don’t care about our drivers, and it doesn’t mean I don’t care about the results.

“For 20-plus years, NASCAR dominated my life. Now, I’m going to get some of my life back, and do some of the things I want to do, but it doesn’t mean that if we don’t have the results, I’m not putting effort into it. I don’t understand why people would say, after two seasons that went rough, that it’s because I’m not there. I’m confused and baffled by some of the stuff that you read, and the stuff you hear. Just baffled.”

Stewart admitted that he spent more time reading social media comments than he should have. “I had shoulder surgery the day before Thanksgiving, and I literally couldn’t do anything the first two weeks. So I went on the computer, and there was so much on social media—these people have no clue as to what’s going on. They just turn the TV on every Sunday and think they know everything. And they don’t know anything. It’s amusing to read some of it.

“It was a good reminder to just go do your thing. We don’t do all this for them, we do it for ourselves.”

For information about the PRO Shootout, which starts today and runs through Saturday, go to SuperstarShootout.com. For information about the NHRA Gatornationals, log onto NHRA.com.

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post Tony Stewart Is Happy about Drag Racing, Not So Happy about NASCAR appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Few Japanese cars in recent history have garnered the sort of fanfare and adolescent admiration that Toyota’s fourth-generation Supra Turbo has enjoyed. However, its potential on the road course is largely unknown or, more often than not, casually dismissed. Few Supras in the U.S. were modified into casual road-course weapons, and fewer examples of Toyota’s former flagship performance car ever saw sanctioned wheel-to-wheel competition on North American soil.

Housed in that elongated snout was an iron-block straight-six, the 2JZ-GTE, which spoiled the weight distribution slightly. Toyota did its homework, however, and despite its weight (a 1993 car weighs 3480 pounds) and curvaceous shape, the Supra was responsive and surefooted. Those willing and/or able to look past the renowned tuning potential of the powerplant might have recognized a car that could be more than a drag racer, but not many were interested in developing it in that way.

David Schardt, founder of wheel manufacturer Forgeline, was one exception. With the help of Toyota, he not only built a Mk IV Supra to compete in the World Challenge GT series, but, fifteen years after selling the car, he bought it back and made it better—and faster—than ever.

Japanese racers solved the problem of making the Supra corner like a real racer by ditching the big iron lump and using a silhouette body. From 1996 to 2004, GT500-spec Supras raced in the Japanese Grand Touring Championship using an aluminum, two-liter, twin-cam four-cylinder called the 3S-GTE. Its compact package helped move mass towards the middle of the Supra, and, thanks to the time that Toyota had spent refining the engine in the World Rally Championship, the little four-cylinder produced over 200 horsepower more than the 2JZ with which the Supra Turbo left the factory. Granted, a JGTC car shares little more than a silhouette with its production counterpart, but the Supras that competed in this series were, in many people’s eyes, the only fourth-gen models worthy of being called bonafide race cars.

Stateside, there was no comparable series in which the Mk IV Supra showcased its strengths: stability, stopping power, a potent powerplant, and a shape that was not only pleasant to look at but relatively aerodynamic. However, IMSA’s Speedvision Cup series made room for a modified version of the production car to show its strengths in the Street Stock class. This class mandated all the cars stay semi-factory, which made the overbuilt and easily tuned Supra a candidate with real promise.

Among a field of proven Porsches, BMWs, and Mustang Cobras, David Schardt decided to campaign a fourth-generation Supra Turbo. With the help of Shawn Passen from Passen Motorsports, he procured two examples to run in the 1997 and 1998 seasons of the Speedvision Cup. Schardt and Passen mulled over a name that would suit their unproven Japanese sports GT and settled on hikari, Japanese for “light.”

Once stripped of creature comforts, the Supra measured in at 3150 pounds. That made it a middleweight, though it was not so heavy as to overwhelm the factory four-piston calipers, which were quite good: In 1997, Road & Track found that the Supra Turbo could decelerate from 75 to a full stop in just 45 meters (147.6 feet). That stat remained unmatched among road-going vehicles for seven years, when the Porsche Carrera GT beat it.

The Hikari Supra didn’t need much to become road course–worthy, just Koni shocks, TRD swaybars, and a few bolt-on modifications to get the 2JZ breathing freely. (Funny how easily an uncorked 2JZ-GTE could produce 450 horsepower at a time when supercars made roughly the same power.) In this mildly modified state, the motor would run the race distance without losing power, overheating, or suffering any setbacks. “We ran multiple six-hour races with the car in that configuration without a hiccup,” Schardt recounts proudly. With co-driver Kelly Collins, Schardt enjoyed five top-ten finishes in the 1998 season. Fuel economy was what kept them from doing even better.

Cash injection

Toyota had noticed the Hikari Supra and wanted to give its flagship sports car a greater chance to shine. Factory backing can take an ambitious privateer team quite a long way and, with Toyota writing large checks to his team, Hikari Racing, Schardt decided to step into World Challenge GT for the 1999 season.

Since World Challenge’s rule set was more flexible, Toyota wanted the team to start with a clean slate. With a new VINless “crusher” chassis, Hikari Racing began exploring this car’s potential—particularly that of the engine. Out came the factory CT20 turbos and in went a massive Turbonetics TS03 unit.

The big turbo and supporting modifications doubled the factory power figures, but driveability went down the drain. With an aftermarket valvetrain oriented for optimal performance in the higher rev range, the promise for big power was there, but the limitations of aftermarket ECUs from twenty-five years meant power came on like a steam hammer. The MoTeC M48 ECU was cutting-edge stuff in 1999, but even it could not make the motor as tractable as road racing required.

While the rules concerning the powerplant were relatively open, those concerning aerodynamic additions were stricter. An adjustable TRD wing and a custom splitter helped stabilize the Supra at speeds, but it wasn’t forced into the road as aggressively as a contemporary GT2 car, which had comparable power output. Like the other World Challenge cars the Supra was, essentially, a production car that relied primarily on mechanical grip and power to perform.

Schardt and his team ran a simple, effective setup similar to the one they had used for their Super Stock cars: Koni shocks, Eibach springs, and TRD swaybars. Where their setup differed was in the width of the footprint as per the rules of World Challenge GT. However, even 315-section BFGoodrich G-Force tires were too narrow to handle the mule-kick of 500 lb-ft of torque. In most races, the tires would be useless past half-distance; a large amount of their rubber had been painted on the asphalt in long, black streaks.

The added power did more than strain the driven tires. The engine struggled to stay cool for much longer than half of the race—even with the front-mounted HKS intercooler, which, unbeknownst to the team, was obstructing the necessary airflow through the central inlet to the Fluidyne radiator. Their World Challenge GT car was a sprint special: strong in qualifying and capable of sailing off into the distance within the first half of the race, but incapable of sustaining that performance. “It led many races, but never won one,” Schardt says wistfully.

Following the end of the ’99 season, Toyota pulled its funding for the Hikari Supra, which left Schardt with a bitter taste in his mouth. Still, their team had multiple top-five finishes and had finished fourth in the driver’s championship.

Toyota did supply Hikari Racing with two Celicas, but the company’s plan to promote that model didn’t go as successfully: Due to oiling issues, the Celicas never quite performed like their bigger brother. After a lackluster racing season, Schardt decided to park his Toyotas and focus on the growth of his wheel business, Forgeline. In 2001, he sold the Supra to an enthusiast in Ohio and moved on with his life, never expecting to see the rounded yellow hips of his World Challenge car again.

Fifteen years later, that familiar yellow shape popped up on eBay. Schardt, a calm and measured man, could not resist the pull of nostalgia. He made an offer—as it turned out, to the same man to whom he had sold the car in 2001. A couple weeks later, his old warhorse was unloaded at the foot of his driveway.

Schardt had to pinch himself. Though it had developed some patina, the car was cosmetically identical to the way it had left Schardt’s shop. “Even the original decals were still in place!” Schardt laughs.

Tidying up

Time had taken its toll on the Supra, so Schardt began rebuilding the car with the aftermarket support that simply hadn’t been available twenty years earlier. Spurred on by sentimentality, he wrote a few sizable checks that would do the old Supra justice.

First came the footwork. Hoosier R7 slicks now wrap Forgeline GW3R wheels at each corner. With Titan sway bars, MCS Double Adjustable shocks, and solid bushings all around, the Supra is even more surefooted and responsive than before, although the overall weight hasn’t changed. Two decades of improvements in tire tech make traction and turn-in far better than they were in the race car’s heyday.

So much of the old engine’s habit of overheating was due to poor management of aerodynamics. Titan’s custom undertray now helps direct airflow which once escaped underneath the car through the radiator. Also, the airflow through Supra’s inlets—two wing inlets and a larger central one—was not being wisely utilized back when the intercooler was positioned directly ahead of the radiator. After Schardt swapped the front-mount intercooler for a custom side-mount item housed in the area behind the right wing inlet, a known low-pressure zone, both coolers are fed more efficiently.

In pursuit of boost

Titan handled the engine rebuild, and this time used TMS 264 cams, Carillo rods, and CP pistons. The resulting 9:0:1 compression ratio is ideal for the high-boost setup, which comes courtesy of a Garrett GTW6465R turbocharger. To make the most of beefier internals and a big whistler, Schardt opted for a modern MoTeC M800 ECU. Not only does it help maximize power output across the entire rev range, but it supplies Schardt with a host of features to make the motor run more smoothly and safely. Few cars can match the Supra at places like Road America, save for some of the big-block cars.

Performance over the subsequent two seasons of vintage racing has been stellar—the Supra finished fourth in its class at Indianapolis in 2023—but racing takes its toll on even the strongest engines. A recent inspection of the oil pan showed plenty of glittery shavings. Schardt deferred to local Supra specialist Thomas Harless, who gave him the horrible prognosis: The crank bearings were damaged. A full rebuild was in order.

Schardt wasn’t fazed. Ever an optimist, he saw this as an opportunity to find more power and a touch more response—and he got half of what he wanted. After rebuilding the motor and adding a larger oil pump, he opted for a GTW3586 turbo for a more progressive onset of torque—or so he hoped. However, the new head, ported by Titan and boasting hotter cams, flows so well that the little GTW comes on violently. Schardt is back to the lightswitch power delivery of the old days.

Although the latest iteration of the 2JZ isn’t as wieldy as he’d like, at least he doesn’t have to lift the hood most weekends. When he does, the motor is more easily serviceable than it’s ever been; additional MoTeC safeguards as well as a set of easily accessed wastegates have made mid-weekend fixes much easier.

Schardt’s World Challenge years might have been the best of his life, but reuniting with the car, optimizing it, and finally finishing on the SVRA podium is sweet, overdue vindication. Finally, the Supra has the reliability and stamina it lacked in its heyday. The big grand tourer has become more than a one-lap special: By finishing fourth in class at Indianapolis in 2023 against Mercedes, Porsche, and Audi GT3s from the 2000s and 2010s, the Supra has proven it’s fast, even by modern standards. “We’re gunning for a win next year,” Schardt said.

Plus, it regularly draws crowds. The old Supra is popular because it is quick, and because it spits fire and whistles away like no modern car will. If you ever see it race in person, you’ll understand why Schardt just couldn’t let his Supra stay away from him forever.

In 2024, Schardt plans to race the Supra the WeatherTech® International Challenge with Brian Redman at Road America (July 11–14) and at Historic Festival 42 at Lime Rock (August 30–September 2).

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post Hikari Supra: Reunited with Its First Driver, This Racer Is Better Than Ever appeared first on Hagerty Media.

This Ford fanatic found, restored and ultimately lost a Shelby Mustang race car. Today, his ride pays homage to that very special machine.

Phil Jacobs is a Ford guy. A one-time dealer tech, he proved outstanding in that role, so Ford brought him into the mother ship to answer service and repair questions for dealer mechanics nationwide. He has a particular fondness for Mustangs and has owned several, including a 2006 Mustang GT that is the current object of his affection.

That Mustang GT stands out in a crowd. Sure, it’s a pretty red car in pristine condition, but that’s not what draws your attention. Rather it’s the car’s dressage, a near-perfect livery of the Shelby Trans-Am Mustang in which Jerry Titus won his class at the 1968 24 Hours of Daytona. Why? The simple answer is that the ’06 Mustang’s graphics are meant to honor Titus, the Trans-Am Mustangs of the late ’60, and, most importantly, a very special Shelby Trans-Am race car that Jacobs will never forget.

Titus was a journalist who had shown promise behind the wheel of several race cars when Carroll Shelby offered him a place on his SCCA National Championship Trans-Am team. I can attest that those kinds of offers seldom come to those of us who wield the pen. But Titus quickly proved his worth, winning the Trans-Am series driver championships in ’66 and ’67 while helping clinch the manufacturer’s championship for Ford in that second season.

Titus’s successful ’67 season made him solidly number one on the ’68 Shelby Terlingua Racing Team, and, along with his co-driver, he began the campaign with a class win at the 24 Hours of Daytona. A big number 1 on the door would later identify his red Mustang as the car to beat. A second Shelby Trans-Am Mustang was prepped for Horst Kweck and various name racers who opted in for a single event or more. Ford provided a third Mustang for the Shelby team, but it was never raced and probably never fully prepped for battle. Instead, it gathered dust in the Shelby garage.

The Shelby team suffered multiple engine failures and a rash of DNFs during the ’68 season. According to Jacobs and other sources, the engine failures were largely the result of Ford’s insistence that the race car engines could only be built at company headquarters in Dearborn. In ’66 and ’67, the Shelby team had developed its own engines. To further complicate things, the ’68 engines were a new design that used tunnel-port heads similar to those used on the big-displacement NASCAR engines, and they initially proved difficult to tune. With the lack of team control over assembly, and problems dialing in the tunnel-port engines, the results were disastrous.

By the end of the season, with no Mustang championship in sight, Titus jumped ship and signed on with the Pontiac Firebird team. He saw some success in ’69, once again winning his class at Daytona but again frequently failing to finish. He was tragically killed in an accident while practicing for the 1970 Road America Trans-Am race.

Jacobs was still a youngster when Ford dominated Trans-Am early on, but he was old enough to relish their success. With a passion for Mustangs, he bought his first, a ’71 Mach 1, shortly before starting as a Ford dealer repair technician in 1977. He put his mechanical skills to work on that Mustang and had it running 12-second elapsed times at the Milan, Michigan dragstrip. But he was a road racer at heart and longed to take to the track in a car like those his heroes drove in the late ’60s.

Meanwhile, the third ’68 Shelby Mustang Trans-Am, the one that had never seen a racetrack, was passed from one owner to another. Shelby first sold it to an independent Trans-Am racer by the name of Bill Pendleton. Before Pendleton could prep the car for competition, he signed on with a race team and sold the unfinished car. In subsequent years, it apparently went from one owner to the next, all planning to complete it but never succeeding. After nearly 20 years of foster care, it went to John Hancock, an Oregon enthusiast.

Hancock knew he had what was likely a historic automobile but was unable to document it to the satisfaction of the Shelby American Automobile Club (SAAC). At the time, the club, which was founded in 1976, had yet to develop a comprehensive registry. Frustrated, Hancock decided to sell it. Jacobs heard of the car through his Ford connections and suspected it was truly one of the Shelby race cars. In one of the great automotive bargains of all time, he purchased the rusting hulk for $1500 in 1987. The price for shipping it from the West Coast to Michigan was a hundred bucks more than the cost of the car.

With the bare bones of a Trans-Am Mustang in his garage, Jacobs went to work learning as much as he could about the Shelby race cars, traveling to swap meets to hunt for parts, calling former Shelby crew members, and more. To say he was thorough would be an understatement.

“I didn’t start working on the car until I had a full picture of exactly what an authentic ’68 Shelby Trans-Am Mustang should be,” said Jacobs.

Several years of research provided that picture, and in 1990, he got to work. Some of the metalwork was completed by a respected restorer of Ford automobiles, but Jacobs did much of it himself. The finished car was exactly what it would have been in ’68 had the Shelby team completed it.

Jacobs was as particular about the powertrain as he was with the sheet metal and was able to obtain a tunnel-port 302 cubic-inch Ford engine that was a duplicate of those that the team struggled with in ’68, but he also built a standard-port engine, an identical copy of the ’67 version that had earned Ford and Titus a championship. That engine generated 442 horsepower and 372 lb-ft of torque, using only the hardware on which the Shelby team had relied. With more modern systems, the engine could have been more potent, but Jacobs is big on authenticity. Despite not having as much power as some vintage racers, he was still able to win four of the 12 vintage races he entered.

It wasn’t only Jacobs’ engine that was a copy of the one that took Titus to championships. The paint scheme and graphics were what Titus used as well. Although the ’68 car was red at Daytona, yellow was the predominant Shelby team color. Jacobs duplicated that yellow paint and made exact copies of all decals and trim.

Although completing the restoration was rewarding, authentication and affirmation were important to Jacobs as well. His extensive research and efforts to fully document the car finally paid off in full when SAAC acknowledged that the Jacobs Mustang was one of the three cars that Ford had provided for the Shelby race team.

Jacobs continued to race the Shelby ‘Stang for 15 years, enjoying every minute of it. In a Trans-Am vintage race in Waterford, Michigan, he held the lead until the last lap when he braked late and ran off the track. Although he lost the overall battle, he got back on track in time to win his class. In a Shelby event at Tulsa, Oklahoma, he beat a big-block ’69 Mustang for the overall win. And in a mixed-field vintage race at Mid-Ohio, he was sparring with an L88 Corvette that would put bus lengths on the little Mustang in the straights, only to be passed in the corners. As Jacobs recalls, the Corvette owner was both distressed and impressed.

In 2005, divorce changed everything. Given Michigan’s divorce laws, the Shelby Trans-Am was community property. Without the funds needed to buy out his ex-wife, Jacobs was forced to sell the Shelby ‘Stang. It went for $125,000, a substantial amount thanks to the extensive provenance that Jacobs had developed and the authenticity of the car’s restoration. Had the Shelby team used the car in competition, it probably would have sold for twice that.

Jacobs missed his very special car but got on with his life and kept on smiling. “I was a mechanic,” he says. “I never had much, but the funds generated from the sale of the car enabled me to buy a house.”

In that house, he put together an elaborate race-themed man cave with many photos of his race car, hundreds of models, and a wealth of Ford racing memorabilia.

Although he was no longer the owner of a Shelby race car, Jacobs had developed a love of road racing, so he rented a spec ’95 Mustang GT race car from a friend and ran several Camaro Mustang Challenge races sanctioned by the National Auto Sport Association. At Indiana’s Putnam Park Road Course, he qualified number one and set a new lap record but was experiencing health issues and couldn’t continue.

Those health issues were revealed to be due to a cardiac problem that required surgery and left Jacobs ineligible for a competition license.

While he could no longer rub sheet metal on the racetrack, he bought the slightly used 2006 Mustang GT and dressed it in Titus livery. Jacobs was, and so remains, a committed Mustang lover.

But old racers rarely hang up their helmets for good. And they don’t have to, thanks to track days where one can enjoy the thrill of hitting the apex and roaring down the straightaway without serious risk. So, these days, Jacobs can be seen at track days throughout the Midwest, driving a beautiful red Mustang GT dressed in the livery of a car and driver long gone.

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post Ford Fanatic Pays Homage to Shelby Mustang Race Car He Loved and Lost appeared first on Hagerty Media.

One of the worst side effects of digital photography is the additional step that it takes to bring your photography into the real world. If you’re not diligent in saving files or inspired to make prints, whole catalogs can be lost to the annals of time. Without physical negatives, plenty of my photos that grace this website no longer exist beyond a line of code in our system. It’s a major bummer.

And I’ve only been shooting for six years. Imagine a career photographer’s photo storage conundrum. I have plenty of colleagues who squirrel their stuff in hard drives that look like bank safes. That’s all well and good, but what happens if, one day, that drive doesn’t turn on? The world will have gained one more paperweight.

The Revs Institute in Naples, Florida, gets it. This repository of automotive history and memory includes over 120 archival collections, 26,000 books, and 200,000 magazine and journal issues. Even better, they are open to researchers and the public by appointment. and Revs’ extensive photo collection is available online through the Revs Digital Library (RDL)—presently with 700,000+ images and counting.

The Institute is currently in the process of digitizing another two million shots, including images by the recently acquired André Van Bever Photography Archive. “Throughout his career, André Van Bever chronicled motor racing history, from Juan Manuel Fangio in 1949 to Niki Lauda in 1975, making him one of the most renowned visual witnesses of post-war motorsport,” said Scott George, Curator of Collections.

Preservation of information might be the most important thing on this planet. For my money, photos are artifacts right up there with the Declaration of Independence, the Parthenon, and Dale Sr.’s helmet. Luckily, the Revs Institute recognizes the importance—and the impact—of preserved shots within automotive space.

“Caring for photographs is a real responsibility, because by and large, they are unique,” said Miles Collier, founder of the Revs Institute, in a press release. “They are one image taken by one photographer, at one moment in time, and if something happens to that image that moment in time is forever lost.”

Van Bever was born in Brussels in 1922. His career in photojournalism began at 18 years old when he covered a motorcycle race at the Bois de la Cambre in Brussels as a favor for a friend.

In 1947, he began a 28-year stint as the official photographer of Belgian newspaper Les Sports. Throughout his career, he was assisted by his wife, Nicole Englebert-Van Bever.

“I realize now that he had an artistic side, but he didn’t [realize it],” Englebert-Van Bever told Revs. “Although, I found there is an element of research in every photo. He saw himself as more of a photojournalist who was always under pressure. He wasn’t aware of his artistic side in my opinion.”

The couple became close friends with many of the drivers, especially fellow Belgians Paul Frère, Olivier Gendebien, Lucien Bianchi, and others.

Van Bever’s negatives will be cleaned, logged, and processed over the coming year, then uploaded to the RDL and tagged so that the photos are searchable by scholars and the general public. (The entire RDL can be found at library.revsinstitute.org.) Until then, check out a sampling of Van Bever’s remarkable work in the slideshow below.

The post 18 Moments of Motorsport Magic Through André Van Bever’s Lens appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Tuesday was a big day for stock car racing as NASCAR: Full Speed debuted on Netflix. The five-episode docuseries follows last year’s 16 playoff drivers as they race toward the 2023 NASCAR Cup Series Championship.

If you’re apprehensive about yet another motorsports documentary, I get it. I certainly was.

Since its debut in 2019, F1’s Drive to Survive has become a global phenomenon, perhaps making the biggest waves right here in the States. According to a Nielsen study, the sport’s U.S. fan base grew about 10 percent in light of the show’s success. Fun stat: More than 360,000 viewers who didn’t view F1 in the latter part of the 2021 season watched F1 racing in 2022 after first watching Drive to Survive.

These stats were likely regurgitated in the board room of every motorsports sanctioning body here to Timbuktu, as aspiring documentarians pitched other series on similar ideas. In the past few years, plenty of disciplines have rushed to make a bare-all docuseries. In 2022, the USA Network premiered a 10-episode NASCAR series, Race for the Championship. Last year, IndyCar launched 100 Days to Indy on the CW. Both were legitimate attempts but lacked the trademark rawness and drama that Drive to Survive served in its five seasons.

The rumblings surrounding NASCAR: Full Speed signaled that the show might be different. For one, the project had some serious power players in the mix. The production studio Words + Pictures was behind the lens. If that sounds familiar, this is the same group who created The Last Dance, a ten-part documentary that focuses on Michael Jordan’s final season with the Chicago Bulls, and the 2017 Academy Award-winning O.J.: Made in America.

Oh, and retired NASCAR superstar Dale Earnhardt Jr. is the executive producer.

Still, I’ve been bit before. When you know a subject matter so intimately, a production’s flaws can stick out like a sore thumb. I recently watched a tennis expert break down the inconsistencies in Break Point, another hot Netflix doc produced by the Drive to Survive crew.

Girding myself for disappointment, I tuned into the big red ‘N.’

The first episode opens in Martinsville, Virginia, at the penultimate race of the season. It’s a time of high stress for the remaining playoff drivers who are attempting to make the final four cutoff for the season-ending showdown in Phoenix. This is a great snapshot of the sport at its most tense. The intimate pre-race convos between lovers and teammates, which are rarely shared during the event’s traditional coverage, excellently build the suspense. Long gone are the early-season races, where a mulligan or two can be tolerated; it’s go-time in Martinsville.

Then, the show quickly pivots, jumping back a couple of months to the days leading up to the playoffs and the respective cutoff race in Daytona. This Tarantino-style timeline could be confusing to the entry-level viewer, however, the doc employs a fuzzied shock jock radio voice to slowly explain the context. We join Denny Hamlin as he prepares his two daughters for school.

Throughout the episode, we’re given incredible access to the personal lives of each driver in the spotlight. This is where the show shines. It’s intriguing to watch these superstars who wrestle race cars around the track at 200 miles per hour performing mundane tasks. Hamlin burns a pancake during his family’s morning routine.

Unsurprisingly, it is the veteran driver Hamlin who provides the best sound bites: “I don’t want my competition thinking ‘Oh gee shucks, what a nice guy.’ F*ck that.”

In addition to interviews with a roster of drivers, you also hear from plenty of pundits and even executive producer Dale Jr., who eloquently explains the sport’s subtle complexities and provides clear context. In fact, as you roll through the midpoint of the episode, the experienced NASCAR fan will start to understand the intended purpose of this docuseries: make new fans.

First, the decision to set the first episode at Daytona is intentional. It’s the same track that will open the 2024 season in a couple of weeks. What a way to prime an audience. Second, the explanation of NASCAR’s playoff system, one of the most nuanced components of the sport, is laid out and explained multiple times so that even a person who has never witnessed a stock car race can comprehend. Drafting, inspection, personas, reputations—everything is laid out like a grade school curriculum.

At one point, bored of explanation, I started to reach for my phone. Then, the cameras travel inside a hauler to listen to a prerace speech from a crew chief. Wait, I’ve never seen that. We even see team owner Coach Joe Gibbs pull Hamlin aside to talk about a soundbite that aired on the driver’s podcast earlier in the week. Juicy!

And it’s all shot and composed really well. There’s plenty of neat framing, unique perspectives, and a great soundtrack.

Despite setting most of the first episode at Daytona, a place where Dale Earnhardt dominated but ultimately passed away, there is no mention of the Intimidator. There isn’t mention of any Hall of Fame driver, for that matter. Make no mistake, the series is here to explain today’s NASCAR. That might rub some fanatics the wrong way, but for the sake of the sport’s future, I’m fine with highlighting modern-day heroes. The lack of personality is one of NASCAR’s current issues and NASCAR: Full Speed is trying to provide a remedy.

Bubba Wallace, the second-ever Black driver to win in NASCAR’s premier level, is chronicled heavily in the first episode. Rightfully so. Wallace has worked his tail off to be in the Cup Series, and found himself right on the playoff cut line during the show’s filming. He also drives for Hamlin and co-owner Michael Jordan. Yeah, that Jordan.

The episode ends with the closing laps at Daytona. A huge flip is followed by late-race dueling, and a triumphant—and exhausted—Bubba Wallace on pit lane receiving congratulations from teammates and Jordan alike. Orville Peck’s “Daytona Sand” accompanies the scene. This doc consistently has the kind of stuff that will likely put your arm hair on end, even if you aren’t a NASCAR fan.

NASCAR: Full Speed is an excellent primer for new fans and provides plenty of intimate never-before-seen moments for the most devout followers, and it wraps it all in a shiny cinematic bow. I’m excited to watch the next episode.

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post Review: Netflix’s <em>NASCAR: Full Speed</em> Targets Newcomers, Satisfies Oval Obsessives appeared first on Hagerty Media.

This interview first appeared on our site in 2019, on the 55th anniversary of Hopkirk’s historic victory. He passed away in July 2022, but we wanted to update the story to mark the 60th anniversary of his win, because it remains no less monumental today as it did then. —Ed.

No one expected him to win, not the competition, not the race officials, and not even the driver himself. Yet 55 years ago, Patrick “Paddy” Hopkirk and his co-driver Henry Liddon came out ahead in one of the greatest David versus Goliath motorsports battles ever. Pitched against factory teams from Mercedes-Benz, Saab, Volvo, Citroën, and Ford’s onslaught of eight V-8-powered Falcons, Hopkirk’s bright red Mini Cooper S emerged victorious as the winner of the 1964 Monte Carlo rally.

Overnight, Paddy Hopkirk became a household name, and the Mini cemented a lasting reputation for punching well above its weight. This year [2019] being the 60th anniversary of Mini, we caught up with Paddy at his Buckinghamshire home in the UK to talk about his greatest race.

“At the time, I didn’t realize how important it was going to be,” he says. “It was just another rally win to me.”

In the winter of 1963 Hopkirk wasn’t famous, but well-known in rallying circles. He’d cut his teeth on motorized contraptions early, flogging a highly unstable, inherited 250cc invalid carriage around an estate near his Belfast home as a child, and then moving into autotest handling competitions in his university days. Success came early, rallying VW Beetles and later Triumphs around the narrow lanes of the Irish countryside.

Hopkirk was initially unimpressed by the Mini. “I saw it coming into the local showrooms,” he says. “At the time, we sort of laughed at it. We called it the district nurse’s car. My [BMC] team manager Stuart Turner convinced me to have a go in a Cooper [at Oulton Park Circuit] and I remember being absolutely knocked over by it. The performance, the handling—it was love at first drive.”

What was to become the most famous Cooper in the world, registration number 33 EJB, was successfully campaigned by Hopkirk at the 1963 Tour de France. He beat out the 3.8-liter Jaguar Mk IIs in the Touring division, finished first in his class, and when the handicaps were worked out, ended up besting a Ferrari 250 GTO driven by Jean Guichet, later winner of the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1964.

The three months prior to the 1964 event required painstaking reconnaissance of the mountain passes around Monte Carlo. Preparation was a grind, but a shared task. “Rallying’s not like an Olympic sport,” says Hopkirk. “It’s a team effort. I had a wonderful team coordinator, wonderful mechanics, the right team.”

Unlike modern stage rallies, the Monte Carlo rally didn’t start from a single location, but required first driving long distance from one of nine European cities to a gathering point to begin the timed sections. BMC racing manager Turner hedged his bets by dividing up his teams to improve the odds. Crews were sent to far-flung places like Glasgow and Athens. In the case of Hopkirk, Liddon, and 33 EJB, the spot was Minsk in Russia—behind the Iron Curtain.

“I, like an idiot, put my hand up, because I’d never been [to the Soviet Union],” Hopkirk says.

Having a sense of adventure was key to the rallying spirit in those days, as was an entrepreneurial bent. Hopkirk took along a supply of nylon stockings and bartered them for a huge tin of Number One beluga caviar, which he stashed among the spare parts in his Cooper, hoping to sell it for a profit when they arrived in Monte Carlo. Just getting to the gathering point in Reims, France was a difficult task.

“We had to press on because you never knew what was around the corner,” Hopkirk explains. “We didn’t go flat out, but you had to build up time. You’d be driving along and hear a mechanical noise, and just hope that the mechanics could fix it when you caught up to them. But you weren’t always sure where they were going to be. There was very little communication.”

To stave off weariness, Hopkirk and Liddon relied on Dexedrine and coffee. Liddon operated the roof-mounted light to shine around corners while Hopkirk tried to make time on unfamiliar roads in darkness. At last, they arrived in Reims, and the rally began in earnest. It almost immediately ended in disaster.

On the first day, the team was stopped by a policeman for accidentally turning the wrong direction up a one-way road. Hopkirk flipped on the charm and claimed he had given up the rally and was only heading home because his mother had died. If arrested, the team would have been instantly disqualified. They got away with it, turned the corner, and went flat out to make up for lost time.

“Nobody knew what was happening,” he says of the special stages. “When you started, one set of officials would mark down the time, and another set would record when you arrived on the other side of the mountain. The results were sent on ahead, but until it was all calculated, no one knew how they were doing. As we were heading into Monte Carlo, Stuart Turner asked us, ‘How’ve you done, lads?’ and we replied, ‘We don’t know but we haven’t hit anything.’”

Icy conditions and narrow roads, however, proved a considerable advantage for the small, front-drive Mini. “The French plows made a hard bank, and if the Mini got sideways it didn’t hit, not like the larger cars. Front-wheel drive was fast and safe on the downhills.”

Overall, Ford’s Falcon team was quicker on nearly every stage except those on the narrowest roads. However, their 289-cubic-inch V-8s were more than four times the size of the 1071-cc engine in the Cooper. Hopkirk was quick behind the wheel and mechanically sympathetic to the little Mini. “Left-foot braking is a bit overrated,” he says. “Fast, but you break the car.”

Finally, after four days and nights, they all arrived in Monte Carlo for a well-deserved break. Hopkirk remembers getting a call from French journalist Bernard Cahier at four o’clock in the morning, telling him that the Mini team might have won the whole rally. He didn’t believe him.

But next morning, the results were up on the board, and Hopkirk and Liddon were in the lead. There was just one final stage to go: five laps of the F1 circuit around Monaco.

“I felt a bit of pressure,” Hopkirk says. “But we had enough of a lead that I didn’t have to drive too fast. I just didn’t want to make any stupid mistakes and break the car.”

On the Monaco circuit, Swede Bosse Ljungfelt was finally able to use the full V-8 power of his Ford Falcon and was around 30 seconds faster around the course than Hopkirk’s Cooper. Even so, when the dust settled, the Mini had accumulated 2,152.1 penalty points to the Ford’s 2,216.2.

“I have a photo of [Mini designer] Alec Issigonis and [F1 champion] Fangio and me drinking champagne and eating the caviar out of that tin on the balcony of the Hotel Paris,” Hopkirk laughs. “I never got paid for it.”

The victory made headlines around the world, with LIFE magazine dispatching a reporter to cover the story, and congratulatory notes from the British and Northern Irish Prime Ministers. At the height of Beatlemania, Hopkirk even got fan mail from the Fab Four.

All these years later, Hopkirk is humble about the win, noting that the effort was as much about mechanics lying under cars in cold ditches as it was about the driving. “I was lucky to be in the right place at the right time,” he says.

A bit of luck, some cheeky daring, and the skill to go flat out when it really matters. No one saw Paddy Hopkirk and his Mini Cooper coming 55 years ago, but they slew the giants, and became legends.

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post 60 Years On, Paddy Hopkirk’s ’64 Monte Carlo Rally Win Is Still Racing’s Greatest Underdog Story appeared first on Hagerty Media.

The rumors were running rampant in the Daytona garages during the Rolex 24 race last weekend: IMSA and IndyCar team owner Chip Ganassi ran over and killed Lucky, a Golden Retriever puppy owned by IndyCar driver Devlin DeFrancesco—and Ganassi didn’t stop or say he was sorry. The police were called, and there was an investigation.

We now know that only some of this is true. Nevertheless, the motorsports social media blew up with the story. Feeding the flames was a post from Andy DeFrancesco, Devlin’s father: “It’s a crime that anyone has to go through this and Lucky had to suffer the way he did. It’s unconscionable people don’t acknowledge their actions or show any remorse.”

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Devlin DeFrancesco (@devlindefran)

It all started when Jenna Fryer, the motorsports correspondent for the Associated Press, posted this on X: “Devlin DeFrancesco’s golden retriever puppy was run over and killed in the motorhome lot,” a fenced-off area where drivers and team owners stay. Next post from Fryer, who was getting major criticism on social media for her first post: “I would not have tweeted about Dev’s dog if it wasn’t literally the talk of the pre-race grid. It was in the motorhome lot. Which means someone authorized to be driving a car in the lot was involved. I’ve asked for a statement from the other party involved.”

Multiple reports on social media said it was Ganassi, but like a responsible reporter, Fryer didn’t say so until she heard from him. Which she did late Monday. That post reads: “Chip Ganassi has confirmed to me that he accidentally hit Devlin’s dog, says he did stop his car and is ‘terribly sad about it.’ He says he spoke to four different police officers on site that evening. He said his multiple attempts to call the DeFrancesco’s have gone unanswered.”

Next post from Fryer: “It was imperative for me to speak to Chip before I could responsibly give more details because it is my understanding this was a wildly chaotic scene, and very different versions from both sides about the moments after Lucky was struck.”

Meanwhile, Devlin DeFrancesco, 24, 2022 Daytona winner in the LMP2 class, had to suit up and drive for Forte Racing’s Lamborghini Huracán GT3 in the GTD class. It was not easy. An Instagram post from him, with a picture of Lucky, which he got in September: “I’m going to miss you more than you know. Thank you for being my best friend. I love you more than anything in the world. I’ll see you on the other side, until we meet again.”

His girlfriend Katie posted this: “Words will never describe the pain of losing our baby last night. Thank you for the best five months we could have ever dreamed of. We love you forever, Lucky.”

I want to thank everyone who reached out to @DevlinDeFran Katie & my kids
Thank You

It’s a crime that anyone has to go through this and Lucky had to suffer the way he did

It’s unconscionable people don’t acknowledge their actions or show any remorse#RIPLucky @JennaFryer pic.twitter.com/5MzcL0xtaS

— Andy DeFrancesco (@DeFrancesco_A) January 28, 2024

It turned out to be a long day for Forte Racing. Misha Goikhberg, who co-drove with DeFrancesco in 2022, crashed the Lamborghini into a tire wall 26 minutes into the 24-hour race. The team fixed the car and soldiered on, finishing 40th in the 59-car field and 16th in class.

As for DeFrancesco: His contract to drive in IndyCar for Andretti Autosport ended in 2023, when the team downsized from four cars to three for 2024. He hasn’t announced a new ride for this year. But he will be with Forte Racing for the four remaining IMSA sports car endurance races, including the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring in March.

A final post from DeFrancesco: “Thank you to everyone who’s reached out to me over the last couple of days! I’m truly grateful. Thank you to Forte Racing and my awesome teammates, looking forward to getting home and going to Sebring soon!”

RIP, Lucky.

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post Chip Ganassi Accidentally Ran Over Driver’s Puppy at Daytona appeared first on Hagerty Media.

So far as I know, time machines do not exist. The closest humans come is when they race vintage cars: specifically, at the Goodwood Motor Circuit in Chichester, UK. The track facilities have been unchanged for decades, and, at its famous Revival event in the fall or its exclusive Members’ Meeting in the spring, the cars look plucked out of black-and-white photos. As their drivers hustle them around the nine turns of the 2.4-mile track, you can see a century’s worth of vehicles pass by the grandstands in a single weekend.

It’s a lot to take in when the cars are passing by at speed, and it is somehow even more fascinating to see the cars all parked. Well, at least when almost all of them seem to be parked under one roof—one very cool roof owned by a very cool person: Gary Pearson. He’s the second-generation owner of Pearson Engineering LTD in Newcastle upon Tyne, better known as the shop that keeps Goodwood going fast.

The story of how it all started is pretty humble. John Pearson, the founder of Pearson Engineering, was a quick driver and a good wrench, which meant other drivers naturally started asking for his help preparing their race cars. That was the early 1960s. John specialized in Jaguars but would take on other makes too and, after 20 years in business, the second Pearson stepped in. Gary was just 21 years old and fresh out of school with an engineering degree and has been at the shop ever since.

The grouping of unassuming buildings sitting in the countryside holds a workshop worthy of the stars. Well, the star cars at least. From a Group C Jaguar to Shelby Cobras, there is just about anything you can imagine. That array of machines requires a team of mechanics unlike any other. Gary points out that a lot of his employees are technicians who retired from Formula 1, so there is certainly no lack of experience or understanding. If a person can make sense of a modern F1 car, a D-Type Jaguar certainly won’t be so bad.

Since the 2024 vintage-racing season is about to kick off, the cars sitting in the Pearson shop are especially drool-worthy, but what really caught our attention were the storage shelves. Gary strolls through some of the storage area and grabs parts off a shelf, casually recalling when, where, and why the team at Pearson Engineering undertook a mission to reproduce it. Under a few vintage wood steering wheels hung neatly from another shelf sits a box containing all the gears of a Porsche 917. The machines that could be assembled from the spares in storage would be humbling.

There are so many amazing shops tucked around the world that keep vintage racers going fast, and most are staffed by humble gearheads like Gary, who just care about the history that these vintage cars carry and the fun that they bring with them everywhere. It’s still a few months until the Goodwood Members’ Meeting in April, but when the green flag drops, we will be cheering and looking for the cars we saw in the background of this shop tour. It ought to be a fun game of “I Spy” that everyone will win.

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post Tour the Unassuming Shop that Keeps the Cars of Goodwood Fast appeared first on Hagerty Media.

There’ll be a Motown fight fest in Florida this weekend when the Chevy Corvette and Ford Mustang compete in the 62nd running of the 24 Hours of Daytona. This kickoff to the 2024 racing season, officially known as the Rolex 24 at Daytona, will be broadcast on Imsa.tv and Peacock. Can I get an Al Pacino Hoo-Ah?

Against all odds, sports car racing is healthier than it has ever been, with more than a dozen car companies directly or indirectly spending millions to field race cars. Why the sudden resurgence in racing investment from carmakers around the globe? Because they’ve realized they’re not simply in the “mobility” business; they are in the “passion” business. And there’s no better way to prove automotive passion than on a racetrack. Not long ago, the common narrative was that cars would evolve into faceless pods and racing would remain only for a few Luddites still clinging to their steering wheels. The adage, “Win on Sunday, sell on Monday” still has legs. Hoo-Ah!

Sports car racing has long existed in the shadows of NASCAR here in the States and Formula 1 internationally. Sure, fans tune in for the 24 Hours of Le Mans, but sports-car racing viewership generally trails far behind those series and IndyCar. Since most car companies treat racing as marketing, the series with the largest viewership typically enjoy all the dollars. Yet tens of millions are pouring into IMSA, the sanctioning body behind the 24 Hours of Daytona and the rest of the season.

There are 59 cars on the grid this weekend, divided over four classes, and all cars and classes run on track at the same time. Essentially, there are four races in one, with two distinct types of cars: 1) the oddly named “prototypes,” which are pure-bred racing machines, and 2) the GT cars that are based on familiar road cars you can buy. For more details, check out this explainer I wrote last year.

The Corvette and Mustang GT will race against each other and against Ferrari, Porsche, Aston Martin, Lexus, Mercedes, Lamborghini, and Acura. The variety of makes is unheard of, made possible by a rules scheme known as “Balance of Performance,” or BOP for short.

Under BOP, the rules are in constant flux. Officials adjust a car’s minimum weight, engine horsepower, and many other details to equalize the performance potential of all the cars racing. Everyone complains about BOP, how it unfairly favors one car over another, but no one’s come up with a better scheme so that a Mustang can run with a Ferrari. Judging by the size of the field, the racers are generally okay with it. I had a fascinating conversation about BOP and the race with longtime racing journalist Marshall Pruett. Listen on Apple, Spotify, and YouTube.

While we’re talking motorsports, 61-year-old Carlos Sainz proved that old guys do indeed rule when he won the weeklong desert-racing suffer fest known as the Dakar Rally. Sainz drove a series-hybrid Audi RS Q e-tron with a race engine that powers a generator, which in turn feeds electrical energy to two electric motors. With carbon-fiber body panels, gullwing doors, and a suspension that would laugh at Detroit potholes, the otherworldly Audi had me fantasizing all week about bounding through desert terrain at breakneck speed. Check it out here.

And here’s my weekly roundup of favorites from the Hagerty Media universe, all sure to entertain and inform you this winter weekend if, like me, you’re not fortunate enough to be at Daytona International Speedway:

• The heart-breaking case of a passionate NASCAR fan and his museum
• More from Dakar: The weirdest cars
• What we learned after Mecum recently auctioned some 4000 cars
• We revived a seized Ford V-8 for a Pantera
• Our man in England, Henry Catchpole, drives a modernized version of a rally hero
• This tasteful Model A hot rod and dozens of interesting prewar cars from the Jim Wilson collection are currently available over at Hagerty Marketplace.

Thanks for reading! If you’d like to support us, please share our material and join the Hagerty Drivers Club.

Have a great weekend!

-Larry

***

P.S.: Your feedback is very welcome. Comment below!

Please share this newsletter with your car-obsessed friends and encourage them to sign up for the free weekly email. The easy-to-complete form is here.

Want more? Be part of the movement and join the Hagerty Drivers Club. Also, stay up to date on tons of free content and videos at Hagerty.com/media. 

The post Never Stop Driving #83: Corvette vs. Mustang appeared first on Hagerty Media.

California 68 is a highway that begins in the town of Pacific Grove at Asilomar State Beach, winds through the Monterey Peninsula, and ends where the road meets U.S. Highway 101 near Salinas.

Along that 26.5-mile route, you’ll find WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca, the 2.238-mile, 11-turn road course. Built over just two months for $1.5 million, the track opened in 1957 after the Pebble Beach Road Races. That competition was held on public roads for seven years beginning in 1950, ending in 1956 after driver Ernie McAfee, known more for his land speed exploits in his streamliner at Lake Muroc than for road racing, crashed his Ferrari into one of the many trees that lined the street circuit. McAfee was killed.

For decades, Highway 68 was just a winding, scenic way to get from Monterey to Salinas, with Laguna Seca being one of few notable addresses on the road. In the mid-1960s, California officials made plans for the Highway 68 Expressway, widening parts of the road and essentially serving as a non-stop link between the cities. The idea was popular with travelers but less so with some local residents, who were not pleased with the potential for added traffic.

In 1974, those residents formed the Highway 68 Coalition to oppose the Expressway. Though the membership of the Coalition has rarely been publicized, one aspect has remained constant: It has categorically challenged growth and development along Highway 68, and multiple lawyers have been employed to make sure the Coalition, self-described as “a social welfare organization made up of property owners and tenants living and/or owning property in the Highway 68 corridor of Monterey County,” is heard loud and clear.

In that respect, the organization has been rather successful. The Coalition opposed the expansion of the Monterey Regional Airport, filing suit in 2011 over a $42 million safety improvement plan. The expansion was delayed and then substantially scaled back. The Coalition filed suit against Ferrini Ranch, a planned residential area that was approved by the government in 2014. Ten years later, there’s still no Ferrini Ranch. The Coalition filed suit against the developers of the Corral de Tierra shopping center, which was to be built on 11 acres after county approval in 2012. The shopping center never happened.

While Coalition has complained about Laguna Seca in the past, especially regarding race-day traffic and engine noise of cars and motorcycles, the group’s most cohesive effort is a lawsuit filed December 12, 2023, against the track’s owner, Monterey County; the county’s Board of Supervisors; and the Friends of Laguna Seca, a nonprofit group that considers itself a “steward” of the Laguna Seca Recreational Area, which includes the track. The Friends of Laguna Seca has pledged to raise millions to improve the facility, but the lawsuit asks that the county’s contract with the group be nullified.

“We live here too and share the same concerns as our neighbors about noise and traffic,” said Ross Merrill, president of Friends of Laguna Seca. “Our team of experienced business and community leaders are eager to move forward to revive this staple in our community for decades of future success and revenue generation for Monterey County.”

The Highway 68 Coalition disagrees. The lawsuit claims the track is a “public nuisance,” and wants to bar “motor vehicle racing events, rentals of the racetrack and noise levels at Laguna Seca Raceway in excess of the level of use and noise that existed at the time the legal non-conforming use was established in 1985.”

The county backs its 2.2-mile cash cow. “From the county’s perspective, we are asking to get this cleared up so we can continue operations at Laguna Seca, which is a large operation, and doesn’t need this cloud hanging over it,” Deputy County Counsel Michael Whilden told the Monterey County Weekly.

“It is unfortunate certain individuals have chosen to file a complaint against the county concerning operations at Laguna Seca,” said Nicholas M. Pasculli, county communications director. “The county does not recognize any merit to the allegations and expects a favorable legal conclusion.”

Barry Toepke, Laguna Seca’s director of public relations, declined to comment when contacted for this story. The track had a very good 2023 season, and much-needed improvements were made last year, including a complete repaving and a new $18.5-million pedestrian bridge at the start/finish line.

Indeed, the track contributes considerably to the county coffers, as well as area businesses. A year ago, the track announced that surveys conducted of ticket purchasers “who attended the six major race events in 2022 at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca revealed an impressive total direct spend of $246,929,648.” In the words of John Narigi, president and general manager of the track: “Laguna Seca is coming back to life.”

For the Highway 68 Coalition, that is a problem.

WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca’s official calendar lists just nine events, including a Trans-Am race, an IMSA race, an IndyCar race, a MotoAmerica Superbike race, and the Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion. At the same time, a press release from Laguna Seca mentions “a near-daily track rental program.” In the first 10 days of February, rentals range from the Restless Wheels RV Club to IndyCar NXT series testing, from Pacific Motorcycle Training to a Hooked on Driving high-performance track day.

According to the lawsuit, “These increases include, but are not limited to, more racetrack event days, higher permitted noise levels, additional track rental days with intensified noise in excess of 100 dB, increased traffic, inadequate water supply and water quality, inadequate sewage disposal and expansion of the camping grounds.”

“This stuff is well-documented,” attorney Richard H. Rosenthal, counsel for the Highway 68 Coalition, told the website sfgate.com. “All you have to do is look at what they’re leasing the track out for between 1985 and 2000 and then now, currently. You’ll see a very intensive impact and expanded level of use and noise at Laguna Seca.”

Hagerty.com reached out to Rosenthal for further comment, but we haven’t yet heard back. We wanted to ask if the Highway 68 Coalition’s membership solely consists of one individual, Michael Weaver, who is the only individual plaintiff mentioned in court documents related to the lawsuit. We’ll update the story if we receive a response.

Meanwhile, none of Laguna Seca’s 2024 events are expected to be affected. After that, it’s up to the courts.

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post Laguna Seca’s Legal Challenge Follows a Stellar Few Years appeared first on Hagerty Media.

An Emmy-nominated special effects creator is developing an augmented reality app that would would make watching motorsports much more immersive.

John LePore, who describes himself as a “Futurist and Creative Leader” has previously worked on more than 25 films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and now wants to use his expertise to bring three dimensional racing into your living room.

LePore is working on an app for the Apple Vision Pro headset that would allow its user to see an overview of an entire race circuit seemingly projected on a flat surface, such as a coffee table. This unique perspective, which he describes as a “spatial broadcast” would “give me a God’s eye view of the entire circuit right on my coffee table,” he explains. “There’s something so appealing about an architectural model but alive and in perfect sync with the reality of unfolding thouands of miles away. I can glance back and forth between the broadcast and this miniature slice of reality, see every drivers’ precise position, compare racing lines and most of all, understand the geography of the track—something that’s almost impossible to convey on TV.”

Apple Vision Pro
+ Formula 1
= Killer App (?)

a story about:
-design & innovation
-racing royalty
-property theft
and more! pic.twitter.com/6MbLKEDqOB

— John LePore (@JohnnyMotion) January 22, 2024

LePore actually submitted his idea to Formula 1 in 2018, and won second prize in a tech competition, but has since developed the concept further, and believes that Apple and F1’s technology would be perfect partners. “Formula One has hyper accurate telemetry. I think we’re now in the right era for this idea. I truly believe F1 is perfectly poised to set a new standard and usher in an era of volumetric sports and beyond in these new horizons. You can create experiences that are grounded and natural, but also magical. Maybe you could even go full Tony Stark with it?”

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post Hollywood SFX Creator Wants to Bring Tony Stark Tech to F1 appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Endurance racing has brought us some of the prettiest and most storied cars ever. Building a car that can not only drive for 24 hours but drive fast for 24 hours is a huge feat, and that means some racers destined for the 24 Hours of Le Mans might never even make it to the starting line. Of all those cars that could have been, we think the prettiest is the 1966 Jaguar XJ13 and we’ll point to this week’s episode of Jay Leno’s Garage as exhibit number two.

If the XJ13 sounds familiar, but just you just can’t quite picture it, don’t be embarrassed. There was only one built and it never got past the track-testing phase. Jaguar got cold feet about racing, which may have been fortunate in hindsight, since, in the mid-1960s, the first Ford GT40s were hitting the starting line of the Nürburgring 1000, and you probably know what happened at Le Mans in 1966. The XJ13 was propelled by a specially developed double-overhead-camshaft V-12 engine that looks an awful lot like two XK inline-sixes mated at the hip. The driver sat in front of this powerplant and used a left-hand shifter to row the gears in a five-speed ZF transaxle.

Sadly, the one and only XJ13 got mothballed in a corner of the factory until 1971. It was trotted back out when the E-Type was getting a V12 powerplant and a V-12 race car suddenly made sense. During the filming of a promotional video, the XJ13 was crashed. It sat for years until it was discovered and rebuilt. It remains the only one built by Jaguar, though one dedicated enthusiast, Neville Swales, built a painstakingly accurate “tool room copy.”

Then, there is the polished XJ13 replica Leno takes for a spin this week. We won’t get all philosophical about authenticity (well, not a second time), because what is clear is the amount of work put into creating a car like this. The owner, Tyler Schilling, even brings a smaller version of the buck that was used to shape the car: a lattice of wood that allows the layout of the hand-formed, riveted panels and sets the final dimensions of the car.

The engine is a single-overhead-cam design rather than the quad bumpstick units found in Jaguar’s and in  Swales’ cars. The look on Leno’s face while shifting through the gears, however, shows that any horsepower difference is not missed. Schilling’s car is just 2300 pounds and you can tell just how svelte it is when you see both him and Leno wedged inside it. The sonorous note of the V-12 coming from something that a police scanner might call out as an extremely low-flying UFO makes for one heck of a car, with one heck of a story—all because of a car that never took the starting line at Le Mans.

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post Leno Drives Replica of the XJ13, Jaguar’s Le Mans Could-Have-Been appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Now that this past weekend’s Roar Before the 24 is in the books, the three-day practice session for cars and drivers entering next weekend’s Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona has given the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship staff a better idea of who’s fast—and who isn’t.

That’s important in case the IMSA technical crew makes changes to the Balance of Performance before the race. The Balance of Performance, or BoP, is IMSA’s way of assuring that the variety of cars in each class are approximately running the same speed. Mandated changes in the BoP, which could be applied to engine power, rpm limits, aerodynamics, weight, the amount of fuel the cars can carry, or other adjustments, are designed to maintain parity and create a level playing field.

IMSA has now added Rolex 24 qualifying to the Roar. Prior to that, when it was just practice, many teams declined to show their full hand during the test, for fear that going as fast as they possibly can might result in getting BoP performance limitations for the race itself. Adding qualifying to the Roar likely limits that; granted, where you start may not be that critical for a 24-hour race, but it’s a feather in the cap of the teams and the manufacturers that qualify up front.

So who did? In the top class, GTP, it’s an all-Cadillac front row. Driver Pipo Derani, in the Whelen Cadillac V-LMDh, turned a lap of 1 minute, 32.656 seconds (138.318 mph) on the 3.56-mile Daytona International Speedway road course, laying waste to the existing track record set in 2019 by a Mazda DPi. Second was Sebastien Bourdais in another Cadillac, this one from Chip Ganassi Racing, who was just 0.071 seconds behind Derani. In third was a Penske Porsche 963 driven by Felipe Nasr, with a lap of 1:32.816. Acura, looking for its fourth straight overall victory, qualified fifth and sixth.

“Obviously, the Cadillac was flying out there today,” Derani said after earning his 10th career pole position in IMSA competition. “It was just a privilege and a pleasure to drive such a car—really well balanced. There was great teamwork to improve what was needed for qualifying. The car felt on rails, and it was nice to enjoy and feel the full potential of GTP.”

In LMP2, Ben Keating was again the fast qualifier in his new ride, the United Autosports USA Oreca, with a lap of 1:38.501. In GTD Pro, Seb Priaulx put his AO Porsche 911 GT3 on the class pole with a time of 1:44.382. And in GTD, Parker Thompson won the class pole in his Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3, with a lap of 1:44.494.

In other news:

—Cars and drivers from Friday’s four-hour Michelin Pilot Challenge race, called the BMW M Endurance Challenge, also participated in the Roar Before the 24. Twenty-seven cars from the GS class were on the entry list, plus 12 cars from the TCR class. Notable are the drivers of the Smooge Racing Toyota Supra: NASCAR’s Bubba Wallace, John Hunter Nemechek, and Corey Heim.

—LMP2-class cars are all powered by a V-8 from British manufacturer Gibson, and of the 11 entries, 10 use the Oreca chassis. The outlier is Sean Creech Motorsports, which is running a Ligier chassis. Said veteran driver Joao Barbosa, who has won the Rolex 24 outright: “It’s been super interesting, working with this car and this team to bring the Ligier back to life,” said Barbosa. “We knew it was going to be a big challenge and we took it head on, and it’s paying off. Looking at all the hard work the crew has put in behind the scenes, to catch up on all these years of non-development, it has been really rewarding to watch the car go. The week has been very successful, and the team is very motivated to continue that progress.”

—The GTD Pro battle between Chevrolet and Ford looks to favor the Corvette GT3 over the Mustang GT3, judging from qualifying. A red flag allowed for just eight minutes of green-flag running, though, so that may not be definitive. The fastest Corvette, from Pratt Miller Motorsports, was driven by Antonio Garcia, qualifying third in GTD Pro. The fastest Mustang was driven by Dirk Mueller and qualified ninth. 

—The Iron Lynx Lamborghini Huracan GT3 caught fire while traveling down pit lane on Saturday, with driver Romain Grosjean quickly exiting the car. It had to be a scary moment of déjà vu for Grosjean, who was injured in a fiery crash while driving in Formula 1 in 2020, but he emerged unscathed at Daytona. The team replaced the engine and continued practicing in the Roar.

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post Roar Before the 24: Cadillac Takes the First Row for the Race in Sunday Qualifying appeared first on Hagerty Media.

The world of motorsport is vast. For almost any vehicle with an engine or a motor, there is someone who spends their time tweaking and tuning it to go faster, further, or higher. Of course, there will always be people who are motivated less by an overall win and more by proving they have the heart to tackle a challenge in an unconventional or otherwise less-than-ideal vehicle. Their goal could be to show that the vehicle is more capable than most think, or that they have the skills to make anything work. Regardless of their motivation, we salute those who keep the weird and wonderful driving and racing.

The latest examples we have found of people doing the right thing in a questionable way were competitors in the 2024 Dakar Rally—specifically, in the Dakar Classic, a time-speed-distance rally run parallel to the main event (won by Carlos Sainz, Sr. in an electric Audi) and open only to vehicles built before 2000 (or built new to pre-2000 specs). The two-week event wrapped its final stage last Friday, and, as we followed along the recaps and highlights, this video from Red Bull Rally caught our eye.

Matt Jones walks the pits each day and talks to various racers about their experience and their machines, some of which we didn’t recognize or expect to see at a grueling off-road race such as Dakar. Here are four vehicles that you’d never expect to see in the desert of Saudi Arabia—but that took on its challenges all the same.

Unexpected Dakar hero #1: Citroën 2CV

With only 35 horsepower on tap from an air-cooled flat-twin, the 2CV is an odd choice for a race that involves miles of extremely soft sand, a surface that requires high wheel speeds and typically favors vehicles with high horsepower. Luckily, the car’s lightweight construction and the simple design of its air-cooled, two-cylinder engine worked in favor of Barbora Holická and Lucie Engová, the pair of Czech ladies who comprise the driver and navigator team.

Holická, the driver, points out that the suspension’s unconventional—and very French—design makes for a floaty car that looks like a duck as it bounds over the terrain—thus, the theme for the “Duckar” livery. However, in a field of dedicated race cars, this vintage oddity would have been easy to spot even without the plastic ducks or the bright pink paint.

Unexpected Dakar hero #2: Unimog Snow Plow

Of all the vehicles you’ll find in the desert, one designed to move frozen water sounds pretty absurd. Dakar has a lot of classes for competition, though, and Class T5.1 and T5.2 are designed to accommodate this sort of unconventional monster. Watching in-car in-truck video of the three-person crew in this ex-snow plow shows how wild Dakar can get. This Unimog is likely a T5.1 class entry, as that is skewed toward models based on production vehicles; T5.2 is for modified ones. Regardless of how much power you pack under the hood of your truck, the bed must be empty, and your speed is limited to 86 mph. That still seems quick for a vehicle the size of a New York City apartment.

Unexpected Dakar hero #3: Porsche 911

An air-cooled sports car out jumping the dunes? Really? Well, yeah. The safari trend of lifting a car, adding some chunky tires, and playing in the dirt is hardly new, especially for Porsche, which has been racing off-road for longer than you might realize. A father-daughter team brought a rowdy G-series 911 back to Dakar this year. Even with a veteran Dakar race car, it was no small feat for this team to navigate 9000+ miles while keeping the Porsche on top of the sand rather than in it.

Unexpected Dakar hero #4: Mercedes-Benz NG 2636

Six-wheel drive just sounds absurd—and then you see this monstrous blue beast, and the number of axles makes sense. A pair of six-wheel-drive trucks ran the Dakar Classic this year, which is an interesting story on its own. It gets even more impressive when you learn these trucks were originally race vehicles delivered to the Mitsubishi Dakar Team in 1986 and 1987 and were used by that team until 2009. Each truck is powered by 18.5-liter V-10 engine making 360 horsepower. They aren’t even capable of reaching the speed cap for the big trucks, but the Völkel team proved that doesn’t really matter by finishing anyway.

Racing is about more than just going fast, and these four cars and teams prove it. The experience of a unique vehicle in ordinary circumstances is fun. Add in a once-in-a-lifetime rally in that same car and, well, that’s gonna be a story told for a lot of years.

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post 4 Vehicles That Highlight the Insanity of the Dakar Classic appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Sick Week 2024 kicks off on January 28 at Orlando Speed World. This year, instead of ushering in the new year with Florida sun and burnt rubber, I’m holed up in my Michigan home surrounded by snow. Rather than shed a tear (it would likely freeze), let’s go back to 2023 and relive the event through my camera. If you’re anywhere near this year’s southern soiree, I suggest you go. Now, if you will excuse me, I’m going to search last-minute flights to Orlando. —CN

Throw the Baja 1000 and the NHRA season in a blender, and you get Sick Week. During a five-day rally, drag racers in everything from decommissioned Crown Vics to hot-rod Firebirds cover over 1000 miles of public roads, visiting four different drag strips and making multiple runs to net the quickest time. The top cars here lay down quarter-miles in the realm of an NHRA Pro Stocker—under 7 seconds, at speeds exceeding 200 mph. Yet the real goal for the hundreds who compete is simply to finish.

“It’s super grueling,” says Hagerty contributor Tony Angelo, who participated in the 2023 event in a 10-second Firebird. “There’s limited sleep, and tons of parts break. But when you finish, it’s the greatest feeling of accomplishment ever.”

I caught the Sick Week bug last winter during its stop in Bradenton, Florida.

How Sick Week Works: Road to Strip to Road

Aside from burnouts, the most common sight during Sick Week is pant legs wriggling under cars, usually accompanied by shouted profanities. Roadside repairs are the rule, not the exception.

Teams are capped at two people, and the use of a support vehicle is strictly prohibited. Some racers tow spare parts, drag slicks, and other road-trip necessities in a single-axle trailer behind their ride. No trailer queens here.

Each morning, the group departs from a hotel for a nearby strip. At the racetrack, racers might swap tires, tune carburetors, or even change supercharger blower pulleys to prep their street-legal cars for the drag strip. Once each driver makes a pass (or multiple passes if they want to improve on their time), they pack up, convert the car back to street mode, and point their hood scoops toward the next town.

What You’ll See at Sick Week: Beasts of All Kinds

A common complaint about drag racing (and just about every professional racing series nowadays) is that the cars are too much alike. That’s not a problem at Sick Week, where you can see everything from a Volvo wagon to late-model trucks alongside the standard muscle car fare. They compete in more than a dozen classes. Many of the vehicles are seriously quick—a stock Porsche 911 Turbo S would run mid-pack—but all are welcome. A 1997 Jeep Wrangler competing in the stick-shift class ran a 19-second time.

How Sick Week Started … and How It’s Going

Sick Week is in only its third year, but the 350 entry spots sold out in all of two minutes. Sick Week’s founder, Tom Bailey—a celebrity in the drag-and-drive niche—is a four-time champion of Hot Rod’s Drag Week. His street-legal 4000-hp 1969 Camaro, capable of 5-second passes, unofficially holds the title as “the fastest street car in America.”

It was at Drag Week in 2021 that Bailey and a group of friends began discussing what they would do differently if they had their own event.

“At the top of our hit list was good track prep,” says Bailey. “Put us on great tracks where people can run their best times.” Bailey, a Michigan native, had spent his summers testing in Florida and discovered several quality strips within a day’s drive of one another. “I thought: ‘Why hasn’t anyone done this?’”

Bailey and his posse rushed to assemble the first Sick Week in 2022. It was an instant hit. “I remember arriving late to a track one day and seeing the cars lined up for miles,” says Bailey. “It was packed on a Thursday morning in February.”

What’s Sick Week Like? Hurry up and wait

“It’s hard to go fast. It’s even harder to make every stop,” says Angelo, the Firebird driver. This is a sentiment shared by all, as getting the drag car to the track is half the battle—Florida traffic is enough to force the coolant out of any radiator. You can only relax once you’re in the staging lanes. While they wait for their pass, some weary competitors sleep in the seat, on the ground, or on a hood.

You Don’t Have to Race: Join the Sick Ward

Of course, the real draw, at the end of the day, is the raw power of drag racing. Sick Week brings in so many spectators that Bailey created the “Sick Ward” for people who just wanted to cruise with the group and enjoy the camaraderie rather than race. Members of the Ward, as well as local drag nuts, pack the stands at every Florida and Georgia stop—pretty amazing for a weekday event.

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post Sick Week: When Drag Racers Design Their Own Trial by Fire appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Henry Catchpole is back on his favorite topic: Rallying!

Of all the WRC Group B rally cars, the Lancia Delta S4 is the wildest, which makes the Stradale, or street version, very special indeed. As of filming, this one was for sale with Girardo & Co. and it should be one of around 200 in existence. But it’s not.

Lancia was meant to build a couple of hundred to satisfy the homologation rules of Group B at the time, but someone was clearly a bit lax with their counting, as it’s thought only around 70 or 80 were ever made. This is chassis number 033.

So, the Delta S4 Stradale is a rare car. It is also a ground-breaking one, because it is the first road car to use twin charging. As the name suggests, that means it has both a supercharger and a turbocharger on its 1.8-liter four-cylinder engine. The idea is that the supercharger helps with response lower down in the rev range, while the turbocharger takes care of producing the big power once the exhaust gases are flowing. You might remember this type of engine from an earlier film on the Hagerty channel with the Kimera EVO37.

It’s not just the engine that makes this different from a regular Delta, either. In fact, only the grille, windscreen, and rear lights are shared parts. The bodywork is largely made up of two huge, spectacular clamshells, while the chassis underneath is a tubular space frame. Inside, however, the S4 is surprisingly comfortable, with good ergonomics, lots of soft Alcantara, and seats by Zagato. To that extent, it’s a world away from its competition counterpart.

The Group B era of rallying is of course known for its wild cars, big crowds, and tragic accidents, and the S4 Corse was really central to the narrative. As we discuss in this film, the S4 was perhaps the most monstrous car of that period. Henri Toivonen was arguably its greatest exponent, and with Sergio Cresto alongside him they took some famous victories. Very sadly, it was also that crew’s demise on Corsica in 1986 that would ensure the end of Group B.

The motorsport stories and the fascinating engineering all add up to an incredible car, which we hope you enjoy seeing and hearing about here.

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post <em>In the Driver’s Seat:</em> Henry Catchpole on the Lancia Delta S4 Stradale appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Just about everybody knows that the Chevrolet Corvette has been the most successful American sports car in road-racing history, with a trophy case featuring hardware from 125 top-tier race wins—nine of them at Le Mans—since 2000. But most people don’t realize that the factory Corvette Racing program was largely run by an outside vendor.

Not that General Motors was trying to keep a secret. Clued-in fans and members of the media knew the score. But to the general public, Pratt & Miller sounded more like an accounting firm than a race car engineering powerhouse.

Later this month, the company will move out of the shadows to center stage of the motorsports world at the Rolex 24. There and then, Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports—yes, the official name is a mouthful—rather than General Motors will enter a pair of all-new Corvette Z06 GT3.Rs built in-house to chase a title in the GT Daytona (GTD) Pro category of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.

“It’s the next chapter for us. It’s the first time in our history in the 25-year-plus history of Corvette Racing that Pratt & Miller’s name will be in the title,” says vice president Brandon Widmer. “I wouldn’t say that it bothered us [to be behind the scenes for so many years], and we still have a very strong relationship with GM. But I will say there’s a lot of excitement around the company about having the name front and center in the name and on the car.”

In addition to the two bright-yellow Vettes being fielded at Daytona with GM backing, Pratt Miller is building at least 18 more GT3.Rs for customers. At the moment, three privateer teams are committed to racing six customer Corvettes in 2024. You, too, can join the list for a mere $735,000 per car—plus spares and optional upgrades. Hey, at least batteries are included!

In recent years, Pratt Miller—which was bought by Oshkosh Corporation in 2021 for $115 million—has diversified into high-tech electrification, autonomy and mobility projects for customers ranging from OEMs to the Department of Defense. The company has come a long way since it was founded in 1989 by Jim Miller, a gentleman racer and travel agency mogul, and Gary Pratt, a mechanic and fabricator at the Protofab race car shop.

After competing in Trans-Am, Miller wanted to move up to IMSA’s premier GTP series. So he and Pratt hired America’s premier race car designer, Bob Riley, to build a blue-sky prototype. Riley’s Intrepid debuted in 1991. With an 800-horsepower Chevy V-8 mated to the highest-downforce chassis the world had ever seen, the Intrepid was wicked-fast but snake-bit. Wayne Taylor posted the team’s only win, while Tommy Kendall’s career was derailed by a gruesome crash at Watkins Glen, and the program was shelved before the car realized its potential.

Still, the Intrepid cemented Pratt & Miller’s relationship with GM. In years to come, the company would build Oldsmobile Auroras, Cadillac CTS-Vs, Pontiac GTOs and Chevrolet Camaros that competed in various series. But the company’s future was assured in 1997, when it was hired by GM to develop a full-race version of the C5 iteration of the Corvette.

The car debuted in 1999—and was trounced by the Dodge Viper. But Pratt & Miller quickly turned the tables on the Mopar gang, and in 2001, the team’s bright-yellow Corvettes scored a remarkable overall win in the Rolex 24 and a storybook class win at Le Mans.

“Winning Le Mans was hugely emotional,” former Corvette Racing team manager Doug Fehan recalls. “You stand up there on this giant elevated podium cantilevered out over the pit lane, and as far as you can see down the straightaway is a sea of fans. You’re standing on that top step holding the trophy with a wreath of flowers around your neck, and they play the national anthem of the United States of America. Dude—Olympic frigging moment. Tears were running down everybody’s face, and you’re thinking, ‘How the hell did I ever get here?’”

The next two decades brought plenty of laurels as four generations of Corvettes rubbed fenders with factory-backed cars from Dodge, Ford, Porsche, BMW and Ferrari at the most exalted levels of production-based sports car racing. In recent years, though, OEM interest in this hideously expensive class of racing dwindled to the point that the category was discontinued. Starting in 2022, a new era dawned as sports car series around the globe adopted regulations based on more affordable and user-friendly GT3 cars.

The GT3 class was invented by Stéphane Ratel in 2006 to create a formula that would attract both manufacturers and gentleman drivers—the yin and the yang of sport car racing. GT3 regulations reined in costs by spec-ing race cars that didn’t deviate radically from the street cars on which they’re based, which meant manufacturers could theoretically make money on their customer-racing programs. Meanwhile, driver aids such a traction-control and anti-lock brakes made the cars easier to handle and, therefore, more attractive to gentlemen drivers.

To homologate cars for racing, manufacturers must build at least 20 cars. Pratt Miller gets ZO6 bodies-in-white from the Corvette plant in Bowling Green, Kentucky, and transforms them into race cars at their shop in New Hudson, Michigan. The new GT3 cars aren’t as sophisticated or expensive as the GTLM cars they replace. But they’re designed for different end-users—privateer teams and, in many cases, amateur drivers.

“We need to make sure that the cars are very easy to maintain and easy to set up and race successfully with a wide variety of drivers and a wide range of driver capability,” Widmer explains. “Those things were new to us and a bit unique from what we’ve done in the past.”

The GT3 formula has been an enormous success, generating large fields and nail-biting competition. For example, this year’s entry list for the Rolex 24 features 37 GT3 cars from 11 manufacturers—Chevrolet, BMW, McLaren, Lexus, Lamborghini, Ferrari, Mercedes-Benz, Porsche, Acura, Aston Martin and Ford, which will be unveiling its dramatic, brand-new Mustang.

Pratt Miller will be racing two cars in GTD Pro, which, as the name implies, is meant for top-rank professional drivers. Two more Z06 GT3.Rs campaigned by AWA will be competing at Daytona in the GTD class, which is open to lower-level pros and amateurs who are typically paying for their seats. Also, TF Sport will be running a pair of Corvettes in the FIA World Endurance Championship in Europe, Asia and North and South America, while DXDT Racing has ordered two more Z06s for the World Challenge America series.

So 2024 will bring plenty of international exposure to a company that’s long stayed out of the limelight. That could be a problem if the new Corvette doesn’t measure up. But Widmer isn’t worried. “We’re looking forward to high car counts this year,” he says. “That’s a big deal for us. A lot of competition is a good thing.”

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post Pratt Miller Takes Center Stage with the New Corvette Z06 GT3.R appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Roland “The Hawaiian” Leong was born on Oahu in 1945 and began drag racing in his teens. Moving to California in the ‘60s, he campaigned a long line of dragster and funny cars emblazoned with Hawaiian livery. Leong made drag racing his career and was a feared competitor and beloved friend. He passed away on December 29 at the age of 79.

A long list of wins and historic firsts can be attributed to Leong, who battled and won against some of the most storied names in drag racing. Leong put Danny Ongais behind the wheel of his Chevy-small-block-powered Top Gas dragster as they earned a class win over Mickey Thompson’s hemi-headed Ford at the 1964 Winternationals. After his first Top Fuel dragster pass at Lions Drag Strip ended in a crash, Leong leaned into his strength as an engine tuner and passed the driving duties onto a who’s who of drag racing hot shoes. Jumping full-bore into Top Fuel dragsters, Leong teamed with Don Prudhomme, who won his first Top Fuel Eliminator event driving the front-engine Hawaiian dragster at the 1965 Winternationals. They won again at the U.S. Nationals later that year before Prudhomme and Leong temporarily parted ways and Mike Snively drove the Hawaiian dragster to wins at the 1966 Winternationals and U.S. Nationals.

Moving to Funny Cars to take advantage of the opportunity to match race at venues across the country, Leong built a narrow and sleek Dodge Charger that wore one of the most beautiful Hawaiian liveries yet and took the country by storm. His drag racing instincts and mechanical know-how enabled Leong to compete in funny cars for decades, perhaps most famously with the Hawaiian Punch Dodge funny cars in the ‘80s. Even after retiring from car ownership after sponsor money dried up in the early ’90s, his expertise made him a natural choice for owner Prudhomme to bring on as Crew Chief where he helped Ron Capps secure his first event win. The team’s strong 1998 seasons saw them finish in second place behind perennial champ John Force.

Leong never seemed to fully leave drag racing, lending his expertise to the NHRA Hot Rod Heritage Series at which vintage-looking funny cars and dragsters compete. You could often find him at a race, hanging out with life-long friend Don Prudhomme; the two kept close even though they’d each hired and fired the other.

Despite his impressive achievements and staggering wealth of knowledge, Leong was always humble and always had time to speak to fans at events—me included. His humor, his wisdom, and his friendship will be sorely missed by his family and friends, as well as fans of the sport he was so instrumental in shaping.

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post Roland “The Hawaiian” Leong, Hall of Fame drag racer and crew chief, dies at age 79 appeared first on Hagerty Media.

They say notable deaths come in threes, but the motorsports community suffered four over the long weekend, including one that rocked the IndyCar world.

Winner of the 2003 Indianapolis 500, Gil de Ferran, 56, died Friday from an apparent massive heart attack while driving with his son Luke at a private event at The Concours Club racetrack near Miami. On-scene medical personnel attempted to revive de Ferran, to no avail.

That 2003 Indy win came for car owner Roger Penske, who said in a statement: “We are terribly saddened to hear about the tragic passing of Gil de Ferran. Our thoughts and prayers go out to Angela, Anna, Luke and the entire de Ferran family. Gil defined class as a driver and as a gentleman. As an IndyCar champion and an Indianapolis 500 winner, Gil accomplished so much during his career, both on and off the track.”

He won the 2000 and 2001 IndyCar championships, also driving for Penske. In 2000, his qualifying speed of 241.428 mph for the race at the California Speedway oval in Fontana, California, set the closed-course record for fastest speed, which still stands.

He retired from IndyCar racing in 2003 but returned to competition as a team owner and driver at de Ferran Motorsports, racing for Acura in the LMP2 class with the American Le Mans Series in 2008. He retired again as a driver in 2009, returning to IndyCar as co-owner of de Ferran Dragon Racing, which folded in 2011.

Born in Brazil but living in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, de Ferran was working for McLaren as a consultant when he died.

In NASCAR, three-time Cup champion Cale Yarborough died in a hospice in Florence, South Carolina, on Sunday. He was 84. Yarborough won three straight championships, in 1976, 1977, and 1978, driving for team owner Junior Johnson. He also won the Daytona 500 in 1968, 1977, 1983, and 1984. His final season came in 1988 as an owner-driver. He won 83 races in all.

Yarborough was involved in one of NASCAR’s most famous moments, at the 1979 Daytona 500. Racing for the win with Donnie Allison, the two cars collided on the back straightaway and their cars skidded into the infield. Both drivers left their cars and began fighting, soon joined by Allison’s brother Bobby, as television cameras rolled. It was the first time CBS had carried the entire Daytona 500, and ratings were huge, largely due to a snowstorm that socked in much of the Midwest and Northeast.

Yarborough, who also competed in the Indianapolis 500 and 24 Hours of Le Mans, was named to the NASCAR Hall of Fame in 2011. “Cale Yarborough was one of the toughest competitors NASCAR has ever seen,” NASCAR chairman Jim France said in a statement. “His combination of talent, grit, and determination separated Cale from his peers, both on the track and in the record book. He was respected and admired by competitors and fans alike and was as comfortable behind the wheel of a tractor as he was behind the wheel of a stock car.”

In drag racing, Roland Leong, “The Hawaiian,” died Friday. The Honolulu native began his racing career back home in Hawaii as a successful driver, but he moved to Los Angeles in the early 1960s to work for the famed Dragmaster shop building race cars. He built the Top Gas car that fellow Hawaiian Danny Ongais drove to victory in the 1964 NHRA Winternationals.

Leong moved to car ownership soon after, hiring a young Don Prudhomme to drive for him. They won the 1965 U.S. Nationals, launching Prudhomme’s career, and they remained close until Leong’s death. Leong continued to field Top Fuel and Funny Cars with various drivers as a car owner, tuner, and crew chief until the late 1990s. Leong’s cars were among the most popular on the circuit, especially the “Hawaiian Punch” Funny Car.

“I guess I always wanted a little brother,” Prudhomme once said. “He was just like me. All we cared about was drag racing and cars.” Leong was 79.

Finally, sprint car racing lost one of the winningest drivers when Rick Ferkel, “The Ohio Traveler,” passed away. Ferkel was one of the founding drivers in the World of Outlaws series, winning 21 WoO races. He finished second in the standings to Steve Kinser in the WoO’s first full season, in 1978.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Joshua Shaw (@jacobs_lader)

Constantly on the road during the height of his career searching for the highest-paying events, the driver of the number 0 sprinter often ran 75 races a year. His best season came in 1978, when he won 38 times. After Ferkel retired as a driver, he continued to field cars for up-and-coming racers. He was named to the Sprint Car Hall of Fame in 1995.

Ferkel, 84, died at his home in Michigan on Monday.

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters. 

The post Four deaths in four days sadden the motorsports world appeared first on Hagerty Media.

You don’t have to be Lewis Hamilton to drive a McLaren Formula 1 car, nor do you have to have “C. Leclerc” stitched into your fireproof race overalls to be strapped into a machine with a prancing horse dancing its nose. There is a small, specialist market for historic F1 cars which anyone with a love of motorsports, an appreciation for high-octane thrills and—of course—a healthy bank balance can join.

To find out more about joining the F1 fan club, and owning a car from the pinnacle of car racing, Hagerty spoke with Lorina McLaughlin, one of Britain’s fastest female racing drivers and president of the British Women’s Racing Drivers Club, about her experiences running a 1992 Benetton F1 car.

At the same time, James Hanson, of racing car dealer Speedmaster, provides insight into the different eras buyers have to choose from, the sums of money involved in buying and running an old F1 car, and the sheer thrill to be had from driving an F1 car in anger.

Which era F1 cars do people buy?

Before browsing the classifieds, anyone that wants to buy an F1 car should have done their homework, spoken to those with first-hand knowledge of the historic F1 scene, and gained enough insight to have a good idea of the type of machine that will appeal to them.

James Hanson is one of the first ports of call for those new to the scene. The founder of Speedmaster (established in 2004) has driven more than 30 different historic F1 cars, he typically sells around ten F1 machines every year spanning the period between 1960 to 2010.

He suggests that cars from the 1970s to the mid ‘90s are amongst the most user-friendly. Any later, he says, and the speeds are so fast “that your mind simply won’t be able to keep up. The learning curve will be too steep and you won’t enjoy it.”

“The later cars,” says Hanson, “aren’t useable. They’re basically just a thing for static display, or you have to put the wrong engine in, and that detracts from its value because it becomes just a kit car when it has a mismatched engine.” Cars in the mid to later noughties are complex and costly to run, while the hybrid-powered F1 cars, introduced from 2014, are essentially “a museum piece” because they are prohibitively expensive to run.

How much does an historic Formula 1 car cost?

The cost of old F1 cars varies just as dramatically as the salaries of F1 superstars at the front of the grid and those at the back, still trying to get a drive with a championship-challenging team.

“You can spend from around £200,000 ($266,000) for a 1970s F1 car up to as much as £6 million ($7.68M) for the most valuable Ferrari,” says Hanson [though after this article’s writing, in 2022, an ex-Michael Schumacher Ferrari sold for $14,873,327, and a former Lewis Hamilton-driven Mercedes set the new F1 sales record at $18,815,000 in 2023], but generally speaking there is a wide selection of desirable machinery that will be user-friendly to drive, is relatively easier on one’s bank account to run, and is eligible for historic racing, for less than £1M ($1.28M).

Lorina McLaughlin and her husband, David, bought a 1992 Benetton B192-08, raced by Michael Schumacher, 10 years ago. She chooses not to discuss the price paid but says it was before the rise of the internet, when David was able to track it down to an owner in America. In 2018, a similar model with similar history sold for more than €800,000 at an RM Sotheby’s Monaco auction.

Prior to that, they owned a 1976 McLaren M23, the same car that James Hunt drove to that year’s F1 title, and before then David owned a 1971 Lotus 72 that had been campaigned by Ronnie Peterson.

What are the running costs like?

“It’s one of those things that if you counted up the cost you wouldn’t do it,” laughs Lorina McLaughlin. “I don’t have children and I don’t take holidays, so I suppose all my money goes on the car instead.”

Her Benetton 192 is run by Roger Heavens Racing, near Oxford, and like most people in the historic F1 scene, she leaves it with them and they handle all maintenance, storage, and transport for events.

“The car’s Cosworth engine needs a rebuild every 1200 miles or so, and then it goes to Dick Langford’s [Langford Performance Engineering, in Wellingborough] for a top and tail, as we call it.” But if the engine needs a rebuild that could be £35,000 ($45,000), she adds.

Hanson says that the cost of having a team run an historic F1 car at a race weekend in the U.K.—such as the British Grand Prix support race—and maintain it over two races, practice and qualifying, is no more than £10,000 ($12,800). “When you’re talking about clients that might run private jets or own yachts that cost more to fill with fuel, that’s a modest sum. And it is significantly less than something like a modern GT3 race car.”

What are the different eras like to drive?

“I so much preferred the McLaren to drive,” says McLaughlin of the 1976 McLaren M23. “It was like a sort of extension of my body and I was so at one with it.” By contrast, the carbon-fiber Benetton has an exceptionally stiff structure and an equally stiff set-up that was designed to suit Michael Schumacher’s taste.

“Nobody could drive one of Schumacher’s cars. You have to have your wits about you or it will try and take you off. Martin Brundle drove it, and said I should soften everything off, but I don’t have the money to make all the changes.”

A key consideration for choosing the Benetton, adds McLaughlin, was that it one of the last F1 cars with a manual transmission. The ensuing, early automated systems can be temperamental and costly to repair.

How much does it cost to insure an F1 car?

Pull up a chair, take a seat and take a deep breath. Insuring a classic F1 car might cost no more than a classic Ford.

Despite the fact that the Benetton B192 is nearly ten times as expensive as a Ford Sierra Cosworth RS500 and has more than triple the power, it’s no more costly to insure.

According to Hagerty UK, both cars would cost less than £600 ($768) a year to insure. While some car enthusiasts may find it unbelievable that there’s almost no difference between a rare, 200-mph-plus race car once raced by Michael Schumacher and a family hatchback that was warmed-over for homologation in touring car racing, there is a simple explanation. The F1 car is only insured when it isn’t being driven, removing much of the risk associated with a car like this.

Why do people buy an F1 car?

This one is easy, says James Hanson. “It’s the most fun you can have with clothes on! People like the social scene, the racing is respectful and you are part of an exclusive club.”

He adds that the market is small, ensuring exclusivity, yet “for less than the price of a modern supercar you can buy one of only a handful examples, so you are getting into something that’s seriously rare.” He estimates that if you look at the historic race scene 10 years ago, half of the grid would still be competing now, while the other half would be content to “have ticked that box” and enjoyed the ride.

Lorina McLaughlin concurs. “There are so few owners of Formula 1 cars that we know who we all are. I have driven F1 cars at Monaco and Laguna Seca, and up the hill at Goodwood, and it’s everybody’s dream, isn’t it?”

Where can you race a classic F1 car?  

Within Europe, popular championships include the Masters Historics Formula One Championship, the Boss GP Championship and individual events including the Monaco Historic Grand Prix and Goodwood Festival of Speed. Individual organizers will be able to advise on the relevant racing license and FIA paperwork that is required to ensure cars are eligible and safe.

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post Buying a historic Formula 1 car demands commitment and cash appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Come February, one man will race across the country. In his minivan.

This is not a Cannonball Run, but rather an endurance racer’s true-to-form exercise in attending every 24 Hours of Lemons event of the upcoming 2024 season. That’s no small feat, given that the calendar is packed with 23 races at 21 tracks across 17 states. Sometimes the schedule accounts for less than a week to commute between events. The projected final tally to the van’s odometer will be 30,000 miles over the road, and that’s not even counting the laps it will generate over 14 hours of racing each weekend.

The hero van in the making is a track-prepped 2006 Dodge Grand Caravan. Its driver is Zac Caldwell of Kentucky, a Lemons participant since 2022. He’s doing all of this to raise tens of thousands of dollars for charity.

(For the uninitiated, the 24 Hours of Lemons series stipulates that any car purchased for $500 or less—with a budget exemption for safety equipment—can be turned into an endurance race car for a weekend of racing.)

A feat on this scale would be impressive in any old car, which makes the attempt in a 17-year-old Chrysler minivan that much more bananas. Fortunately, Zac already did a kind of dry run earlier this year—a 30-day trip in May and June that covered 1800 miles on the track plus road trips to Colorado, New Jersey, and Michigan. (The Mitten State was not part of his initial plan, but the 24 Hours of Lemons staff in New Jersey enticed him to participate via the gift of free admission to Michigan’s GingerMan Raceway.)

I was one of the New Jersey Lemons Judges that greenlit Zac’s prize of free track time at GingerMan. Seeing his face light up when he received the award of more long days behind the wheel of a stripped-out Grand Caravan was a joy for me, one that would be difficult to replicate outside the magical world of Lemons racing. My fellow staffers couldn’t envision a better use of the prize than Zac’s aptly named “Great American Bro’d Trip” for the 2024 race season.

This kind of creativity naturally sprouts from a series like Lemons, which lets just about anyone and anything on track. As Zac said,

“Endurance Racing remains the ultimate challenge in motorsports, but it has largely been conquered by smart people with money. What mark can an idiot on a budget make?”

Apparently a pretty large mark. The tale of Zac’s Caravan is, in my view, a modern expression of Aesop’s Fable, The Tortoise and the Hare. The minivan is very much the tortoise here compared with the hares of Lemons racing: retired Spec Miatas, E46 BMWs with bolt-on upgrades, and any number of V-8-powered muscle cars from the last 40 years. So many of these “real race cars” will have to contend with Zac’s team of arrive-and-drive racers who plan to exploit the Grand Caravan’s slower speed for consistency and better reliability.

Of course, fun and fundraising are the main rewards. And the joy this minivan brings to a race paddock can only be summed up in photography:

The van itself was purchased by Zac’s family in 2007. It was a grocery-getter for about a decade, and then Zac stripped the interior and had a roll cage installed before its first Lemons race in 2022. It’s a great tribute to Zac’s mother, the original owner of the Grand Caravan and a car lover herself; she was a cancer survivor who inspired his journey in Lemons.

She passed away in early 2022, and that’s why Zac intends to raise at least $23,000 for Lemons of Love, a favorite charity of Lemons racers that provides care packages and support for chemotherapy patients.

Zac’s first race in “The Great American Bro’d Trip” will be at Barber Motorsport Park on February 3, 2024. Join him on his journey as he will document milestones on Facebook and YouTube.

Zac jokes that he is “no good at moderation. If I’m going to do one race, I’ll do them all—and drive 30,000 miles there and back in the same terrible race car. An LMP2 prototype can’t do that for 100 million dollars.”

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post A man, a Caravan, a bold plan to Lemons race across America appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Drag racing legend Don Schumacher died last week after a battle with lung cancer.

Schumacher wore plenty of hats during his drag racing career, which began with his match races in Funny Cars in the 1960s, most notably driving his Stardust Dodge Funny Car, which became so popular he had more than one Stardust car traveling the drag racing circuits with hired drivers.

In 1974, Schumacher walked away from drag racing to devote time to the family business, Schumacher Electric, founded in 1947 and known primarily for its line of battery chargers. Schumacher grew the company considerably, adding plants in China, Mexico, and Belgium.

Schumacher returned to drag racing in 1998 to build a team for his son Tony. Don Schumacher Racing (DSR) made its competition debut at the 1998 U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis, “and by the time the 1999 season had wrapped, DSR had clinched its first of many championship titles. Soon after, the single-car team exploded into a multicar powerhouse,” according to the NHRA’s National Dragster. At one time, DSR fielded seven cars in a single season. He is the only owner to have victories in all four NHRA pro drag racing classes, with championships in three of them.

DSR has won 19 NHRA world championship titles and a record 367 Wallys—that’s the trophy for a race event win, named for NHRA founder Wally Parks—including the five Don won while behind the wheel of his Funny Car.

Schumacher contributed safety innovations to drag racing, including the Top Fuel dragster canopy, the roof-mounted escape hatch that allowed Funny Car drivers to quickly exit the car in the event of a fire, and he was the first to mount the lever that activated a fire suppression system on his Funny Car’s brake handle, so the driver could apply both while keeping one hand on the steering wheel.

Schumacher earned many accolades; in 2022, he was honored at the NHRA Awards Ceremony, where he was presented with the NHRA’s Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2019, he was inducted into the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America in Daytona Beach, Florida, and in May 2013, he was inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame in Talladega, Alabama. He also joined the International Drag Racing Hall of Fame in 2007.

Schumacher used his team’s fleet of race cars to raise money and awareness for various charities. Each year ahead of the U.S. Nationals, DSR hosts a pre-race event at its Brownsburg, Indiana, headquarters to benefit Riley Hospital for Children, and for seven seasons, Schumacher, along with Terry and Doug Chandler, campaigned cars that enabled nonprofits, such as the Infinite Hero Foundation, Make-A-Wish Foundation, and MD Anderson Cancer Center, to be recognized through a dedicated tribute livery at no cost to the organization.

In addition to Schumacher Electric, he owned DSR Performance, which sells many products for motorsports ranging from hats and tee shirts to a 1300-horsepower, supercharged 426 cubic-inch crate engine.

When not at a race track or leading his teams of employees, Schumacher enjoyed spending time with his children and grandchildren, fishing, and golfing.

Don Schumacher was 79.

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post Drag racing legend Don Schumacher dead from lung cancer appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Today, Enzo Ferrari graces the silver screen in a new biopic, titled Ferrari. The film recounts Enzo’s risky bet on the 1957 Mille Miglia, the 1000-mile sports car race whose outcome could determine the fate of his namesake company. In celebration of the big debut, which features Adam Driver, Penelope Cruz, and Patrick Dempsey (read our exclusive interview with the actor here) we’re resurfacing this October 2022 article. —Ed. 

They called him the Old Man, Il Commendatore, or simply Mr. Ferrari. But Enzo is said to have preferred the title of l’ingegnere, the engineer. Few would argue that he deserved the label, though Enzo Ferrari washed out of technical school and only adopted the honorific after the University of Bologna conferred on him a ceremonial degree in 1960. It was just one pantomime in an operatic tale of struggle, cunning, triumph, carnage, and ego warfare that were the pillars of Enzo’s life and empire.

To outsiders, he was an inscrutable, 6-foot-2240-pound golem of stone hiding behind dark glasses. To insiders—at least those who wrote books about or spoke of their days in Ferrari’s orbit—he was an often-exasperating puzzle, a confusion of contradictions and emotions propelled by a bunker-like insecurity informed by a worldview firmly fixed in 19th-century Italian masculinity.

Was he a genius? Well, he knew brilliance when he saw it. In engineers, such as Vittorio Jano, Gioacchino Colombo, Giotto Bizzarrini, and Mauro Forghieri. In designers, from Battista “Pinin” Farina to Sergio Scaglietti. And in drivers, from Tazio Nuvolari to Juan Manuel Fangio to Mike Hawthorn to Phil Hill to John Surtees to Niki Lauda. He turned proud, ambitious, and gifted men into fawning supplicants willing to devote their careers and risk their lives for the splendor of the Scuderia. Then he often drove them out, or mad, or into early graves with relentless pressure tactics applied through endless political intrigues.

People said Enzo Ferrari preferred his cars and his mechanics to his drivers and his customers. According to Ferrari biographer Brock Yates, somebody once asked Luigi Chinetti—who cracked open the hugely lucrative American market for Ferrari—if Enzo deserved the reproach. After considering it for a moment, Chinetti replied, “I don’t think he liked anyone.”

It’s no accident that the history of Italy’s auto industry is largely confined to a crescent on a map defined by the Po River and the broad plain it bisects in Northern Italy. The region has been known for its metalworking since the Middle Ages and for its sophisticated design and engineering since the Renaissance. Enzo’s father was a metalworker, starting with a dirt-floor workshop next to a dirt-floor house in Modena, an ancient gray burg that swelters in summer and is often enveloped by a dismal, greasy fog in winter. When his second son, Enzo Anselmo Giuseppe Maria Ferrari, was born on February 18, 1898 (the exact day is a matter of dispute and speculation), Alfredo Ferrari was busy growing his business into a thriving workshop that supplied the national railway with bridge and canopy iron.

Though Enzo would claim later in life that he came from rags, his father bought the family its first car, a single-cylinder De Dion-Bouton, in 1903, when many Italians still dreamed of a donkey cart to call their own. Young Enzo’s romantic visions of his future drifted, from opera singer to Olympic sprinter to sportswriter. However, Italy, more than any other European nation, had gone mad for the automobile. Every region, practically every town, hosted a hill climb or a trial or a circuit race, and Ferrari was caught up in the fever.

World War I and the untimely death of both Enzo’s father and older brother, Alfredo Jr., or “Dino,” delayed events and decimated the family business. In November 1918, Enzo was rejected for a job at Fiat, sparking a grudge that would endure until 1969, when he extracted millions from the Agnelli family in exchange for Fiat’s half interest in Ferrari. However, rather than head home from Turin, Enzo started to pal around with the drivers and mechanics who infested the backstreet garages and pubs of Italy’s burgeoning motor city.

His results as an amateur racer drew the notice of the Alfa Romeo team, which invited him to join the squad as a journeyman driver in 1920. Despite modest success as a piloto, though, Enzo longed to return to Modena, where he saw more opportunity as an Alfa Romeo dealer and racing-team manager than as a driver, which was a filthy, bare-knuckled profession in those early days that routinely racked up a horrific butcher’s bill. Racing laurels brought fame, money, and women, but Enzo had an innate sense of both his limited driving talent as well as his true calling, which, given the bleak odds back then, probably saved his life. After he founded Scuderia Ferrari and began building his own cars in 1947, he rarely drove himself, preferring to be driven by his former riding mechanic and longtime valet and chauffeur, Peppino Verdelli. His fate was to wear a tie instead of leathers, to sit behind a desk rather than a steering wheel, and to die in bed at the age of 90 rather than against a tree or upside down in a burning wreck.

Seasoned racers say their chosen sport brings the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. Such was true of Enzo’s entire life, a melodrama of glory and bitter personal and professional grief, the latter often coming hard on the heels of the former as chronicled in his aptly titled autobiography, My Terrible Joys. For the most objective reading on Ferrari, see the two best biographies, Enzo Ferrari, the Man and the Machine, an amusingly sardonic take by the late Car and Driver editor and Cannonball Run founder Brock Yates, and Enzo Ferrari: Power, Politics, and the Making of an Automotive Empire, which, at nearly a thousand pages, is a more academic (and less deliberately iconoclastic) undertaking by Luca Dal Monte, a former Ferrari PR man.

One walks away with an impression of a figure who saw himself as a David constantly in battle with one Goliath after another for the honor of his little duchy of dedicated artisans and, by extension, Italy itself. From Nazi-funded Germans before the war to the chastened but still very potent Germans after, followed by his hated crosstown rival, Maserati. They were replaced by a band of British innovators such as Cooper and Lotus—Enzo dismissed them as the garagiste because they operated out of small garages and didn’t build their own engines—followed by the mighty Glass House presided over by a spurned and vengeful Henry Ford II. After Porsche arrived with 917s that could top 220 mph on the Mulsanne Straight at Le Mans, Ferrari retreated from sports car racing to focus its limited resources on Formula 1.

Subterfuge was a tool that never got rusty in Enzo’s box. In September 1953, he summoned the Modena police to the factory, claiming that plans for a new grand prix car had been stolen and sold to a rival. The brouhaha hit the press and suspicion immediately fell on Ferrari’s nemesis, Maserati. Company president Adolfo Orsi called his lawyers, and Enzo was compelled to appear and sign a witnessed statement saying Maserati was not a suspect. As with so many of Ferrari’s little opera buffas, the controversy evaporated as quickly as it erupted.

In response to some perceived slight or to gain some small advantage, Enzo threatened to quit racing entirely so many times that journalists lost count. In 1953, he announced that he was retiring and closing the factory “for delicate personal reasons,” adding that “racing no longer interests me.” That September, Enzo amended his list of unbearable injuries to include the supposed theft of the blueprints. By December, the press reported Ferrari’s plans to continue into 1954. End scene.

And so it went; the Royal Automobile Club of Belgium canceled the 1957 grand prix at Spa because Ferrari refused to come unless the starters’ fees were increased. By then, wrote one reporter, staging a race without Ferrari was like staging Hamlet without the prince. In 1960, Ferrari pulled out of Sebring because of a dispute over the fuel sponsor (the cars were instead sent to Chinetti, who campaigned them under the North American Racing Team—NART—banner). In 1976, having lost an appeal over two contested grands prix, Enzo again said Ferrari was done with Formula 1.

“Withdrawals and threats of withdrawal used to be a regular feature of Ferrari’s end-of-season press conferences,” observed Eric Dymock, for many years the racing correspondent for Britain’s The Guardian newspaper, in a 1976 column. “For some reason or another, the 78-year-old autocrat, who has been connected with motor racing for nearly 60 years, took the huff over something and said his beautiful cars would never run again. Always he changed his mind.”

Experts seem to agree that Enzo sold road cars to pay for his racing mania. And that he scorned his customers, the dandies and poseurs and idle rich who groveled for his attention and threw reckless sums at him for cars. You can just imagine some of the characters who bought a Ferrari in the 1950s, when European cities still showed the scars of war and there were shortages of everything. One had to be a particular sort to want to flash wealth in that environment. In the 1960s and ’70s, their kids came back for their own cars, putting Enzo in a unique position to observe a particular kind of generational human folly.

But the tycoons and the toffs couldn’t help themselves; the exquisite driveway jewelry assembled behind the famous red gate on Via Abetone in Maranello set hearts aflame across all classes and nationalities. With Pininfarina’s growing involvement beginning in the early 1950s, Ferraris developed a more familial look in an expanding product catalog that was slowly becoming more organized, planned, and marketed. The factory’s output rose from dozens in the 1940s to hundreds in the 1950s to thousands in the 1960s. Enzo’s hidebound allegiance to solid axles, drum brakes, wire wheels, and front-engine configurations left him open to competitors, but nobody who ever bought a Ferrari was asked why. It remains a blue-chip purchase to this day.

Enzo surely had his eccentricities, but it’s hard to judge a man whose life was so equally blessed and cursed. He was at his son’s bedside in June 1956 when the 24-year-old, long suffering the slow erosion of muscular dystrophy, said, “Dad, it’s over,” and slipped into a coma and died. “I have lost my son,” Enzo wrote in a journal he kept of Dino’s illness, “and I have found nothing but tears.”

It was a ghastly period for Enzo and the Scuderia. Alberto Ascari had been killed in 1955 while he was taking a few quick practice laps at Monza in teammate Eugenio Castellotti’s 750 Sport. Castellotti himself died at Modena in March 1957. Luigi Musso and Peter Collins were both killed the following year at the French and German grands prix, respectively. And Phil Hill’s 1961 world championship–sealing win at Monza was clouded by the fatal crash of the popular and affable Count Wolfgang von Trips, which also massacred 15 spectators.

But it was the disaster at the 1957 Mille Miglia that was to haunt Ferrari for years. Alfonso de Portago, the handsome, athletic, and fabulously wealthy son of an Irish heiress and a Spanish count, was the sort of aristocratic playboy whom Ferrari derided and distrusted. Enzo always claimed to not have favorites, refusing to rank his drivers as other teams did. But he took the best shine to poor, up-from-their-bootstraps gunners such as John Surtees, whom he affectionately called “Giovanni,” and Gilles Villeneuve.

However, the 11th Marquess of Portago could drive, having earned his chops competing in the Carrera Panamericana and winning the Tour de France Automobile as well as the Nassau Governor’s Cup. Though Portago was infamously hard on his equipment, Ferrari assigned him as a last-minute substitute to one of the factory’s state-of-the-art 335 S roadsters. Enzo then turned the screws. He pointed out to the 28-year-old Portago that the Scuderia’s more experienced drivers, Piero Taruffi and Olivier Gendebien, had been given less powerful cars. Enzo then sniffed to Portago that it didn’t matter, that they would probably beat him anyway. Such were the standard mind games at Ferrari.

Near the end of the Mille, Portago’s 390-hp, 4.0-liter V-12 rocketed him and co-driver Ed Nelson, an American bobsled racer along for the ride as part of Portago’s clique of hangers-on, to 180 mph on the long straights across the Po Plain toward the Mille’s finish in Brescia. At the final rainy fuel stop in Mantua, Portago was running fourth behind both Gendebien and Taruffi, but he was told that the leaders were having mechanical trouble and that he was closing on Gendebien. Portago was offered a fresh set of Englebert tires to replace his badly worn skins, but he refused, taking a swig of orangeade and roaring off in haste toward Brescia.

Some 17 miles up the road, the slimy and battered Ferrari shrieked toward the village of Guidizzolo at around 130 mph. A front tire exploded. The car jinked left, clobbered a stone kilometer marker, and spun violently into a ditch, emerging 15 feet in the air as a pinwheeling, shrapnel-spraying buzz saw of death. It sailed over one line of spectators, hit the road, tumbled, and plunged into the crowd. Portago and his co-driver were killed instantly, as were nine bystanders, five of them children. The mayhem was so grisly that police had trouble identifying the bodies.

Italy erupted in rage. Protesters thronged the crash site and, later, the Ferrari factory, shouting, “Assassins! Criminals!” The conservative newspaper Il Tempo joined a media chorus denouncing the race, labeling it “an absurd fight between defenseless crowds and a small group of irresponsible men.” Enzo was brought up on murder charges, and the Vatican issued a statement calling him “a modernized Saturn devouring his own sons.” The Mille Miglia was finished but the legal wrangling lasted four years, until Enzo was dragged into court, where he broke down in tears after the first question from the prosecutor. He was soon acquitted, as it was estimated that up to a million people had lined a route with zero crowd control. The Scuderia soldiered on.

Italians obviously forgave Ferrari. The armies of tifosi swarmed to the tracks to cheer their nation’s gladiatorial heroes, even as Italian drivers appeared less and less frequently on Ferrari’s roster. It didn’t matter; if you drove for Ferrari, you were an Italian. Niki Lauda, who won two world championships with the Scuderia, wrote in his memoir, My Years With Ferrari, that after he flew his own plane to Italy in 1977 to end his stormy relationship with the team, the control tower at Bologna airport refused him clearance to leave. “You’ve got a delay of two hours,” Lauda recalled the tower radioing him. “No more priorities, no more VIP treatment. You left Ferrari, you bastard.”

As Enzo’s stature grew, so did his isolation. He never attended races, only the Saturday practice at nearby Monza. His sparse office was likened to a tomb, the walls bare except for a giant portrait of Dino looking down above a small shrine of flowers. His desk drawers were stuffed with trinkets to give away to the few visitors granted entry.

One such visitor in May 1963 was Ford Division assistant general manager Donald Frey, who had come to settle the question of Ford’s purchase of Ferrari. Enzo was content to let the road-car operation go for a relatively modest sum, but control of the racing team was a sticking point. Enzo began, “If I wish to enter cars at Indianapolis and you do not wish me to enter cars at Indianapolis, do we go or do we not go?” Frey’s immediate response was: “You do not go.” The meeting ended abruptly, with Enzo presenting Frey as a parting gift an autographed copy of My Terrible Joys.

Enzo regularly held court for his inner circle in the bar of the Hotel Real Fini in Modena, across the street from his house, then conducted his many liaisons in the rooms above. Family life was never simple or easy. His wife, Laura, whom he married in 1923, feuded endlessly with his widowed mother, Adalgisa, who lived with them until she died in 1965 at the age of 93. Laura’s increasing involvement in the factory was said to have contributed to a mass walkout of the top engineers in 1961. After that, she stepped back to a solitary life defined by a lost son and a wandering husband.

Over time, the question of the role of Piero, Enzo’s son by his longtime mistress Lina Lardi, became more pressing. Born in 1945, Piero began working at Ferrari in the early ’70s as Enzo’s personal translator, then moved into an assistant manager role of the F1 team. But it was awkward and not widely discussed until Laura died in 1978. Piero then adopted the Ferrari name and, after Enzo died, inherited his 10 percent share of the company along with a vice-chairman title.

The irony of Enzo Ferrari is that this famously unemotional man, who lived a virtual hermit’s existence in his later years when his dynasty was at its peak, evoked the greatest passion in everyone around him. “He was,” concluded Brock Yates, “exactly what he repeatedly said he was: an agitator of men.” The company bearing his name maintains no resemblance to the one Enzo left behind when he was laid to rest in the family crypt in San Cataldo. Years of modernizing by successors, especially Luca di Montezemolo, under the supervision of Fiat produced a publicly traded and thoroughly advanced engineering and marketing machine that Enzo would not recognize.

But there, on the next F1 grid, will be two blood-red Ferraris bearing the black Cavallino Rampante, the Scuderia showing up as it has for over seven decades to write history one lap at a time. Ferrari the man and Ferrari the company remain as inseparable today as they were when Enzo was alive. And as we all know, you can’t stage Hamlet without the prince.

This article first appeared in Hagerty Drivers Club magazine. Click here to subscribe and join the club.

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it.

The post Enzo Ferrari proved empires aren’t forged by the squeamish appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Before the Formula 1 championships or the transcendent supercars, there was just Bruce.

The connection between McLaren the man and McLaren the company isn’t as widely understood today as, say, Carroll Shelby to Shelby American or Enzo Ferrari to Ferrari. Blame the brutalities of racing: Carroll and Enzo were lucky enough to survive their stints as drivers and see their companies flourish; Bruce was tragically killed testing a Can-Am car in 1970, years before McLaren’s Formula 1 championships and decades before the launch of the F1 supercar.

Yet McLaren’s life and incredible drive have a lot to do with the success the company ultimately achieved both as a racing team and an automaker. To better understand Bruce McLaren, the man, Larry Webster sat down with McLaren’s daughter, Amanda McLaren, on the occasion of the company’s 60th anniversary.

***

LW: Even casual car enthusiasts know McLaren as a maker of supercars and a Formula 1 constructor. They might not, however, know as much about how it all started. Can you tell us a bit about that?

AM: My father was actually born in New Zealand [not England, where the company resides]. At a very young age, he developed Perthes disease, a degenerative condition of the hip joint. He was told at the age of about 12 or 13 that he may never walk again. But he was a little kid with a big dream—he wanted to race cars. And over the years, he built himself a little race car, which if any of you go to McLaren Technology Centre in Woking, England, is actually there.

He raced through the New Zealand circuit and was awarded the inaugural Driver to Europe scholarship that the New Zealand International Grand Prix Association started. He raced Coopers for a number of years, but he always wanted to design and build his own cars. That’s what inspired him to form his own team. So, in 1963, he founded Bruce McLaren Motor Racing. He was very successful on track, especially in the dominant Can-Am series across Canada and America.

LW: It’s easy to forget how short of a time span some incredible things happened—he founds the company in 1963, wins Le Mans for Ford in 1966, becomes one of the few people to build and drive his own car in a Formula 1 race in 1968, and builds a car for Can-Am and dominates the series. That’s sort of where you pick up the story. Did he ever sleep?

AM: My mother [Patty McLaren-Brickett] said that he could actually just nap anywhere! There’s some beautiful pictures of him in the pits lying against a tire, fast asleep. Because, yes, he was developing cars for himself, he was working with Ford and Firestone to develop their cars and products—which really was funding for the McLaren Formula 1 team—he was racing Formula 1 but also Can-Am across Canada and America. He was rarely at home.

LW: Was there a feeling that, somehow, he knew he didn’t have a lot of time?

AM: I would like to think not. He was planning in 1970 to step back and just do more testing, and let some of the others take over. His hip was really starting to give him problems and he was looking at doing a hip replacement, which back in the ’70s was a big thing. It was new technology. Motor racing was very dangerous back then. He’d seen so many of his friends and colleagues die. So, I really don’t know. But certainly he achieved so much in such a short time.

LW: You were just 4 years old when your father passed. How did you learn about his legacy, and how did you become connected with the company?

AM: My mother and father had moved over to the United Kingdom when he got his driver scholarship. If you wanted to race, especially Formula 1, you had to be based in the U.K. or Europe. So, I was born and brought up there. My mom decided to stay even after my dad was killed, although she did have a house in New Zealand. She remained McLaren’s No. 1 fan until the day she died. When you started working at McLaren, you were one of her boys. She was just so pleased to see the road cars happen, because she knew that was my dad’s next baby.

My mother had friends coming to the house. They were “Uncle” Jackie Stewart and “Uncle” Graham Hill, people like that. But I didn’t connect them to my father until I was about 11. I went to the British Grand Prix in 1976, and I (like most of my girlfriends at school) had a pinup of [Formula 1 champion] James Hunt on my wall. When, on Monday morning at school I said, “I met James Hunt,” there was a stunned silence. And when they asked me how I got to meet him, I drew myself up proudly and said, “Well, he races for the company that my father founded.” And then they started asking me all these questions, and that got me thinking. I started having a look at Mum’s collection of books, and there’s the names of all the people who came to our house—and there’s Dad’s name. I talked to people about my father’s impact. Those who knew him all gushed about what a fantastic person he was and would practically be in tears talking about him. He had all these achievements on the track, but his true legacy was inspiring the people around him. His character was passed on.

I eventually went out to New Zealand on what was a six-week family holiday and said to Mum and my stepfather, “I’m going to stay for six months.” That became six years, which became 26 years. If any of you have been to New Zealand, you’ll probably understand why—it’s the most beautiful country. We did move back to England, my husband and I, in 2014, to become brand ambassadors for McLaren Automotive. It was the most amazing experience, to really be a part of that legacy and make the connection between the history and what the present company was doing. Now we’re back in New Zealand and I’m officially retired, but you never retire from being Bruce’s daughter.

LW: What of your dad can you see in today’s road cars?

AM: When Dad was asked why his Can-Am cars were so successful, he said that they were lighter than the competition. That was a founding principle that continues in today’s road cars.

LW: One last question: McLaren’s team color is a bright orange called “Papaya Orange.” Where did that come from?

AM: They wanted something that stood out, both for the other drivers to see them coming on the track and for the fans. They sent a mechanic to buy the brightest orange he could find, which turned out to be the same paint that road crews in England used to cover pedestrian-crossing beacons. It was called Ryland’s Traffic Yellow, which I guess means technically our paint should be called McLaren Yellow. But it wasn’t, and over time, the name evolved to Papaya Orange. Racing sponsors often dictated their own colors on the McLaren racing cars, but team principal Zak Brown has put the orange back on, and I couldn’t be happier. McLarens deserve their own color, don’t you think?

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters. 

The post McLaren at 60: Bruce McLaren and his legacy appeared first on Hagerty Media.

The rules of racing are often bent or broken but what happens when you simply ignore them? If you’re Italian startup 777 Motors you end up with a hypercar powered by an unrestricted LMP1 V-8 and weighing less than 1,980 lbs.

Built around a Dallara carbon fiber motorsports monocoque the 777 is driven by a naturally-aspirated Gibson 4.5-liter V-8, as used by several LMP1 teams. However, as the 777 isn’t registered to race, its full 800 horsepower is available. There’s a ‘push to pass’ button that gives an instant boost and allows the engine to rev to its 9000 rpm limit. It’s also been designed to run on e-fuels, which 777 says will reduced emissions by 65 percent.

Top speed is a claimed 229 mph, while the 777’s aerodynamics generate more than 4500 lbs of downforce. It can also pull an astonishing 4G in the corners. Its engineers have calculated that the 777 should be able to lap the Monza circuit in Italy in one minute 33 seconds, which is over two seconds quicker than the dominant Toyota GR010 Hypercar’s 2023 pole position time.

The 777 will clearly take serious skill to master so owners will be provided with artificial intelligence-based coaching at circuits including Varano in Italy and Indianapolis in the U.S.A. Customers will be provided with special biometric race suits that measure heart rate, body temperature and oxygen levels to ensure that the experience isn’t too overwhelming.

Just seven examples of the 777 will be built with prices starting, appropriately, at $7.7 million.

The post The 777 Motors track toy is faster than an LMP1 racer appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Long before CART, IRL, or IndyCar, the premier sanctioning body for open-wheel competition was the United States Auto Club (USAC). Each season, throughout the mid-twentieth century, racers competed on tracks of different surfaces and lengths. In one four-week stretch during the 1969 season, for example, teams battled on dirt in the 12.42-mile Pikes Peak Hill Climb, zipped around the 2.8-miles of paved road course at Continental Divide Raceway (Dan Gurney won that one), kicked up more dirt around the 1-mile oval at Nazareth Speedway, and negotiated the odd dogleg at the paved Trenton Speedway.

In 1971, the USAC Championship Car series was spun off into separate season points schedules. Today, after five decades of evolution, IndyCar contains traces of USAC’s on-pavement schedule—most notably the Indy 500—while the legacy dirt races and (a few paved ovals) now belong to USAC’s Silver Crown Series.

Silver Crown is now the series keeping the varied-surface flame burning. The season schedule flips from pavement to dirt to pavement like an Indiana backroad. Its driver roster is equally varied—a mix of full-timers, weekend warriors, and multiple women. The cars, with exception of their roll cages, look much like the front-engine roadsters that Gurney, Foyt, Andretti, and other open-wheel legends raced at the beginning of their careers. — Ed. 

A modern Silver Crown car makes its living running in circles, so motorsports aficionados will know that something is very different about this one—even apart from that enormous wing.

In 2021, Montgomery Fabrication Group, a family of road racers from Northern California, teamed up with established sprint car racer Tim Barber to whip a Silver Crown into road-racing shape. Barber himself had raced a Silver Crown car years prior and knew who currently owned it. He and the family made an offer to the owner of Barber’s old car and hauled it home. Standing in the garage with their new purchase, the four of them decided to form MFG Motorsports and take the Silver Crown to the next level.

Good bones

The car already had the basics for road-racing success: attenuator crash structures on both sides, symmetrical design, top and front wings from a World of Outlaws dirt sprint car, and a low-drag “slicker” body designed by IndyCar aerodynamicist Bruce Ashmore. Good bones go a long way with a project as ambitious as this one.

MFG plucked a Chevrolet V-8 from a Trans Am race car, bolted on a few pieces of an Indy car’s bodywork, and started an exhausting testing schedule. For the first few months, they focused more on basic reliability and functionality than anything else.

By the time the reinvented race car made its wheel-to-wheel debut in a United States Touring Car Championship (USTCC) event at Laguna Seca, MFG still hadn’t really tinkered with the setup much. Driver Sylas Montgomery was relying on his background in karts and Spec E30s to try and drive around the open-wheel car’s imperfections and get a sense of its untapped potential.

The results were promising. After starting from the back of the pack on Sunday’s race, Sylas sliced through the field into second position before pulling off prematurely; he and the MFG team had registered the car as an exhibition vehicle and didn’t want to hassle any of the regular USTCC racers fighting for the championship. None on the MFG team cared. They had proven their lightweight open-wheel racer had what it took.

With their confidence bolstered by a standout performance at the 2022 NASA Championships, they hatched a harebrained scheme involving a famous mountain in Colorado—Pikes Peak—and their odd open-wheel creation, which they’d dubbed the MFG Road Course Sprint Car.

Cloud Runner

Taking this LS3-powered beast and fitting it with the right combination of parts to ensure it would perform at 14,000 feet above sea level was no mean feat.

The process started with the tires. These tires had to switch on quickly; there wasn’t a chance to heat them directly before their timed attempts. Within the first few corners of the 156-turn course on the shoulders of Pikes Peak, the tires had to reach full operating temperature. They also needed to remain within their ideal temperature window for the full 12.42-mile run, which could last as long as ten minutes.  Through one of Tim’s old racing colleagues, they came across a set of Hoosier slicks used on Australian Formula 3 cars that fit the car’s 15-inch wheels. Sea-level testing was promising, but MFG was not confident—they had drawn a big question mark along the ambient temperatures column on their setup sheet.

The next step was suspension: They needed to find the right compromise between body control and compliance, so they turned to PSI Motorsports in Michigan for a set of mountain-tailored shocks. The custom Öhlins three-way coilovers were one of the few bolt-on additions that needed little adjustment once the team had arrived at Pikes Peak.

For a race held at that altitude, the Chevy powerplant wasn’t ideal. Somewhat similar in spec to your typical LS3, this is an engine typically used in a Trans-Am TA2 car. With a dry sump system, minor bolt-ons, beefier internals, and a Life Racing standalone ECU aiding it, the 6.4-liter engine makes roughly 500 horsepower at the wheels—but that’s at sea level.

When dynoed near the starting point of the Pikes Peak Hill Climb in Colorado Springs, it made 380 at the wheels. An educated guess suggested it would produce roughly 250 towards the top. That’s where turbochargers would really come in handy, but modifying the engine to receive boost was not in MFG’s budget.

Sylas put in plenty of hours on the simulator to ensure his familiarity with the course would not be the limiting factor.

It was only during testing the week before the race that the setup was dialed in. Surprisingly, the team hadn’t needed to make many changes, but the one-off aero package—comprising the rear pods from a 2015 Dallara DW12 Indy car, a front splitter mounted to the underbody, and a giant top-mounted wing—had to be massaged, trimmed, and tweaked to suit both the regulations and Sylas’ handling preferences.

It took some time before Sylas was comfortable with the new aero balance. Mild understeer dogged the car in early testing, so the team tweaked the front kingpin tweaks for more negative camber and relocated the main wing. On a course lined with cliffs, Sylas needed to feel confident the front would follow every minute input. Only minimal understeer was tolerated. Finally, they achieved a satisfactory level of turn-in.

After adjusting to the grueling schedule at Pikes Peak, Sylas put in a series of steady practice laps to learn when and where to take risks. No close calls, no histrionics—just a series of methodical laps to find a bit more speed here and a bit there. When it came time to set a recorded laptime, he covered the 12.4-mile course in 9:55.53.

Sylas and the open-wheel Frankenstein finished eleventh overall, and second in the open-wheel category—just behind mentor Cody Vasholtz, who’d just set a new class record. When they heard they also received a Rookie of the Year award, Sylas and the team were elated. Big names like David Donohue came to congratulate the talented newcomer, who could barely contain his excitement during his twenty-five-hour drive back home.

Once MFG had returned to the Bay Area, the team could sit contented for only a little while; another event, Gridlife Laguna Seca, was just on the horizon. They could not pass up the chance to generate some publicity for their new creation.

After the grueling, serious atmosphere at The Race to the Clouds, Sylas was eager to experience the lighthearted, welcoming ambiance for which Gridlife events had become famous. Gridlife promised entertainment and fun—the two things Sylas felt weren’t always present at club racing weekends on the West Coast. “Northern California develops some exceptional drivers, but sometimes it’s a little too serious there to have fun,” Sylas explained.

Additionally, the wide range of vehicles present meant that the MFG’s open-wheeler could make a name for itself among comparable cars. MFG decided to run time trials in the Super Unlimited class, which hosts prototypes, formula cars, and other purpose-built racers lacking a VIN number.

Having spent so much time preparing for Pikes Peak at nearby Sonoma Raceway and Laguna Seca, MFG wasn’t planning on making many adjustments for Gridlife. Besides the routine nut and bolt check before every big weekend, the only adjustments they made were a tweak the front wing and figuring out the ideal tire pressures once at the track.

These tires were the same set that had carried the car to Pikes Peak’s summit not three months earlier. Why not? They’d only been through one heat cycle, after all, and the car felt reassuring with the alterations they’d made on the mountain. They were curious how much their Pikes Peak setup would improve upon their previous best at Laguna Seca (1:33.4).

Once there, they realized that the stability-first setup Sylas had wanted on the unforgiving mountain didn’t suit Laguna too well. Sylas aimed to find more oversteer, since a wide-flat road course offers opportunities to explore the utmost limits of the car. He wanted to let it all hang out.

“We increased the front wing angle to help loosen it up in the faster corners and drive it more off the rear. I could get on the gas in the middle of Turn 3 and settle into this friendly yaw state—I could drive it like you’re supposed to drive a sprint car! Basically, I could induce plenty of rotation pretty easily, and the wing endplates would create side force that kept the car from over-rotating. For obvious reasons, I didn’t want to try this at Pikes Peak.”

Not that he couldn’t be totally careless now that he was driving somewhere with real runoff. “Early in the day, I had to drive tentatively over the curbs and the new runoff areas because I was worried the car might bottom out,” he admitted.

But once he got acquainted with the newly repaved Laguna and the way the car handled with its new suspension, Sylas began chucking it around like a go-kart. “It’s the nature of the solid rear axle, I guess. You can throw it in and, even though it’s planted mid-corner, much throttle at the exit would cause oversteer, but a neutral sort of oversteer. It’s all very manageable—kind of like a big kart!

“I pushed hardest in Turn 5, where, because of the camber, the gradient, and the extra runoff area [after Laguna Seca’s recent repave], I could attack and rely on the hill and the camber to catch me if I overdid it. I was starting to really enjoy the typical sprint car characteristics.”

Focused on the Show

With all the hype preceding the first Gridlife event hosted on the West Coast, it was not surprising that the place was packed with all stripes of racing junkies. YouTubers, big-name drifters, and a few Hoonigans made an appearance. The five time-attack classes were comprised of 100 entrants from California and the Midwest. Then there were the forty-odd wheel-to-wheelers in Gridlife Touring Cup.

“It’s phenomenal seeing forty cars sharing the track. It’s not often Corvettes, S2000s, M3s, and Miatas all run together. What I like most is the emphasis on competition; it’s less about who’s able to spend the most on the ‘best car.’”

As was the plan, the open-wheel car turned many heads in the pits, but not all comments made were laudatory. One commentator was happy to mention how, when watching the car in action, the MFG car’s overwing was about as effective at generating downforce as a piece of plywood would have been. Funny enough, this bit of gentle derision only made the MFG machine look stronger when running against some of the well-developed products from big marques.

Sylas built his pace steadily as the day went on, relying on the same meticulous approach that he had honed along Pikes Peak’s unforgiving, sinuous roads. While still getting up to speed, he found himself leaving the pits directly behind James Kirkham in a Mercedes AMG GT3—the first benchmark he’d been able to follow closely since his USTCC debut a year prior.

The additional pace, found after the adjustments made on the mountain, was obvious. Not only was Sylas nipping at the heels of a professional racer in a GT3 car, he was able to find a way around. After putting together a few tidy laps in pursuit of the big Benz, he started to put a respectable gap between the two cars. Within a few more laps, he was lapping in the 1:28 range—nearly a full second faster than Kirkham.

“Here we were, our harebrained project outrunning a top-shelf GT3 car from a manufacturer with deep pockets. What other event would you get to see those two battle it out on track?”

Later in the day, he was able to see just where he stacked up against Robin Shute, the fastest man at Pikes Peak 2023. Although both Robin and Sylas ran at the pointy end of the prototype pack—finishing first and third, respectively—their cars could not be more different. In comparison to the bathtub-shaped open-wheeler, Robin’s low-slung Wolf TCS-FS racer looked like something out of Buck Rogers.

The second day of running at Gridlife culminated in Sylas setting two consecutive laps of nearly the same time. The marginally slower of the two was much more spectacular. “I tried to drive the car off the rear a little more that lap, and I think you can see that in the onboard footage.”

Sylas finished his Gridlife debut with a best of 1:28.14—just three hundredths faster than the lap in the clip above. A trip to the top of the Super Unlimited podium and some new hardware to take home put them in a festive mood, and Gridlife’s night events were there to keep that buzz going.

“Gridlife gave me a snapshot of what makes racing on the East Coast so good. They seem to be more about fun than some of us West Coasters, who usually keep our cards close to our chest,” Sylas remarked. “After Saturday’s races at certain West Coast events, it’s hard to find anyone socializing at the track; many go back and to rest for the day ahead.”

That wasn’t the case at Gridlife. After the podium celebrations ended, Sylas and the crew got into their best civvies and strolled down to the infield, where T-Pain was performing. “There were plenty of people packed into a smallish place, but everyone stayed respectful. My guess is this is how some people feel when they’re attending Burning Man; everyone is brought together by the same sort of passion.”

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post Retired circle-track racer finds new life turning left … and right appeared first on Hagerty Media.

There is something about the prioritization of function over form in the engine compartments of most race cars that turns the spaces into art. Any detail-loving person can appreciate them, but especially DIY and at-home mechanics: These engine bays are often the antithesis of what we usually get to work on. Race machines are built with service in mind, and that focus removes a lot of frustration for the mechanic. (If you’ve ever broken a dozen plastic clips opening the access panel to do an oil change, you know what I mean.)

In the engine bays of race cars, function becomes attractive. With that in mind, I took a look at a few projects around my garage and found some cool bits of flair that give off just the right motorsports-inspired look.

Tidy organization

Engine compartments can be busy, with hoses and cables going this way and that for various pumps and control modules. In race cars, engine bays are laid out system-by-system, and this arrangement lends itself to a more thoughtful installation that maximizes function while minimizing space. In short, the engine bay is all tidied up.

Organizing your car’s engine bay, whether or not it’s a race car, can be as simple as bundling wires into a proper loom or shortening unnecessarily long hoses. For my Corvair, tidying up meant removing the mechanical fuel pump and re-routing the fuel lines to remove clutter on top of the engine. This required very minimal fabrication: Though the four carbs might appear complex, they are mirrored side to side, allowing me to flip the stock fuel lines. Everything fits like it would from the Chevrolet factory, and I only had to put two 90-degree bends in a $10 generic steel pre-flared fuel line.

Safety wire

Since safety wire is the last step in any project—and one I am excited to do these days—just the presence of wire in the right place means a checkmark on my checklist. No need to rack my memory: If there’s no wire, the component is not ready —and I need to figure out why I left the job unfinished.

Science says a properly tensioned bolt will rarely loosen, but some positive retention of critical fasteners provides a warm security blanket to the mind of a detail-oriented gearhead: You know that piece of hardware is not going anywhere unless you let it. Safety wires entered my life when I first decided to try road racing and I’ve been breaking 1/16-inch drill bits putting them all kinds of places ever since.

With some attention to detail, the final product will be jewelry for your engine. Be sure to properly dress the cut ends, or your engine bay will hide a bunch of razor-sharp needles waiting to rip your hands open.

Labels or the lack thereof

For sponsored racers, brand names and logos matter. For the rest of us, they usually don’t, unless we are just bragging at the cruise-in. Between brand names and small labels identifying parts or need-to-know specifications, a race-engine bay can look either very cluttered or totally bare, devoid of any marketing whatsoever. Pick one look and try it out. Writing valve-lash specs on the valve covers or labeling fuel and oil lines all but guarantees correct assembly in any situation. They can be fun touches, too, especially if you enjoy silly easter eggs, like writing the solid-lifter valve adjustment specs on the valve covers that hide your hydraulic roller valvetrain. Posing? Yes, but also a harmless joke.

Breathers

Engines are all about airflow, and not just through the intake and exhaust. As the linear motion of the pistons is transferred into rotational motion by the crankshaft, pressure often builds inside the crankcase—pressure that is best relieved. Setting up appropriate breathers and ventilation can be easy and, if well thought-out, can still include modern crankcase-ventilation one-way valves.

Add some color

A little color contrast never hurt anything, and nothing makes a black-and-silver engine bay pop quite like a little gold—or whatever color you like. So many little details can be color-coded to make them disappear or become a feature. Valve covers and air cleaners are easy, but even hose ends, bits of wiring organization, and linkages can be snazzed up with subtle pops of color to really “bring the room together.” Be careful here though, as the look can get real gaudy real quick.

And just like that, you have an engine bay that is uniquely yours with a little race-car style mixed in—whether you need it or not.

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post 5 bits of race-car flair to elevate any engine bay appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Though he was primarily known for the high-flying, tire-roasting antics of his Gymkhana stunt driving videos, Ken Block frequently competed in high-level rallying, too. Block, who passed away in a tragic snowmobile accident early last year, took the green flag at plenty of national and international rally events over the course of his racing career.

Now, one of his early rally cars is up for auction on Bring a Trailer.

The car in question is a 2004 Subaru Impreza 2.5 RS, which the listing says was used by Block and co-driver Alex Gelsomino in X Games rally events. The car was prepared for Open Class rallying specifications in 2006 by Vermont SportsCar (VSC), the longstanding technical partner of Subaru of America, which supports the automaker’s factory-backed rallying program.

In the hands of VSC, this thing underwent quite a transformation. The 2.5-liter flat-four was ditched in favor of a smaller-displacement (2.0-liter), turbocharged unit, again of the flat-four variety. The engine is paired with a KAPS five-speed dog-box manual transmission (read: straight-cut gears and no synchros) that sends power to all four wheels via a driver-controlled center differential and Cusco limited-slip front and rear differentials. The engine runs a MoTeC M880 ECU, a GReddy aluminum radiator and intercooler, and a SPAL cooling fan. A Prodrive 34mm Turbo restrictor is also noted; this was likely fitted to ensure the car’s compliance with contemporary rallying specifications.

Suspension hardware includes Öhlins shock absorbers, as well as rear suspension links and 20-mm front and rear antiroll bars from Cusco. You’ll find 15-inch Speedline Corse wheels wearing 215/65 BFGoodrich tires at all four corners, and a full-size spare in the trunk. All of the braking hardware has been upgraded as well, and there’s a Tilton bias adjuster inside the cockpit to fine-tune the car’s behavior when stopping.

That cockpit also features Recaro racing seats, Sabelt six-point harnesses, a roll cage, carbon-fiber dashboard and door panels, and more. The seller does note that the seat and harness certifications have expired, however, so if you want to battle the clock at your nearest rally event, you’ll likely have to pony up for new chairs and belts.

According to the Carfax report that accompanies this listing, the car sustained water damage in 2005, resulting in it being declared a total loss. (That incident is probably what qualified it for conversion to rally car, but we can’t say for certain.) Currently, the car’s Oregon title carries a Reconstructed brand, and previous salvage and no-actual mileage titles were issued in 2005 by New Hampshire and in 2006 by Vermont. While those documentation obstacles will likely make it hard to legalize the car for everyday road use in some states, this Subie might be the perfect candidate for your next ride if you’re looking to get into or are already serious about competing in rallying.

Win the auction, and you’ll get a build book detailing the car’s specifications that has been autographed by co-driver Alex Gelsomino. The car also carries the autographs of Ken Block and Travis Pastrana, both X-Games and rallying legends.

So just what will this thing hammer for when the auction wraps up next Wednesday at 1:00 p.m. ET? As of this writing, the leading bid sits at $46,250. This question is a bit more complex, owing to the car’s connection with one of rallying’s modern-day heroes. Will Ken Block’s ownership push the value of this thing sky-high? Probably not, but the connection could be worth some extra money to certain bidders.

We also have to take into account that this is not an official World Rally Cross (WRC) car, which is a knife that cuts two ways: On the one hand, it is not a bleeding-edge dirt missile that will rebel against all but the best pilots. Even if you’re a moderately skilled driver, you could get plenty out of this thing around a rally stage. On the other hand, those WRC cars are by far the most sought-after from this generation of the sport; we’ve seen WRC Imprezas of similar vintage sell for £610K (nearly $765K USD). While this one’s connection to Ken Block will certainly add to its appeal, don’t go holding your breath for a new rally-car record.

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post How much will this ex-Ken Block rally car go for? appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Road-registering Porsches that aren’t really supposed be on the road at all is a Bruce Canepa speciality. The California native has fitted license plates to 911 race cars and was instrumental in the Show or Display bill, which granted special exemptions for road cars without U.S. homologation. All legal, all above aboard, all leaving a trail of “what the … ?” in their wake when they roar past on a U.S. highway.

But if you’ve heard of Canepa, you’ll probably know there’s more to his story. He’s raced at everything from the 1979 24 Hours of Daytona (third) to the 2023 Rennsport Reunion (first), set a world record in 2002 for twin-axle big rigs at Pikes Peak, and made a name for himself beyond motorsport with his eponymous luxury car dealership, which opened in 1982.

Today, a staff of 80 works at his Scotts Valley headquarters, where Canepa is as renowned for its restoration and race preparation services as the impeccable cars on offer—engines, interiors, paint, composites… all is taken care of on-site.

But it always comes back to Porsche, so we recently caught up with Bruce for a guided tour of two projects—one a road-legal 934 race car, the other his take on Porsche’s 1980s supercar, the 959.

The 959, of course, was road-legal in most markets, just not the U.S. (Porsche declined to submit cars for crash-testing). But making it road-legal in the States over two decades ago has culminated in Canepa’s incredible 50-car run of 959 CS models, which cost around $1.6M—in addition to the cost of a base car now valued around the $2M mark. McLaren’s Zak Brown owns one example.

Canepa and 959s go back to Bruce buying his first in 1988. “I was the first to bring one to the United States. I brought it in on a tourist visa under a friend’s name from overseas, I drove it for a year—that was easy—then it went back and left the country,” he says.

But others weren’t so lucky, including Bill Gates of Microsoft, who had his car impounded at San Francisco customs. The Show or Display bill of 1998 provided the workaround.

“We passed a bill in Congress to make them legal and that really became an exemption for cars that weren’t homologated in the U.S.,” Canepa says. “There had to be fewer than 500 cars in production that were also historically or technically significant as well as never intended to come here.”

Cars did not need to meet U.S. crash standards and could be driven for 2500 miles per year (though a retiring official later confessed there was no enforcement on that figure—good job, given one Canepa customer racked up 72,000 miles).

The 959s did, however, need to meet U.S. legislation for the year of production. It meant some significant work for the 2.8-liter flat-six, which features an air-cooled block, water-cooled four-valve heads, and sequential turbochargers (one for low-rpm boost, then a big hitter to make the numbers).

“We switched to Motec management, switched the turbos, put on knock sensors and cats, and did a bunch of stuff, ” Canepa says. “We not only got them to pass the federal emission standards but we passed CARB—California Air Resource Board—which was unheard of pretty much.”

Passing emissions standards also simultaneously led to Canepa unlocking massive amounts of pent-up power.

“We put an engine on the dyno and it didn’t look right—you got the one turbo, and it starts increasing in power, then all of a sudden it’s gone and then it starts coming back up again,” recalls Canepa. “A guy from Weissach was kind of helping us on the side and he said ‘Yeah, that’s the way they are.’ He couldn’t tell me what to do, but he would tell me what not to do. So I said I’m going to put twin turbos on it (rather than sequential) and he said, ‘That’s right, you’ll notice we never did that sequential turbo thing again!’”

The result was a bump from 444 hp to 580 with catalytic converters and 91-octane fuel and no internal modifications. The engine has been developed ever since.

Canepa then turned attention to the chassis, taking the simplified and inch-lower 959S suspension set-up as its jumping-off point. “The only thing I disliked about the first year in my car was the hydraulic suspension. It was a pain in the ass and would porpoise and do weird things. Our coilovers have titanium springs and Penske builds our shocks—it’s much more controlled but still very compliant.”

Canepa has also upgraded the brakes and offers magnesium hollow-spoke alloys with the look of the originals but a diameter increased from 17 to 18 inches—the size Porsche originally intended to fit but couldn’t due to the lack of a suitable tire.

The expertise means that from the total production of 292 units never intended for U.S. sale, Canepa estimates 87 to 90 have passed through his workshops. Today that has culminated in the 959SC, a 50-unit run that “reimagines” Porsche’s first supercar and is billed as the final evolution of upgrades Canepa will ever create for the 959.

Upsetting for some purists it may be, but a 959SC does represent a sympathetic and highly appealing package of upgrades far beyond what Porsche ever could have imagined in-period.

The entire build is said to take 4000 hours, with over 500 devoted to prepping the body alone, which is painted either in Porsche’s paint-to-sample colors or a one-off shade. A further 400 hours are lavished on the gorgeous interior, the detail extending even to new tool pouches and owner’s manual in matching leather.

But the most impressive numbers of all are reserved for the engine, described by Canepa as its fourth generation and engineered by legendary tuner Ed Pink. Highlights include twin BorgWarner turbos with internal wastegates, new pistons to raise the compression a little, Pankl titanium connecting rods, and an upgraded valvetrain. It’s an exhaustive and all-encompassing overhaul good for a massive 850 hp with 650 lb-ft of torque.

The vibe is very much ultra-luxury GT, and no two 959SCs will ever be alike.

Canepa’s 934 project, meanwhile, goes back to Bruce’s racing roots. He entered his first sports car race at Sears Point in 1978 driving a Porsche 934.5 (essentially the Group 4 racing version of Porsche’s 930 Turbo road car, with the rear wing and wheels from the 935 Group 5 racer) then upgraded to the last factory-built 935 the following season. It’s a car he still owns and he raced it to victory at Rennsport this year.

When it debuted, the 934 race car was incredibly close to production specification, making it an ideal candidate for a road conversion. Porsche produced just 31 examples, and Canepa has converted four for road use. The blue car pictured is Bruce’s own 934.5.

“Guys laugh when I tell them, but I say it’s just a 1976 911 Turbo, you know?” says Canepa. “The front spoiler doesn’t rub, it’s got good ground clearance, we soften it up a little bit, put in a really good brake pad, and I just throw my luggage in the back—it’s easy.”

Each 934 undergoes a typically meticulous Canepa restoration, with a paint finish the race cars could only dream of (and which originality buffs might balk at) as well as attention to detail throughout. Bruce highlights the trademark rivet-on arches.

“When these were built, the flares never fit like this, but we have a composites guy in-house to get it just right,” Canepa explains, before talking us through wheels with period-correct center-lock nuts but an upgrade in diameter from 16 to 17 inches.

Inside—as it was in-period—the feel is very much road car with a few racing upgrades. There’s a racing seat with harnesses, a roll cage, a small-diameter steering wheel, and that’s pretty much it.

“The factory delivered these cars with carpet and power windows, so we take the lollipop seat, split it in half, and add one or two inches, depending on the size of the guy,” he explains. “The only thing I change is the rubber matting material underneath the carpet, particularly at the back, just to kill the noise. I put electric A/C in one or two of them, and it’s got all the things you need, a gas gauge, a speedometer, a handbrake …”

Much like with the 959, the 934 engine is also tuned to be much more driveable, notably with a Garrett turbocharger featuring modern wastegate technology to reduce lag, and Motec management so it starts from cold and idles smoothly, then delivers its power progressively. The twist is the output—a huge 670 hp in a car weighing around 2535 pounds.

The third car converted by Canepa was an orange example for actor and comedian Jerry Seinfeld. “Jerry has done a lot of miles in his car, and he just sent me a text last week saying it’s four years to the day since he’d fired it up and driven off on New York plates.”

Canepa’s own website shows the car idling in its workshops, then cuts to Seinfeld at the wheel, grinning like a man who knows he can drive a racecar straight past a police car without going to jail.

What comes next for Canepa? “I’m going to do the Carrera GT,” reveals the founder. “I’ll do all the interior, a proper clutch, figure out a wheel … it just needs a couple of things to make it more user-friendly. It’ll be very understated.”

Given Canepa’s track record, “a couple of things” will likely evolve into a whole lot more. Watch this space.

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters. 

The post Talking Porsches with Bruce Canepa appeared first on Hagerty Media.

As you drive west through the Great Plains Heartland of America, across the flatlands of Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, and Kansas, you’re greeted by the towering granite of the Rocky Mountains, whose peaks rise, in various areas, to more than 14,000 feet. If you’re a fan of cars, you are probably familiar with one snow-capped location in Colorado, on the eastern edge of the mountain range—Pikes Peak. Though 27 mountains rise higher than Pikes Peak—at 14,110 feet, it is less than half the altitude of Mt. Everest—this Colorado peak is the one that has character.

Native Americans once built a small settlement into the cliffs at the base of this mountain and named it Manitou (the Indian word for Supreme Being or God). Known today as Manitou Springs, the town is due west of Colorado Springs and is referred to as the keeper of the mountain. During the Gold Rush days of the 1800s, settlers were drawn to this intimidating natural wonder, which inspired Katherine Lee Bates to write “America the Beautiful.”

In 1806, Zebulon Montgomery Pike, a U.S. Army officer, was commissioned to lead an expedition west across the Great Plains and into the purchased Louisiana Territory. Pike, who is credited with discovering the mountain, remarked that it would be impossible to ascend to the summit because of snow and subzero weather during the winter season. Of course, 14 years later, a cog railway—and, later, a motor road—was built, bringing thousands of tourists to the top of Pikes Peak every year.

In 1916, the first “Race to the Clouds” was organized as a stunt to publicize the opening of a toll road. Privately owned by Spencer Penrose, and groomed with crushed granite gravel, the road started at 9402 feet above sea level (Crystal Creek) and ran 12.42 miles to the summit. To this day, there are 156 curves, some with sheer drop-offs from 800 feet with no guardrails.

The challenge up the Hill is the second-oldest regularly scheduled race in the U.S.—only the Indy 500 is older. The Pikes Peak Hill Climb has been run every year since 1916, with only a handful of exceptions: 1917, 1919, 1935, and 1942–45. All were war years except for ’35, when Penrose withdrew from the toll road and the race was canceled. The following year, a group of American Legionnaires pitched in to keep the race alive.

The original sanctioning body was the American Automobile Association but, in 1956, the United States Auto Club took charge and scheduled the race for Labor Day.

As early as that first race in 1916 (won by Ralph Mulford driving a Hudson Super-Six Special to the summit in 18:24.7), the “Unser Dynasty,” who had immigrated from Switzerland, made an appearance with three young motorcycle racers: Louie, Jerry (short for Jerome), and Joe. They actually rode their bikes to the summit while the road was still under construction, but it wasn’t until 1926 that now-famous racers entered the hill climb. Not for another 10 years would an Unser set a record at the mountain: In 1936, when Louie ran a Stutz Special up the Hill setting a record time of 16:01.80. He did it again in 1938, driving a Loop Café Special to a record time of 15:49.90.

The 1950s brought changes such as the introduction of sports cars. Motorcycles were reintroduced in 1954. The original sanctioning body was the American Automobile Association but, in 1956, the United States Auto Club (USAC) took charge. The stock-car division that had ended in 1934 also returned for 1956, when the race date changed from Labor Day to the Fourth of July.

The most important occurrence during the 1950s, however, was the “invasion of the Hill” by the Albuquerque Unsers. In 1955, four Unsers made a grand statement: Uncle Louie and three boys—Bobby (21 years old), and 22-year-old twins, Jerry Jr. and Louis Jr. One of the twins, Jerry, drove a blown ’57 Ford and took a win. The brothers even got Hot Rod Magazine as a sponsor.

By the ’60s and ’70s other names had become prominent at the Hill, like Curtis Turner, Parnelli Jones, Mario Andretti, Roger Ward, Roger and Rick Mears, David Pearson, Bud Tinglestad, and others. In 1963, American motorsports promoter J.C. Agajanian came on the scene as managing director and immediately increased the purse to $22,000. In 1971, VW- and Corvair-powered buggies entered, and made a splash: Roger Mears took the win in a VW-powered buggy while he and his brother Rick won two more times. V-8-powered buggies started to dominate by 1979 when Richard Dodge, in a Well Coyote V-8, broke Bobby Unser’s record set in 1968.

In the ’70s, I had been active in motorsports photography as West Coast photographer for Valvoline Oil Company. I covered everything: NASCAR, Formula 1, Indy at Ontario Motor Speedway, the first Long Beach Grand Prix (Formula 5000), and drag racing at all the drag strips in Southern California. In 1974, I was approached by Road and Track magazine to cover the Pikes Peak Hill Climb and immediately started doing research on the “Race to the Clouds” on what had been nicknamed “Unser Mountain.”

I packed up my Dodge van with all the appropriate gear and sleeping bags (I slept in the van) and set sail on a 1087-mile trek to Colorado Springs for the 58th running of the Pikes Peak Hill Climb. I planned on camping in my van near Devil’s Playground, where thousands of spectators were camped in tents and sleeping bags. I have been a Bobby Unser fan for years, so I was excited to find out that, after a five-year absence from competition on the Hill, Unser was returning to drive Dodge’s new “Dart Kit Car” racer in its debut appearance.

Unser once said, “I feel that I owe a tremendous amount to the people I’ve met up here over the years. I also think it’s probably the greatest race in the world. I would rather run Indy because it pays a helluva lot more money, but for fun, I’d rather run Pikes Peak.” Fact is, Bobby Unser was dead serious about remaining “King of the Hill,” but 27-year-old Roger Mears was set on replacing Unser.

Mears had the machine to do it, too: a VW-powered dune buggy equipped with two braking systems, one to pinch all four rotors, and another that allows the driver to brake each rear wheel independently by pulling a handle that is hooked up to two more master cylinders located in the cockpit. The fiberglass body of the buggy was handmade, with the center section molded from a Lola T300 Formula 5000 car. Mears then fabricated his own front and rear sections to produce the three-piece body. His work paid off: Mears took the win in Open Road Class in 1972 and 1973, placed third in 1974, and finally won overall in 1976 driving a Newman-Dreager Porsche @ 12:11.88.

Bobby Unser Jr., joined the Hill Climb brigade in 1976, 1977, and 1978 driving an open-wheel Chevy 327 and managed to place second in a Chevy 350 in 1977 with a time of 12:16.90. In 1981, ’82, and ’83 he piloted an ’82 Wells Coyote and placed a few times.

In the 1980s, pro racing cars made the scene including Audi, Peugeot, Subaru, Suzuki, Mazda, Porsche, Lancia, VW, and Toyota, each manufacturer ready to make its bid to the “Race to the Clouds.” Audi became a serious competitor at this time building versions of the Quattro rally car. History was made in 1985 when a French woman, Michèle Mouton, broke the overall record with a time of 11 minutes, 25.39 seconds. In 1994, Rod Millen chopped 40 seconds off that record in his Toyota Celica.

One name resonates when you refer to the Pikes Peak Hill Climb: Jeff Zwart, noted still photographer, film-maker, Porsche collector, co-founder of Racer Magazine in 1992, and graduate of Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. Zwart entered the Hill Climb in 1989 in production division driving a Mazda and in 1994 he drove a 1990 Porsche and nabbed first place. For many years Zwart has challenged the Hill and has claimed multiple division wins on America’s Mountain. “Pikes Peak is a living organism,” he said. “There’s never a year that has been alike. I favor the dirt road. Just much more fun to drive on a road that makes a car move under you.” He was inducted into the Pikes Peak Hill Climb Hall of Fame in 2018.

At the 2023 Hill Climb, Zwart drove a 2019 Porsche 935/19 to a ninth-place finish (9:46.131), but Robin Shute drove his 2018 Wolf TSC-FS to the top in 8:40.080 and grabbed the win.

Pikes Peak champion Rod Millen once said, “Paving the road would be dangerous. It’d be like running the Long Beach Grand Prix with no barriers between the track and the spectators.” However, as of 2011, the road is paved and thus grippier. (The Sierra Club spurred the change when it claimed that using dirt as the race surface was causing serious environmental damage.) The cars have become lower and faster, and their aerodynamics have changed. They race on slicks rather than treaded tires. The overall record is held by Romain Dumas, who piloted his all-electric VW ID.R to a time of 7.57.148 in 2018.

The 102th running of the Race to the Clouds—officially known as the Broadmoor International Pikes Peak Hill Climb, presented by Gran Turismo—is scheduled for June 23, 2024. You can find more info at www.ppihc.org.

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post The history of the Pikes Peak Hill Climb: A challenge for man and machine appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Raging rotorhead Mad Mike Whiddett has just let rip his most wonderful Wankel to date. The New Zealander unveiled his 787D—a five-rotor drift weapon—at his annual summer bash.

Mike’s previous projects have always been, at least loosely, based on Mazda sports cars. The BADBUL was an RX-8 powered by a triple-rotor, turbocharged 20B engine, that took him to the 2009 New Zealand Drift Championship title, and then on to Formula Drift. Next came the RADBUL, that was a mash-up of NC and ND MX-5s that somehow squeezed a four-rotor, 1200-hp, twin-turbo 26B under the hood. Following that was a throwback to Mazda’s primetime with the MADBUL, an RX-7 derived monster with a naturally-aspirated quad-rotor, and the HUMBUL 1000-hp RX-7 in which he won the 2018 Formula Drift Japan championship. He even turned a humdrum Mazda Luce cab into a turbo-charged twin-rotor Drift Taxi.

The 787D, however, doesn’t seem to be inspired by any Mazda road car, but rather the company’s 1991 Le Mans-winning 787B. The body, by Ken Miura of Rocket Bunny is certainly reminiscent of the glory days of Group C endurance racing, and the Argyle-pattern Reknown livery is a lovely touch.

The D outguns the B by packing five rotors instead of four, and, as it’s been designed for drifting the motor is mounted behind the front axle, rather than ahead of the rear, like the Le Mans champ. “This is what happens when I build a car with no rules,” says Whiddett.

We can’t wait to see it in action, but in the meantime just listen to that crazy sound. If you’re smitten, like us, you can even pick an official HotWheels model.

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post Just listen to the world’s first five-rotor motor fire up appeared first on Hagerty Media.

A few years ago, when I first started writing on this site, a commenter and I got in a bit of a debate about the value of volunteering at track events. I’m man enough to admit when I am wrong, and I now realize my position was completely absurd. So here we go:

It is totally worth going to a track event just to volunteer.

I, like most motorsports enthusiasts, have spent years watching racing from here wishing I was there. When I could not be the one doing the thing, I refused to be tangentially part of the action: How could being a flagger or track worker for a weekend get me any closer to being on track? Staffing an event seemed like a consolation prize, and one I was paying for at that. I saw no point in going to the race track, spending not only money but a precious weekend away from home, and not even trying to be a part of the action.

Thing is, I misunderstood a big part of flagging: You are a part of the action. You are not a spectator with a radio and some vague responsibility. Flagging is a quick and intense relationship with the racers on track. Only after being a racer did I understand the amount of trust placed in the flaggers, often volunteers, who alert racers to what is happening on the track ahead. Flaggers enable racers to truly focus on the art of driving or riding. A flag stands is more than a reference point for triangulating turn-in or braking; it is a pop-up information stand telling you what is around the next corner—literally.

The experience that brought this into focus was this year’s trip to Barber Vintage Festival, in early October. After six straight years, the trip is starting to feel like a pilgrimage. I know six years is only the start, due to how many people I meet each year that have stories from attending the race 15 years in a row, or more.

I tried to take up racing and only made it about a year before I raced myself out of money and sold my bike. It was the right decision, but having to scale back left me wanting. When I reached out to a friend—who happens to be the dirt-track director for the American Historic Racing Motorcycle Association (AHRMA), the sanctioning body for Vintage Fest—and told him about my plans to travel to Barber without my race bikes, he understood, and suggested that I help him out. What about volunteering as the starter for the dirt-track event?

I was both excited and nervous. For starters, and I mean every part of that pun, I have relatively little time at a racetrack compared to most of the people with whom I have surrounded myself. I am humble about my skills and experience. In addition, section 3.7 of the AHRMA handbook makes it clear that the starter holds a mountain of power: “Flag signals shall be obeyed without question,” emphasis theirs.

From the riders’ perspective, a starter is just a person standing out front, the final thing holding you back from a wide-open blast to turn one. This person also brings the sad news of the last lap and makes calls regarding what is happening on the track and how best to handle the situation. I thought I had understood the power of a starter while I was on track, but once I was standing on the asphalt, green flag in hand, while a dozen riders and bikes sat with the revs up and clutches slipping, I realized that I had severely underestimated how hard this job would be.

Before I reported for duty at the flat-track event, I watched Ed Bargy, the starter for the road-course events at Vintage Fest, who could turn out fast, safe starts like clockwork. I began to realize how much racers value consistency. Then, while Ed was clicking off starts like the machine he is, I walked to the upper parking lot.

Of all the facilities Barber Motorsports Park has, a dirt track is not one of them. Therefore, after the riders meeting for the flat-track events, we set up some hay bales on the test track and they began to lap a short-track oval on pavement.

These practice sessions were the easy part. I held the green flag out for a few minutes, followed by a checker, to send each group around the oval and off. Each got a handful of laps, entering and exiting in a self-policed manner. Then came the race heats. Even with small grids, the tasks quickly piled up: Make sure that everyone was lined up properly, that timing and scoring was ready, that the track was clear, and finally that the fire and medical teams were alert, just in case. Look down the line, walk to my starter’s box, lift the green flag, and hold. That three-second hold, before I dropped the green to release the riders, might as well have been three days. My heart rate doubled. I tried not to twitch or jump.

Honestly, standing in the starting box was far more intense than sitting atop a machine in my leathers. It was not just my start, but everyone’s, and the race would be botched if I miffed my job. Mishandle the start as a racer, and you’ll get a penalty or a talking-to by the referee. As the starter? You will get an earful from just about everyone within earshot. I very much did, because I did screw up. Multiple times.

Between managing lap count, keeping track of which flag was in my hand, and which rider was on the lead lap, the job was mentally exhausting like nothing else. Each visor or pair of goggles that met my eyes as a rider throttled out of turn four reminded me that the riders were trusting me, some guy in a goofy hat holding 75 cents worth of fabric on a stick, to ensure that they were getting what they signed up for. Nothing more, nothing less.

I likely miscalled a jump start and set back one racer’s day. I’m not proud of that, but only hindsight is 20/20. In the heat of the moment, I was confident, and there is nothing I can say except thank you to that rider who talked with me about the mistake after the fact. He was unhappy, and rightfully so, but we talked as adults rather than yelling like children. We both recognized that while it sucks that I mishandled the start, this race was not going to make or break his racing career. If that were the case, I certainly would not be volunteering as starter.

So many jobs at a racetrack are thankless, but the insight I received after working on the other side of the starting line for just a single race will ensure that there is one less, at least when I am around. If and when I return to the track, I will happily recognize the hard work of all the seemingly silent corner workers and grid marshals who work so hard to allow us racers to have our fun in a fair and safe manner. Even if it is slightly embarrassing that I didn’t see the full value of track-day volunteers until now.

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post The other side of the starting line appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Turn back the clock to about 2000. Now imagine that you’re a car company looking to promote your latest frugal, front-wheel drive, fuel-sipping four-banger hatchback. Naturally, your first call is to a racing outfit to completely re-engineer and beef up the little car, yanking out the four-cylinder up front in the process and stuffing a V-6 in the back. You then rush the car to market, sell it in small numbers at a surprisingly low price (which can’t have been profitable), and run a one-make racing series with it for a few years to promote the regular model.

The plan sounds awesome, not to mention completely unnecessary, but Renault used its Clio hatchback to bring this imagined scenario to life from 2001 to ’05. One of the original track cars just sold this week at a sinister $66,666 winning bid ($69,999 with buyer’s premium), which seems like plenty of rarity and track day fun per dollar.

Renault started selling the Clio in 1990, and while we’ve never been able to buy one here in the States, it is consistently one of Europe’s best-selling cars and is a popular commuter car in South America as well. It’s sort of like a French VW Golf. The second-generation Clio debuted in 1998, and at the Paris Motor Show that year, Renault trotted out a sporty mid-engine Clio hatchback as a concept car. It was a clear reminder of the R5 Turbo rally racers of the 1980s, which were themselves reworked mid-engine versions of the Clio’s predecessor, the Renault 5.

Encouraged by the concept car’s reception, Renault worked with British firm Tom Walkinshaw Racing (TWR) of Le Mans–winning and Jaguar XJR-15 fame to develop the car for two purposes. The first was a one-make racing program called the Renault Clio V6 Trophy series. The second was a road-going version of the racer, and TWR built the early road cars at its facility in Sweden. The entire rear of the Clio was reworked, and the inherent practicality of a hatchback was wiped away by the 3.0-liter V-6 borrowed from the Renault Laguna family car that got dropped in place of where the rear seats and cargo space used to be. A six-speed manual was the only available gearbox, and new suspension (MacPherson up front, multi-link in the rear) was added. A Clio V6 is wider, lower, and longer than the standard model, with a squat stance and big butt. Launched in late 2000 and selling for less than £30,000 in the UK, this pocket exotic seemed like a bargain.

But it wasn’t perfect. The TWR connection was reassuring, and having a big engine stuffed into the middle of small car is often a recipe for fun, but early reviewers were a little disappointed and sometimes frightened. First, the Clio V6 was over 600 pounds heavier than the standard Clio, so despite the 227 hp driving the rear wheels, it wasn’t as much faster than the regular front-driver as you might think. The 0-to-60-mph sprint came in a little over six seconds.

Then there was the scary handling. The engine provides plenty of oomph and makes a nice throaty sound, but it sits high up in the chassis. The high center of gravity plus its short wheelbase made this spunky Clio a bit unpredictable. According to Autocar, the “approach to corners went grip, grip, grip, grip, gone,” and the Clio V6 is “at its absolute best when parked.” Andrew Frankel later remembered that people “always bang on about early Porsche 911s as being the trickiest road cars to drive on the limit, but in my experience they’re not even close. A Ferrari 348 is worse than that and worse than the 348 was that Clio.” Ouch.

After about 1500 Clio V6 road cars sold, a new Phase 2 model came out. Production moved to France at the Renaultsport factory in Dieppe, and a facelift ditched the narrow, grin-like grille for larger grilles split by the Renault diamond in the middle. Improvements to the suspension, stiffer subframes, and a longer wheelbase made it friendlier to drive, while different gear ratios and more power thanks to reworked induction and cylinder head made it a little quicker, too.

Even so, Renault stopped selling this imperfect but undeniably cool car after 2005. Only about 3000 examples of the Phase 1 and Phase 2 models were built. If you’re of a certain age, you probably drove one of these in a video game with your thumbs, but Clio fans in the States will have to keep waiting for the real thing—you can’t import one till they’re 25 years old.

As for the race cars, they effectively replaced Renault’s previous one-make championship, the Renaultsport Spider Trophy series, which wrapped up in 1998 before the Clios debuted at Jarama in 1999 (Renault’s 100th birthday year). Compared to the road cars, the Clio V6 Trophy versions had more power (281 hp) and a six-speed sequential gearbox instead of the standard manual.

If the Clio V6 was a flawed road car, that doesn’t mean that it made a perfect race car. The rear end was prone to hopping and there are plenty of reports of poor reliability, though participants noted good support from Renault, and the series attracted talent like Philippe Siffert and Anthony Beltoise (both sons of F1 greats), as well as current F1 safety car driver Bernd Mayländer. It was also a not-so-expensive way to go racing—a new car for the 2003 season cost €45,800. The series tackled famous European tracks like Monaco and Nürburgring, and even served as a support race for the 1999 24 Hours of Le Mans.

The Trophy car sold this week is represented as #79 of the 159 Trophy versions built by Renaultsport. No race history is represented, but it was imported from Japan earlier this year, and the build date is believed to be 1999. Track-prepped with OMP seats, Sparco six-point harnesses and aluminum pedals, digital dash, roll cage, fire system, brake-bias adjuster, and Cromodora wheels, it does not have a title as it is a track car, but it does have a Japanese-assigned VIN.

Like any race car, this eccentric little French hatchback probably needs sorting before being driven in anger. It does run and drive, though, and looks like a very fun way to annoy some Porsches at your local track day. Hopefully the owner does just that. Since he “can’t wait to see it parked next to my street legal Clio V6 =)” he certainly knows what he just bought.

The same seller sold another Japanese–imported Clio V6 Trophy last year for $78,750. This $67K sale price is closer to what good Phase 2 road cars sell for on the other side of the pond, and seems like a decent value. There are certainly more expensive and slower ways to go racing.

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post This Renault Clio V6 Trophy is a fun, French track weapon for $70K appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Some stories are too good and long to tell (or read) in just one installment, so here is the tale of this remarkable car’s three very different phases of life in my hands in three logical segments. Chap. I finds it hustling around a couple of famed European F1 racetracks and touring as far north as Stockholm, Sweden, and even into then-divided Berlin, Germany.

Chapter II sees it taking me faithfully through SCCA driving school and my first semi-successful season of amateur racing, book-ended by two unfortunate crashes, one on the road, the other in its season-ending race.

Chapter III, “Anchors Aweigh,” is available here. —GW

The road was straight, flat, and very dark. I was returning to my motel late and tired, after failing to locate a Saturday night party to which I had been invited by a woman I had met earlier. I was in Northern Ontario, Canada, in January 1966, on a ski trip with my talented-skier friend and roommate Frank. I was driving my 1966 Triumph TR4A, which I had bought soon after my college graduation in 1965, picked up in England, and driven around Europe—and on a couple of its famed F1 racetracks—that September.

Its (tractor-derived) torquey 2138-cc four-cylinder thrummed happily at speed, and the car surged eagerly forward as I pulled out and passed a slower driver (the only other vehicle out there at that time) at probably 80 mph. Then, back on the straight two-lane heading rapidly toward town, I must have dozed briefly at the wheel.

I opened my eyes just in time to see a 90-degree right turn rushing toward me. Naively hoping that the Triumph and its fine-handling Michelin X radials could take most any curve at most any speed, I eased on the brakes and turned into the curve—way too fast. The back end came around. I steered left to catch the slide, back right to avoid over-correcting, and—suddenly—the world went dark. I had accidentally hit the headlamp stalk, on the left side of the steering wheel, and turned off the lights.

Spinning to my right, and no longer able to see where to aim the car, I decided to let it spin around backwards. Better to go off the road backward, even if I hit something, rather than forward. The car slid off into a roadside ditch, tail first, and began a slow roll. I grabbed the bottom of the wheel, ducked down, and tried to make myself small as it rolled one and a quarter times, coming to rest on my driver’s side.

Thanks largely to the Sears seatbelt I had bought, installed, and habitually used since taking delivery, I was uninjured. However, I was trapped. My door had opened and twisted around into the left front fender as the car slid backward on its side. My left leg had somehow flopped out and was pinned. No amount of pushing on the ground would flip the car back on its wheels or move it enough to free my leg. With my left side on the ground, I suddenly felt cold and exposed in the Northern Ontario winter air and began to think about the potential of fire.

The Triumph was still running, so I reached up and turned off the ignition. As I did so, I heard a car going by. I flashed my lights to attract its attention—nothing. Things were not looking good. But then I heard a car approach from the other direction, and it stopped. Two men ran over and asked if I was okay. I said yes, but my leg was trapped. Could they move the car enough to set me free? They hoisted it back onto its wheels, and I was up and out.

My rescuers were the drivers of the car that I had passed at speed. They told me that, when I accelerated past them, they had joked that either I was Stirling Moss (really!) or that I would likely be off the road by the time they caught up with me. And they were right on the latter. The right-hander that had caught me out was known locally as Dead Man’s Curve, because so many folks had driven straight off it into the trees and died.

Since they were nice people, they called the local police and stayed with me until the officers arrived. The cops asked a few questions, determined that I was not drunk, and decided not to issue a ticket. They knew that deadly corner well and were grateful that I was okay. Then they drove me to my motel—where Frank was fast asleep—and assured me that my Triumph would be retrieved and delivered there in the morning.

I fell asleep wondering how I could have been so stupid to have crashed, yet grateful that I had been smart enough to have installed and worn that seatbelt. Without it, I very likely would have been pitched out as the car rolled, and it would have landed on top of me. I also credit the strength of the TR4A’s windshield frame, and my decision to let the car spin around backward, since it was bent up and to the right instead of collapsing onto me as it might have had the car been moving forward while rolling. (Sure glad it wasn’t an old TR3, or the MGB or Austin Healey I had also considered!)

I awoke the next morning hoping that I had dreamed the whole thing. But the dirt I dug out of both ears assured me otherwise. The crash had really happened. I broke the news to Frank, who agreed that, after Sunday’s skiing, we would have to drive the banged-up Triumph home, with its windshield and side windows gone, its top in shreds, its driver’s door crumpled, and its bumpers mangled, among other things. And with no working radio, either: When I went back to look at the scene the next day, I found the junkyard radio I had installed in the glovebox several feet away in a snowbank.

That drive home in the dark was a nightmare. We wired the driver’s door semi-shut, so the passenger door was our only way in and out, and quickly found that our front wheels wobbled like those of a bad shopping cart above 35 mph. With no windshield or windows and the Triumph’s weak (optional) heater, we nearly froze. We wore ski masks that Frank had brought. Mine was white, so it looked like my head was bandaged from the wreck we had obviously suffered. Stopping several times to warm up and quaff hot coffee on our slow, cold journey, we drew quite a few sorry looks. When we finally reached the border checkpoint, the guards asked if we had driven the car into Canada in that condition. I said no, only on the way back.

Drivers’ schools

I had sold the old Ford wagon that had gotten me through my senior year in college, so I needed to quickly find an affordable daily driver. I chose a 1961 Chevy Impala, which was much more acceptable in Chevrolet Engineering employee parking than my Triumph, which had attracted grumbles from loyal Chevy workers.

With Frank’s help, I got the Triumph to my local dealer for repairs. Thankfully, my insurance covered most of the bill, and I was able to redirect some of that money away from the purchase of new bumpers and toward installation of a roll bar, since the Triumph was destined to become my first SCCA race car. No need for bumpers on a race car, right? It was supposed to have gotten that roll bar installed the week before the ski trip, but my dealership technician in Royal Oak, Michigan, had delayed that job due to other pressing business.

Finally, with the Triumph (almost) good as new and running well, I took it to the May 1966 SCCA driver’s school at nearby Waterford, Michigan, a small but challenging 1.5-mile track. Still stock (minus bumpers) and rolling on its OE Michelins, it performed well as I learned the lines of the track through its tricky curves and its few short straights. The only two other cars in my D-Production class were an MGB and a (new to the U.S.) Porsche 911. During the short race that concluded the school’s itinerary, I easily passed and pulled away from the MGB, then caught the 911, but I could never get past it: With more power than me but tricky handling, that damned Porsche held me up through every turn, then blew me away down every straight. I developed a strong dislike for 911s and was delighted to see them moved up to the faster C-Production class the following year.

My second SCCA-required school was at (the now defunct) Lynndale Farms Raceway, a 2.5-mile course 20 miles west of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. No drama there, except my instructor yelling at me for driving one-handed past the pits during a Saturday practice with my left arm leaning casually on the window ledge like I was cruising Woodward. Well, I was tired, hadn’t had much sleep on the way there, and the long front straight was a boring slog in a bone-stock Triumph. With more cars in my class, most of them race-prepped, I managed a fourth-place finish in the concluding race. Not bad.

Racing at last

With my SCCA Regional license in hand, I ran one Waterford Hills club event and one Regional at Waterford, scoring second in one heat race and fifth in both main events. Unable to afford both slick racing tires and treaded rain ones, I opted for a set of Dunlop “universals,” which were not especially good in the dry or in the wet but were a step up from the narrow radials fit by the factory.

I also decided the Triumph needed a set of racing shocks. Unfortunately, the nearest place I could find the lever-type performance rear dampers I wanted was a dealership across the river from Detroit in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. I actually drove the Triumph over there, through border checks both ways, with only the UK license plate on it and no U.S.-legal registration. Then I bought and installed an (SCCA-legal) higher-performance camshaft.

A July trip to a Regional at Nelson Ledges in Northeastern Ohio yielded a decent fourth-place finish. And I was really starting to have fun! As the saying goes, the most fun I’ve had with clothes on.

Serious setback

Back at Waterford for a club event the following week, on the first lap of my first heat race, the Triumph suddenly shed its left rear wheel in a tight right turn cresting a hill and slid off to the left, up against a fence. The body damage was minor, but I was done for the weekend. The left rear axle had twisted off, and I had no spare. I thought my friend Bob Dorn, a fellow Chevy engineer and winning racer who had been prepping a TR4A for serious SCCA National racing, might have one. I knew he had taken it to a Mid-Ohio National for its first outing and should be home sometime Sunday evening, so I drove to his house and waited outside.

When Bob finally arrived, he had neither a spare axle nor much sympathy for me. His beautifully prepared, new Triumph had been running very well until it, too, had shed its left-rear wheel, in the fast right-hand turn at the end of Mid-Ohio’s long back straight. Because he had exited the corner far faster than I had—and sideways—his car flipped multiple times, side to side and end over end. He pulled into the driveway with his TR4A crinkled up into a sorry ball on his trailer. At 6 feet, 4 inches, Dorn was lucky to have survived that crash, and it ended his racing aspirations. Instead, he concentrated on his GM career and eventually worked his way up to chief engineer at Pontiac, then Cadillac Division.

Since I was flat-towing the Triumph to races behind my Chevy with a cobbled-up tow bar, I needed it back on all four wheels to get it back to my parents’ house in an East-side Cleveland suburb, where I was staying during a training assignment at Chevy’s nearby transmission plant. Very few TR4As had been sold in my area as of mid-1966, but I was lucky to find a crashed one at a Detroit junkyard. I pulled off its left rear axle, then drove back to Waterford to install it. I ended up missing just one day of work.

Thoroughly pissed that the same potentially fatal failure had happened to both Dorn and me, I wrote a passionate letter to U.S. Triumph racing guru Kas Kastner. He agreed to send me a couple of heat-treated axles, which were much stronger than the stock ones. Once received, I immediately installed them. The good news was that Bob sold me his four remaining Goodyear slicks, an upgrade that instantly moved me from the middle to near the front of my class.

The rest of the season yielded a disappointing sixth at Grattan, Michigan (with some sort of steering issue, probably caused by the “off” at Waterford), followed by a more satisfying third at Lynndale Farms. Then I was back at Waterford for what turned out to be my best racing weekend of the year: I won a Saturday novice race, which qualified me for that day’s “sprint” race. I placed third, then managed to win the DP feature race on Sunday. Not bad!

Season-ending crash

Meanwhile, with the Vietnam war raging, I decided to join the Navy Reserve and was accepted to Officer Candidate School (OCS) in Newport, Rhode Island, that fall. My last race of the season would be an October Regional at Mid-Ohio, and since I had finally admitted to my parents that I was racing the Triumph, I invited them to drive down and watch. I was running fairly well until a car ahead of me, that I was trying to pass, spun in front of me. A car behind me that I had just passed ran into my Triumph from behind and pushed me head-on into the spinning car. My folks saw the whole thing.

The rear damage was minimal but the front damage substantial, and I had to get the car repaired and back on the road ASAP to drive it to Newport for OCS. My dad, bless his soul, loaned me money for the repairs. My mom admitted that she felt better about my racing after seeing me jump out of the crashed car angry but unhurt, and I was soon off to Navy service.

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post The Special Life of a Very Special Car, Ch. II: Let’s go racing appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Innovations came fast and furious during the early years of the automobile, and racing played a vital role in many such advancements. Today, many of the cars that made names for themselves on the race tracks of yore are lost to the sands of time. Of the ones that remain, we have a soft spot for the ones that still get exercise. The latest episode of Jay Leno’s Garage looks at one such car, a 1911 EMF Model 30.

In 1908, EMF was founded by three Detroiters: coachbuilder Barney Everitt, ex-Ford product manager Walter Flander, and William Metzger, a former Cadillac employee and someone who some folks say was the first car dealer in America. The talented trio grabbed a letter from each last name, and voila, EMF was born. The company produced a handful of models during it’s short life, some under the EMF name and some which were eventually badged as Studebaker models.

Like many automakers of the era, EMF tried its hand at racing. This particular car was sent to the 1911 American Grand Prize race, the final running of an event that brought grand prix racing to Savannah, Georgia. As owner Dale Critz Jr. tells it, this car was the first of three consecutive Model 30s to be plucked straight from the assembly line and configured with speedster-type bodywork, seen here. The latter two cars (numbered 34 and 35, to follow this one’s numeration) received special Firestone tires before the race that enabled them to finish first and second; this car finishing in third place.

This EMF Model 30 features a stock flathead engine that, although Jay and Dale don’t specifically mention it, is likely 228 cubic-inches in displacement. The light car class that this car competed in was limited to 230 cubic-inch engines, thus tipping us off to which of EMF’s engines would be under the hood. Leno and Critz Jr. take some time to go over the rest of the systems in the car, which really paint a picture of just how brave the folks that raced these cars in period really were. There are no brakes on the front wheels, and only a hand-operated brake lever to slow the rear wheels.

Race cars of this era often have two seats because you had to have a ride-along mechanic alongside to help manage the multitude of tricky function and things to keep track of while driving. From that second seat, a mechanic would operate the hand-pump fastened to the side of the bench to regulate fuel pressure. The pump has since been modified to run both the fuel and the oil pressure systems, which feed from the two tanks out back. The larger tank is for oil, because these were total-loss oiling systems.

Despite the primitive braking systems, these cars weren’t slow by any means. This one boasts a speedometer that can read up to 60 mph, something Jay and Dale reminisce on while crawling over the car before the drive. “In the early days of the twentieth century, speed was the new sensation,” explains Leno. “There was no inherent fear of speed yet.” That probably explains the primitive brakes.

And this car proved that absence of fear, recording an average speed of 58 mph around the 17-mile course back in 1911, according to Critz Jr. seeing “something going a mile a minute was pretty impressive,” admits Leno.

Though the car originally had two spark plugs per cylinder, Critz Jr. and his crew have modified it to run with one plug now, opting to use the second hole for a set of primer cups that help the car less cantankerous to start in foul weather conditions. With a little ether and a few cranks to prime it, the EMF Model 30 barks to life easily.

Out on the roads, the EMF’s engine produces plenty of low-end grunt for each of the three forward gears. The tachometer on the car reads up to just 1500 rpm, which seems low in modern context but was quite high for the time, according to Jay. The ride looks pretty decent too, thanks to leaf springs wrapped with twine that had been lubricated with oil. This one also has a Moto-Meter installed up front to measure the temperature of the coolant circulating the engine though Critz Jr. points out that the Moto-Meter wouldn’t have been run during the race, because that invention came out after 1911.

To see a car that’s more than a century old running and driving is always a treat, and Leno is clearly appreciative of the chance to experience such a thing. While we can’t promise you’ll get the chance to pilot a similarly-aged car, you can at least enjoy the full video of Jay’s time with the 1911 EMF Model 30.

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters. 

The post Jay Leno takes a 112-year-old EMF Model 30 for a spin appeared first on Hagerty Media.

It’s been said a thousand times before, but we will say it again: Engines are just air pumps. The more air and fuel you put in, the more power you get out. Of course, anyone who has played with engines long enough knows there is a point of diminishing returns on the vast majority of engine designs. Rarely, however, do we get a first-hand look at the exact constraints.

Luckily Steve Morris, a noted race-engine builder, isn’t afraid to identify the problems that keep a Ford SOHC 427—one of the hero engines of the 1960s—from making the kind of horsepower we see in today’s high-output powerplants.

The single overhead-cam 427 is one of Ford’s most famous engines, for good reason. Known as the “cammer,” this V-8 was born as a rival to the venerable Chrysler 426 Hemi, which was dominating NASCAR ovals. However, NASCAR didn’t like that manufacturers were building engines that diverged further and further from the ones in street cars, and for 1965, organizers added a provision to the rulebook regarding “special racing engines.” Chrysler sat out the season in protest. Ford, whose SOHC 427 was no longer eligible, pivoted and used the 427 Wedge, which it had been running for a couple years.

The legend of the cammer lived on, thanks to racers in other disciplines who saw its potential. Drag racers embraced the SOHC 427 despite its nearly six-foot-long timing chain, a feature that gives the engine much of its unique character. Another contributing factor: The camshafts, which rotate in the same direction. Their profiles are mirrored side to side, based on how the valves are situated relative to the cam. That orientation is something that causes Steve Morris a lot of headaches as he chases four-figure horsepower.

The geometry of the valvetrain is stuck in the 1960s for sure. Each of the rocker arms has a roller on one side that rides on the camshaft and a pivoting adjustor cap that engages the valve stem. Each arm also contains an oil passage, which will not allow oil to flow if the adjustor is at too much of an angle. Keeping components from over-extending themselves is critical to keep everything slippery. As Steve points out, the oil passages could be reengineered, but that would require a lot of time. Few people are willing to pay for that kind of intricate development in a one-off engine.

The solution is to dial in the length of the valve stem, even after modifying the rocker arms with larger follower wheels. The amount of lift planned for the camshaft has set this whole problem in motion, but that airflow is critical to making the horsepower Steve’s customer desires. He is just lucky that the short-block is more or less the same as other FE engine blocks, without the provisions for lifters. New castings are available, but that doesn’t mean it’s as simple as bolting things together. Steve estimates he must spend over 100 hours mocking up this particular engine before he can begin final assembly. Even at time-lapse speed, the intricacy of the project is obvious.

Overall, this video provides a fascinating look into exactly what it takes to make unique high-performance engines. This engine even got mounted on the dynamometer—before the customer decided they wanted to take the engine home and either take a break or finish the project themselves. Will this SOHC 427 make the big power numbers everyone hopes? We may never know, but we have a new appreciation for just how tough it is to even try.

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post Can this Ford 427 “Cammer” make 2000 hp? appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Riding a motorcycle in the Baja 1000 is a big task. Riding the Baja 1000 after flying from Australia to Southern California, buying a used bike, crossing the Mexican border, and riding it all the way down to the starting point in La Paz, only to then race back north with no support crew, no pre-running, and no adequate gear is another thing. Entirely. Oh, and doing all of this in the Ironman class, which means one rider and one bike—no support riders or teammates.

Wouter-jan Van Dijk did just that very thing this year at the SCORE Baja 1000, racing almost 1300 miles of desert from La Paz to Ensenada in just under 50 hours.

This is abjectly foolish, if we’re being honest. Baja is a race that is extremely dangerous under good conditions and is known to be booby trapped by spectators looking to “spice up” the area they are viewing. It is rare to have a year with zero injuries from those who are all-in prepared to run the thing. The terrain and the remoteness of the 1000 are are not to be trifled with, and great riders and drivers have been seriously injured and killed on the course since this race came to life in 1967.

But Van Dijk didn’t injure himself, and he didn’t die. Instead, he discovered the kindness that lives within the off-road racing community, which collectively banded around him and supplied him with the things he needed: fuel, food, and mechanical assistance. He didn’t even make it through tech inspection without others stepping up to solve problems created by his plan: The KTM he purchased in California and rode to the starting line was on bald tires when the stewards were giving the bike their customary once-over to ensure competitors are prepared for the route they are undertaking. They also noted a cracked subframe.

Between getting that welded and accepting a donation of fresh tires, it was a feat for Van Dijk to even take the starting line—which he did at 1:30 in the morning on Thursday, November 16. From there he negotiated a patchwork of assistance as the tale of his wild attempt traveled only slightly faster than he did on the KTM. Updates from random teams and people in the pits popped up on social media, where a fanbase cheered from afar while watching his transponder blink on the tracking screens that are available for each participant.

The stories that trickled out of the desert included a crash that severely bent Van Dijk’s front wheel. Fellow racers fabricated a repair that put him back on course, and not a second too soon. While Van Dijk was initially running toward the front of the 27 riders in the Ironman class, he was also racing against SCORE’s 50-hour cutoff clock. He squeaked in just in time and crossed the finish line at 2:05 a.m. on Saturday, November 18. It appears just 12 riders from the Ironman class reached the finish line, a number which only serves to highlight the insanity of Van Dijk’s feat even more.

Motorsports attracts a certain kind of person—someone seeking a challenge that requires them to go above and beyond the things they think they are capable of. Van Dijk stands as the latest example of just what we are capable of when the perfect mix of luck, skill, and support from strangers comes together. Kudos to you Wouter-jan Van Dijk. We think everyone needed a little reminder of exactly how far out there we can go.

***

 
Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post Least prepared man in history finishes Baja 1000 in just under 49 hours appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Richard Griot, of Griot’s Garage, is an avid F1 collector. His credo for collecting is fairly simple. “I want a car that won in a championship year and won a race in that championship year, and I have had the opportunity to collect those cars.” But there’s one other lesson: Griot wants cars he can drive, and he has learned through bumps and bruises—and a bit of terror—that cars from about 2000 and newer are very hard to pilot if you’re anything shy of a professional driver.

Griot once owned chassis number 203, the car that Michael Schumacher piloted to win the Canadian Grand Prix back in 2000. That was the beginning of Schumacher’s incredible five drivers’ championships at Ferrari, and Griot acquired the car in the teeth of the Great Recession. “Things don’t always go up for people. Sometimes they go sideways and that’s when to buy.”

Griot drove that car at Ferrari’s Fiorano test track, a notoriously difficult circuit for mere mortals to manage.

He had help: Ferrari’s F1 Clienti program provided an entire crew, which is absolutely necessary. Starting the ignition on an F1 car from the late 1990s or early 2000s requires between 1.5 and 2.5 hours of prep. Precise tolerances mean the engines need to be pre-warmed. A swath of sensors across the engine reports to period-specific computer software. And that’s just getting the car started. Specialized parts are another story, with steering wheels, wings, and fuel tanks that cost tens of thousands of dollars. Depending on the era, these drivetrains may not have even been designed to last more than a grand prix or two.

Then there’s you—actually fitting in the car. “I’m not exactly F1-sized,” Griot says with a laugh. “I’m 6 feet tall with a 32-inch inseam.” Griot said the techs had to unbolt the seat, and he ran his laps belted to the floor of the car because he couldn’t get inside otherwise. Somehow he managed to clock over 170 mph, and he’s happy to have the experience—but he sold that Ferrari. Griot regularly drives Formula 1 cars from the 1970s and early 1980s in the Masters Historic Racing series, but the Schumacher car is just too new to be able to run without a dedicated crew. “You could probably figure some of this out, like supposedly there’s a way to start the car from the steering wheel, but then there’s the constant hassle of it, and it’s at least a $100,000 mistake if you do it wrong—you could implode the engine pretty quickly.”

Not to mention, even with Griot’s considerable training in older Formula 1 cars, the fitness required to drive something newer stunned him. “This was a decade ago, and it was so taxing on my body. The g’s in those cars—I think I spent all my energy trying to brace myself.”

Griot hasn’t stopped chasing the modern F1 dream. “I have Ayrton Senna’s 1992 MP4/7, chassis number seven that he won the Monaco Grand Prix with,” he says, adding, “I haven’t driven that car yet, but I’m getting in better shape to do that.”

Not because they are easy, but because they are hard.

Griot’s experience highlights all the challenges of collecting a modern F1 car yet also, perhaps, the appeal. Anyone with a certain level of wealth can buy that Ferrari F50 at auction. Only a select few have the wherewithal to buy, own, and operate a modern F1 car. They are, in essence, the moonshot of car collecting (although the Apollo spacecraft have nothing on modern F1 cars when it comes to complexity).

Formula 1 has long been one of the world’s most popular sports. Until relatively recently, however, the cars of the modern era—loosely defined as those produced since the mid-1980s, when turbocharged engines supplanted venerable Cosworth DFV V-8s on the grid—earned little interest from collectors.

That seems to be changing. As we experience a broader F1 renaissance, which includes a hit series on Netflix, record attendance, and a pivot in dominance to Red Bull and three-time champ Max Verstappen from Mercedes and its star driver, Lewis Hamilton, more and more modern F1 cars have come up for sale and, lately, selling for surprisingly high prices. Not just at collector car auctions, either, but fine art and luxury sales as well. “There’s been quite a jump in prices, and one thing I’ve noticed is a lot of people want a Schumacher car, for obvious reasons,” said Colleen Sheehan, sales manager for Ferraris Online.

At an RM Sotheby’s “Luxury Week” sale in November 2022, Michael Schumacher’s race-winning Ferrari F2003-GA from his sixth championship-winning season sold for CHF 14.6M ($14.9 million), setting a new bar as the most expensive modern F1 car ever sold publicly. RM Sotheby’s used its sealed-bid process to sell another Schumacher car, the third modern F1 car offered for sale publicly in the first four months of 2023. That’s a marked uptick from just a decade ago, when we rarely saw more than a couple of these cars appear at auction, where they often failed to break seven figures.

F1’s ongoing rise in popularity has driven even more special cars to market. Just this past weekend at an auction timed with F1’s return to Las Vegas, RM Sotheby’s broke the record again, this time with Lewis Hamilton’s 2013 Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 W04. Sold for $17.1M ($18,815,000 including fees) against an estimate of $10-$15M, enthusiasm for these provenance-rich cars is as strong as ever.

Similar to RM Sotheby’s choice of venue, Bonhams is leveraging this week’s season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix with an auction of their own, where they are offering two modern F1 showpieces: Kimi Raikkonen’s 2006 McLaren-Mercedes-Benz MP4/21, and a Schumacher show car. Though not considered part of the modern cohort, Mario Andretti’s ever-recognizable John Player Special-liveried championship-winning 1978 Lotus 79 will also cross the Bonhams block and is sure to draw attention. While these cars are unlikely to match the Hamilton W04’s price, they each bring an alluring bit of F1 history and add to the regularity with which we’re beginning to see these cars cross the block.

Yet modern F1 car ownership is a particular experience, given the complexity, specialized parts and systems, plus intensive labor involved. The choices (and prices) are surprisingly varied. You can pay as little as five figures for an F1 car or you can pay as many as eight. And you can do anything from hang it on your garage wall or park it in the lobby of your business to drive it through the tunnel at Monaco with other grand prix greats.

That wrinkle—what might be drivable versus a static display—makes it nearly impossible to build a price guide for old F1 machinery. Then there’s the fact that there are only a half-dozen cars per year per team (a bunch of which are crashed), and on top of that, the ones that survive rarely come up for sale. More often than not, they sell privately, if at all. Teams don’t offload their current crop of cars until after they’ve been off-track for a few years, since each car contains intellectual property that costs tens of millions of dollars to develop.

Different teams also treat their stables differently once they’ve completed a season. McLaren, Williams, and Red Bull tend to hang on to their own stuff, while Ferrari sells many of its cars to private customers (although it reportedly will disable the battery hybrid system on the 2014-and-later cars). And then there’s the endless churn of teams changing ownership or going bust, many of whose cars go into private collections or museums.

A further twist: Even if a car is theoretically “drivable,” some old F1 chassis are sold without a drivetrain, the car’s most expensive component. Static display is the fate of most F1 cars, and there’s even a secondary market for “show cars,” essentially 1:1 replicas used by teams for show and promo purposes.

Per Griot’s advice, one facet that guarantees collectibility is provenance. Sebastian Vettel’s Red Bull will clearly get a lot more attention than Vitaly Petrov’s Caterham.

Speaking of which, Griot offers an extra nugget: “Any McLaren, any Ferrari, even if it wasn’t a championship year, if it won a race….” He trails off. “But then again, if that race was won by the second driver, then you know, that kind of notches it down.” Even so, he admits he has never lost money on any F1 car.

That doesn’t mean F1 cars always rise in value. In September 2022, two months before the then-record-setting Schumacher sale, a 2011 Force India with neither a drivetrain nor any history to speak of went for only £69,000 ($78,800) at Bonhams’ Goodwood Revival auction. You could purchase a regional rental car fleet—189 Force Indias—for the same money as the single Schumacher Ferrari, though, naturally, the latter car is the one to lust after.

Other winning Ferraris driven by Schumacher have sold at auction for $7.5M, $6.6M, and $6.2M; several older, less successful rides from Scuderia Ferrari’s rich history include Jean Alesi’s 1991 Ferrari 643 for €3.7M ($4M) as well as his 1994 412 T1 for £1.5M ($1.9M); Nigel Mansell’s 1989 Ferrari 640 for €3.6M ($3.8M); Mario Andretti’s 1982 Ferrari 126 C2 for $2.1M; and Michele Alboreto’s 1987 Ferrari F1/87 for €666,667 ($797,000).

Curating vs. Driving

To make clear just how much of a premium history brings, consider cars like Ayrton Senna’s Toleman-Hart from 1984. Toleman was not a successful team; it operated for fiveyears and never won a race. But because Ayrton Senna started his F1 career with Toleman in ’84, had a breakout performance that year with a second-place finish at Monaco, and then went on to become one of the all-time greats, his ’84 Toleman brought €1.6M ($1.9M) at auction back in 2018. There’s a similar story with Michael Schumacher’s 1991 Jordan-Ford. In performance and design, the car is nothing special, but it’s also the car in which Schumacher made his controversial debut before going on to win seven titles, so it brought €1.5M ($1.6M) at auction last year. Similar cars without that kind of provenance bring much, much less. A 1990 Arrows sold for €161,000 ($182,200) in 2021, a 1989 Lola sold for £110,255 ($143,400) in 2019, and another Jordan, this one from 1996, sold for €241,250 ($274,500) in 2019.

If you wanted a Senna car with better pedigree, Richard Griot has that Monaco-winning 1992 MP4/7—but it’s not for sale. In fact, Griot even has mixed feelings about abiding by his own ethos of always collecting what he can drive “and not being ‘that guy.’ You know, I don’t want to be the first one that rolls this up into a ball and destroys that history. I also want to be able to go to work on Monday.”

The other premium goes for usability. The hard truth is that running an F1 car as an individual—even an individual with deep pockets—is nearly impossible. “These collectors have cars which can cost upwards of $2 [million] to $4 million [in value], which they can pay to run privately at some of the world’s iconic racing locations. The car could do one lap and an issue with a component can arise—anything from the tiniest leak to a total part failure—wiping out their track time and grounding the car, in some cases for over a year, while a new part is sourced or reverse-engineered,” explains Adam Wright, global director for TDF, a U.K.-based firm that helps collectors drive modern F1 cars.

In the realm of cars you can actually drive, Scuderia Ferrari, despite its current struggles on track, has an apparent advantage. The company’s Corse Clienti program, specifically the F1 Clienti, makes driving an F1 Ferrari at speed a real, albeit expensive, possibility if you’re fortunate enough to own one.

F1 Clienti can run single-seaters from 1970 to as recent as two years prior to the current season, and Ferrari will store, maintain, transport, and support the cars at designated track days. Since Ferrari has the tooling, designs, parts, and (for modern cars) software for its cars and the personnel to make it all happen, it’s a much easier process than being on your own, trying to figure out how to run a car from a long-defunct team. Ferrari is mum on the costs of these programs (and they surely vary), but we hear a single event can cost tens of thousands of dollars.

McLaren retains most of its old greats in its fabled “Unit 2” facility and has released far fewer into private hands. The company declined to comment for our story but has, we hear, a similar but smaller and newer pro-gram than Ferrari that currently services six to eight customer cars for track events. And although Lotus is no longer one of the 10 teams on the Formula 1 grid, Classic Team Lotus operates a stable of vintage Lotus grand prix cars and will service historic Lotuses that are in private hands. You do have to note Griot’s caveat with all of the above, which is that when and where you drive isn’t entirely in your control.

Let’s say you have one of those old cars from a defunct team, however, drivetrain and all, and don’t want it to be merely expensive garage art. You’re not necessarily out of luck. There are private firms, like TDF, that will run your midpack Arrows, Minardi, or Sauber for you—although Wright cautions that his crew “Is not keen on running cars that we haven’t done the due diligence on,” including crack testing and a fastidious mechanical inspection, “because we have a huge duty of care for our clients when we are trackside.”

If that all sounds overly complicated, TDF offers something called the TDF-One, which takes a Formula 1 chassis and combines it with fewer fragile, temperamental parts and a less highly stressed engine. No preheating, no ancient laptops. It essentially mimics the experience of driving a modern F1 car without needing a team of engineers to do so—Wright says two technicians can handle pit duties and says costs are comparable “to running any GT product from any manufacturer.” They will implement subtle tweaks to the braking and steering, too, to make them a bit more approachable and will even dress your car in custom livery. Still, these aren’t cars to collect, and the cost to participate starts at about £1.25 million (more than $1.56 million).

Subtract complexity, add nostalgia

To avoid the headaches and pitfalls of F1 car ownership but still get that exhilarating, historic experience, you may need only turn back the clock a few years—to the 3.0-liter era of the late 1960s up to the mid-1980s. Compared with cars from the turbo era to today, the 3.0-liter-era cars are less complex and aren’t computerized. The vast majority spin their rear wheels via a Cosworth DFV V-8 and Hewland five-speed gearbox, which are more common, as well as easier and cheaper to maintain. And they don’t cost much to buy. Niki Lauda’s 1975 Ferrari 312T sold for $6M at Pebble Beach a few years ago, but it’s much more common to find a ’70s F1 car in low-six-figure territory.

Cars of this era also have aero/downforce and 400–500 horsepower, which is plenty thrilling, but the cars are also simple enough that mere mortals with some racing experience can drive them near their limits.

Modern-era machinery

Cars from the 2000s onward aren’t just way more complicated and highly computerized. They take near-superhuman levels of talent and fitness to drive in anger, something that no car collector—or anyone other than an elite-tier professional racing driver, for that matter—has. “These things are tremendous stores of value,” Richard Griot says, “and they’re works of art. There’s nothing—nothing—more beautiful than a Formula 1 car on white displayed in someone’s home or garage.” And that, in his mind, is what the most recent F1 cars are for: exhibiting and collecting, not driving. “You know, only a maniac would want to drive one.”

There are a few limited avenues beyond F1 Clienti where you can try your hand with somewhat newer cars. Formula Legends 3.5 is a historic series that brings together cars from the 3.5-liter era (1987–94). There is also Ignition GP, which was set up in 2021 and brings together F1 cars from 1989–97 “with some special guests up to 2005,” and BOSS GP (Big Open Single Seaters), which permits almost any top-level open-wheel car from the 1990s and 2000s, including F1, GP2, and Indy cars.

But these are more demonstration runs than anything else, where drivers can’t push their cars to the limits and aren’t really racing each other, which is why Richard Griot prefers events like the Masters Historics. Since 2004, this series has brought together Formula 1 cars from 1966–85 for wheel-to-wheel racing at nine events throughout the U.K., Europe, and North America. Entry fees are £1950/€2245 per event, and it is real racing. “When you get out of the car, you really feel like you’ve mastered something. It is an incredible experience to say, ‘Yes, I just drove a Formula 1 car. Maybe I finished last, but I pushed myself to what I consider is my own threshold.’ That, to me, is what makes life worth living.”

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post Inside the exclusive world of collectible Formula 1 cars appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Midnight in faux Paris: Tourists stand near the Eiffel Tower waiting to catch a glimpse of Formula 1 cars roaring past. According to the official schedule, Free Practice 2 has just started.

I refer, of course, to the Paris Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas. Home of Petit Eiffel, and like every other faux destination hotel and all the casinos in this city, it doesn’t have clocks. They prefer guests lose track of time when most are being separated from their money.

It was supposed to be quite the opposite for Liberty Media, the owners of Formula 1, who watched the clock as they gambled big. They fully expected to run the tables in Las Vegas during their week in control of the city, confirming the sport they manage has entered a new epoch—whether die-hard fans care to look past the Petit Eiffel and see it or not.

Three and a half hours earlier, however, during Free Practice 1, a loose water valve cover on the track surface struck midnight, destroying one car and damaging another, and their $600 million Cinderella story turned into a giant pumpkin. But just for one night.

Welcome to the Formula 1 Heineken Silver Las Vegas Grand Prix. What better location to host such an event than a place built upon an oasis of the real and surreal, descended upon by rabid race fans from across the globe? Who lustfully fantasize about endless possibilities in a city whose motto is “What Happens In Vegas Stays in Vegas”? It’s also where many locals pray it would all just go away.

The locals almost got their wish.

Free Practice 1 ran for all of eight minutes before it was canceled to make repairs to the track. Nearly six hours later FP2 got underway and ran without an incident.

Except for one minor detail.

In the city which hosts the biggest names and best shows in the entertainment industry, it was as if Liberty Media said to magician David Copperfield, “hold my beer,” and made every fan disappear.

The order requiring everyone to leave came down at 1:30 a.m., and within 30 minutes all of the grandstands and F1 Paddock Club suites were empty. Poof. Gone. “Logistics” was the reason given: concerns over transportation issues of the fans exiting the circuit, including the delay of the track operations team reopening the streets for public traffic by the 4 a.m. cutoff.

Fans attending the first day of the most hyped race on the F1 calendar witnessed just eight minutes of cars on track.

One of the motivations for this late-night schedule was to please the global television audience. Take Paris (the city) for example, home of the magnificent structure Gustave Eiffel completed in 1889. Multiple time zones separate the original in France from the imitation in the Nevada desert. The French are part of the large European fan base, targeted to watch the televised Vegas sessions during their daylight hours, and less concerned with the 1.25 million or so American viewers who tune in for each F1 race.

Similar to the appeal of the seven million people who pay to ascend the real Eiffel Tower each year, instead of the multitude who trek to Las Vegas, walk past the scaled-down version copy for free, and consider that good enough. This probably suits many Parisians just fine, as it means fewer tourists and less need to mutter to themselves about American tourists.

According to Applied Analysis, a local data crunching and consulting firm, the overall economic impact of F1 coming to Las Vegas was projected to exceed $1.3 billion. That’s double the projected economic impact of the upcoming Super Bowl to be played there in February, 2024.

Applied Analysis did not measure the frustration and anger of a significant part of the Las Vegas residents who grew tired of months of construction, fought snarled traffic, and had little interest in the sport to begin with.

All this should not diminish the view many have of Liberty Media and what it is attempting to accomplish in Formula 1. Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff was extremely vocal in the press conference following the opening night incident:

“It’s FP1—how can you even dare trying to talk bad about an event that sets new standards to everything?” was his retort to a question asked by an American journalist. “You are speaking about a f—— drain cover that has been undone. That has happened before. That’s nothing, it’s f—— FP1.

“Give credit to the people that have set up this grand prix, that have made this sport much bigger than it ever was. Liberty has done an awesome job and just because a drain cover has become undone we shouldn’t be moaning.”

Toto has a point. If every other professional sport is measured in eras, Formula 1 must be measured in epochs.

The first, the Historic epoch, ran from the sport’s launch in 1950 when Ascari and Fangio won early and often, covered Sir Jackie Stewart’s dominant reign from the late 1960s to early 1970s, and ended when Mario Andretti captured his lone World Championship title in 1978.

Second is the Bernie Ecclestone epoch. From the late 1970s, when the diminutive British businessman outmaneuvered Jean-Marie Balestre, President of the FIA (FISA before that), in securing the ability to negotiate the international television rights for Formula 1. This transformed the already glamorous racing series into a commercial and economic giant in the world of sports. Over the following three-plus decades, he made himself, the FIA, and virtually every F1 team owner and backer more money than anyone thought possible.

In 2016, at a $4.6 billion purchase price, began the Liberty Media epoch.  A period when people with no prior knowledge of motorsports have become ardent Formula 1 fans. Yes, thanks in part to Netflix’s Drive to Survive streaming series, but more so to leadership which drives change, no matter the costs. A 23-race schedule which has teams, especially the crews, stretched to their limits. More races than ever before in the Middle East. More consistent races than ever before in the United States after a period of start-stops in different cities and states.

Plus, international bankers, hedge funds, celebrities and athletes investing in the sport. A time where the value of an established F1 team may be worth more than the Dallas Cowboys, the New York Yankees, or Manchester United. And if you believe the paddock gossip, Apple is in talks with Liberty Media to secure all of the international broadcast rights at a cost of $2 billion per season. Good times. La Belle Époque indeed.

Perennial winner Max Verstappen offers a slightly different view than Toto, one that many understand and appreciate. The three-time F1 world champion referred to the Las Vegas event as “99 percent show and 1 percent sporting event.” He went on to describe his mandatory appearance at the Wednesday evening opening ceremonies, where each team of drivers were introduced as they were elevated on platforms along the front straight as, “…just standing up there looking like a clown.

“Some people like the show a bit more, I don’t like it at all. I grew up just looking at the performance side of things and that is just how I see it… So for me I like being in Vegas, but not so much for racing.”

The main attraction and highlight of the show was the race itself, very possibly the best actual racing of the 2023 F1 season. There were 50 laps of serious battles, especially at the front of the field with Charles Leclerc, Sergio Perez, and Verstappen fighting for the lead. The cool evening temperature meant longer runs and less degradation on the Pirelli tires. The Dutchman captured his 18th victory of the season. Leclerc passed Perez on the last lap to snatch a much deserved second place for Ferrari. More of this type of action on the 2024 calendar will grow the popularity of the sport in the United States. A middle-aged American man we came across summed it up during the grid walk: “I don’t know anything about Formula 1, but this is fantastic.”

Those comments are surely music to Greg Maffei’s ears. The CEO of Liberty Media is directing the seismic shift from traditions of motorsport to an all-encompassing entertainment experience. More fan engagement through an opening ceremony with driver intros, concerts, driver post-race interviews off site (in front of the Bellagio fountains), and a podium constructed on the front straight, minutes following the race, bringing the victory celebration front and center to the fans who paid $2500 for their main grandstand seats.

The action started earlier in the week, too, with a host of launch events, special liveries and parties keen to please sponsors. Even the recently constructed MSG Sphere was a star of the weekend with its bright, fluorescent advertising emanating from its more than 1 million LED bulbs, beginning as early as Tuesday’s The Netflix Cup that featured an F1 driver and PGA Tour golfer crossover event promoting two of Netflix’s biggest sports shows. F1 took the Sphere over for the weekend as well and temporarily ushered U2 out of its residency in the process. While U2 may still not know what they’re looking for, it appears F1 now does.

Is it all a bit over-the-top for Verstappen and the old-school purists of the sport? Yes. And get used to it.

No grand prix would be complete without celebrities and athletes appearing in the corporate suites and on the pre-race grid. Las Vegas was no exception… Brad Pitt, Patrick Dempsey, Sofia Vergara, Usain Bolt, and David Beckham to name just a handful. And that’s before the onslaught of new celebrities who appeal to the coveted younger audience introduced to the world via social media, and appeared all over various platforms. It’s a content-driven event in a content-driven series.

During driver introductions, no one received cheers louder than Lewis Hamilton, while no one endured such a chorus of boos as Max Verstappen did a few moments later.

I am not sure if actor Owen Wilson was on the Las Vegas grid or not. He should have been. Wilson starred in Midnight in Paris, the 2011 Woody Allen film about a writer from Hollywood who goes to Paris for vacation and travels back in time each evening of his visit. His character, Gil Pender, is obsessed with nostalgia. At midnight he is driven first to the 1920s where he meets Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Dali, and Picasso. Next he travels further back to La Belle Époque, the Golden Age. He sits in a restaurant and listens to Toulouse-Lautrec, Gauguin, and Degas.

What a beautiful time it was. From around the 1870s to the beginning of World War I in 1914 the arts, culture, science, and architecture flourished. Building great things are not always appreciated at first. Gustave Eiffel faced significant pushback and criticism from Parisians during the design and building of his tower. Once completed it was the main attraction of the 1889 World’s Fair and quickly became a cultural icon and a global destination for travelers of every generation.

Gil Pender ultimately decides as wonderful as it was, there is no future in living in the past.

The Liberty Media epoch is here. It will hopefully be remembered for capitalizing on the enormous growth and redefining sports entertainment industry while respecting and honoring the lessons and rich history of Formula 1. Enjoy it. One day, this epoch will fall. Another will rise.

Louis-Hector Berlioz, the great French composer, whose life ended just as La Belle Époque began, said it best: “Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils.”

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post Las Vegas F1 Grand Prix: “La Nouvelle Époque” brings hard lessons appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Hole-y moly! Last night, the $500 million F1 weekend came screeching to a halt for a loose water valve cover on the Las Vegas street course.

Just nine minutes into the first practice session of the novel race, the cover dislodged, resulting in massive damage to the Ferrari of Carlos Sainz. The Alpine of Esteban Ocon was also reportedly involved in the incident.

Ferrari boss Fred Vassuer called the incident “unacceptable.” The damage was so significant to the Ferrari that Sainz was almost unable to participate in the second practice session, although his team worked furiously through the delay and managed to change the chassis and allow Sainz to return to the track for Free Practice 2. As Sainz’ car was being swapped in the paddock, multiple drainage covers were sealed on track. FP2 eventually started at 2:30 a.m. PT on Friday and was extended to 90 minutes to make up for lost time.

In a swift turn of fate, both Ferrari drivers Leclerc and Sainz had pace, going 1-2 in the second practice. However, because of the nature of the repairs made to the Ferrari, the FIA ruled that Sainz will be given a 10-place grid penalty for the race.

Unlike Vassuer, Mercedes principal Toto Wolff had a different tone in his post-practice comments. “That is not a black eye. This is nothing,” he said of the incident. “They are going to seal the drain covers and nobody is going to talk about it tomorrow morning.”

When a reporter pushed back, Wolff didn’t back down. “It’s completely ridiculous. Completely ridiculous. FP1, how can you even dare try to talk bad about an event that sets a new standard to everything?” Wolff asked. “You’re speaking about a drain cover that’s been undone. That has happened before. That’s nothing. It’s FP1.”

Wolff would know. His driver George Russell was the victim of a similar incident in the 2019 Azerbaijan Grand Prix, when a loose drain cover damaged his car during FP1. Monaco also had a drain cover pop off in 2016.

Still, the world’s hyper focus on this event is likely take any small blemish and blow it out of proportion. No doubt this is not the start that event organizers wanted.

Is this small hole a big deal? Let us know what you think in the comments.

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post Loose water valve cover causes chaos at Las Vegas Grand Prix appeared first on Hagerty Media.

We originally published this story upon the death of Craig Breedlove on April 4, 2023. We’re re-sharing it on the anniversary of Breedlove’s 600.601-mph record set at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah in 1965, when he shattered a land-speed record that had stood for nearly 20 years: 394.2 mph, set by John Cobb in his Railton Special in 1947, also at Bonneville.  — Ed. 

On October 15, 1964, seconds after pushing the land-speed record past 500 miles per hour on the Bonneville Salt Flats, Craig Breedlove punched the button to release the parachutes attached to his jet-powered Spirit of America. They all failed. He careened off course, sliced through a pair of telephone poles, catapulted over a berm, and nosed-dived into a brine lake.

Fortunately, he’d had the presence of mind to unlatch the canopy while he was in the air. As water flooded into the cockpit, he popped his harness and swam to safety. Soaked but unhurt, he was lounging on a piece of debris when the emergency crew arrived. “And now for my next act,” he told them, “I’m going to set myself on fire.”

Breedlove, who died Tuesday at the age of 86, was the first man to exceed 400, 500, and 600 miles per hour on land. Immortalized by the Beach Boys as “a daring young man [who] played a dangerous game,” Breedlove was the winner of a thrilling, high-profile, three-way land-speed battle with the Arfons brothers in the fall of 1965. After a frantic six-week stretch of steely-eyed one-upmanship, Breedlove ended up holding the record at 600.601 mph.

Born in 1937, Breedlove was a prototypical SoCal hot-rodder who pushed a supercharged ’34 Ford coupe to 154 mph on the dry lake at El Mirage before graduating to an Oldsmobile-powered belly tank that went 236 mph at Bonneville. After a stint at Douglas Aircraft, he worked as a firefighter in Costa Mesa when he was bitten by the jet-engine bug.

Although jet-powered dragsters had been on the exhibition circuit for several years, Los Angeles physician Nathan Ostich was the first man to take a jet car to Bonneville; his Flying Caduceus topped out at 331 mph in 1962. Later that same year, jet dragster driver Glen Leasher was killed when his land-speed car, Infinity, snap-rolled at close to 400 mph.

Meanwhile, Breedlove spent $500 to buy a General Electric J47 turbojet salvaged from a Korean War-era F-86 Sabre. Working out of a garage near LAX Airport, he fashioned a low-slung, three-wheeled streamliner that he dubbed Spirit of America. The name was pure marketing gold–a sign of his promotional genius. Handsome and personable, Breedlove lined up sponsorship from Shell and Goodyear. In 1963, while wearing sneakers and a crash helmet festooned with painted stars, he claimed Fastest Man on Earth honors with a speed of 407.447 mph.

Breedlove returned the next year to set two more records. In 1965, he faced fierce competition from Art and Walt Arfons–two middle-aged Midwestern brothers who worked out of adjacent junk-strewn lots in Akron, Ohio, separated by fences and decades of estrangement. To outrun them, Breedlove built a four-wheel car, Spirit of America–Sonic 1, around a more powerful GE J79 taken from an F-104 Starfighter. It was in this car that Breedlove claimed his last two land-speed marks.

As a cherry on top of this sundae, he also co-drove to endurance records on a large oval marked out on the salt in a Cobra Daytona Coupe in 1965 and then an American Motors AMX on a Goodyear test track in Texas in 1968. Breedlove was 31 years old, and he would never scale such rarified heights again.

Breedlove’s land-speed record was shattered in 1970 by Gary Gabelich and the rocket-powered Blue Flame. Thirteen years later, Briton Richard Noble raised the record to 633.47 mph in Thrust2. But one great prize remained: breaking the sound barrier.

After spending three decades making money in real estate, Breedlove designed a third Spirit of America around another J79, this one out of an F-4 Phantom. With a small team and sponsorship from Shell, he put the car together in a shop he’d fashioned out of an old Ford tractor dealership in the small Northern California town of Rio Vista. “We built everything from scratch, just the way I did the first time in my dad’s garage in El Segundo,” he said.

By 1996, Bonneville was no longer big or smooth enough for land-speed attempts. Instead, Breedlove headed to the concrete-hard playa of Black Rock Desert, now better known as the home of the annual Burning Man bacchanal. Just before starting a run, he misheard a radio communication about the speed of the crosswind blowing across the course–not 1.5 mph but a potentially catastrophic 15 mph.

Unaware of the danger and eager to get the run in before the weather deteriorated, Breedlove took off and lit the afterburner. While he was thundering along at 675 mph, a gust buffeted his car and sent it up on two wheels. Bicycling wildly, he executed the world’s fastest U-turn and screamed through the spectator area. Although he miraculously avoided hitting anything–or anyone–the car was damaged too badly to continue.

Breedlove returned the Black Rock Desert the next year to go mano-a-mano against a well-funded British team lead by Richard Noble, who’d hired RAF pilot Andy Green to drive a twin-engine behemoth called ThrustSSC. Breedlove was hamstrung by engine trouble and a lack of money, and he could only watch the shock wave produced when Green broke the sound barrier.

Breedlove spent much of the next decade plotting another assault on the record, but he was never able to put the necessary financing together. Finally, in 2006, he sold his car to adventurer Steve Fossett, who underwrote a substantial redesign. The project died when Fossett was killed in a plane crash the next year while scouting sites for potential record runs.

Were it not for a garbled radio transmission, Breedlove might well have been the first man to officially go Mach 1 on land. Even so, with five land-speed records to his name, he still occupies prime real estate in the pantheon of land-speed-record deities and deserves to be remembered as one of America’s motorsports heroes.

“The thing I admired most about him is that he was so dedicated to breaking the record. It was his entire life,” says BRE founder Peter Brock, who spent six weeks on the playa with Breedlove in 1997. “He built three land-speed record cars in his garage and spent every dime he had on them. We’ll never in our lifetime see a guy like him again.”

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

Via Imola

The post Remembering Craig Breedlove, hot-rodder turned fastest man on earth appeared first on Hagerty Media.

What’s that you say, “but it’s only a Ford”?

A Ford that sold for the mind-numbing figure of £596,250 ($714,091) with fees at Silverstone Auctions earlier this year, in fact—a record for the model. But that should come as no surprise: The Ford Sierra Cosworth RS500 is no stranger to breaking records. That it became one of the most successful saloon racing cars of all time is only part of the story. What makes it so desirable is that (and the name gives it away) only 500 were built. And although Ford is a colossal company, the RS500 and the car from which it evolved, the Sierra RS Cosworth, were both developed by two very special engineering teams based in Essex.

Ford Special Vehicle Engineering, where the Sierra Cosworth was created, consisted of just 34 engineers. Ford Motorsport, which prepared the racing versions, had only 32. Actually, the Cossie’s core engineering team was much smaller than that, as SVE boss, Rod Mansfield, told me when we met in 1987 to chat about the forthcoming RS500. “For a major project like Cosworth, 4×4 Sierra, or Scorpio,” he explained, “I need 10 engineers and on a rule of thumb basis, a minimum of two years. The most luxurious timing is nearer three, but the Cosworth was under two.”

Why were so few built? The original “Cossie,” with its famous whale tail, was a “homologation special” produced not as a boy-racer road car, but to make it eligible for Group A international racing, which dictated 5000 of the basic car must be built and sold. Taking a couple of standard Sierras and bolting on a huge spoiler and turbocharged engine to go racing just wasn’t allowed. The regulations said the features must be “homologated,” so included as standard on a production version anyone can buy. Group A regulations also allowed an “Evolution” version with further modifications, of which 500 were to be built and offered for general sale.

So the story of the RS500 started in 1987, a couple of years before it was revealed, with the sensation that was the Sierra RS Cosworth. Two men were directly responsible for the hottest Sierra yet. The first was Stuart Turner, the recently appointed director of motorsport at Ford Europe. The second was Mansfield, head of Ford SVE. Both men already had a dazzling track record in delivering word-beating competition cars.

Turner headed the BMC competitions department in the Mini’s heyday when the Cooper S was beating all-comers in world rallying. Appointed Ford director of motorsport in 1970, he was largely responsible for the Mk1 Escort RS1600 (the first Ford RS homologation special) and its road-going spin-offs, the Mexico and RS2000. Later, he headed the special division set up in Essex to build them, Ford Advanced Vehicle Operations (FAVO). In 1983, he became director of motorsport at Ford of Europe and soon after, the Group B RS200 happened.

Mansfield became chief engineer at FAVO in April 1980 and took the helm of the new Special Vehicle Engineering at Ford Europe, based at Ford’s Research and Development headquarters at Dunton in Essex. SVE would develop the high-performance road-going cars, and Ford Motorsport, based at Boreham, would do the full-house race and rally cars. These included the Escort Turbo and Sierra 4×4. SVE had also been responsible for the Capri Injection, the Fiesta XR2, and Escort XR3i.

Roll back the clock to the middle of 1987 again and Rod Mansfield was explaining to me how the Sierra Cosworth story had begun a few years earlier with a meeting in Stuart Turner’s office. “He just said, ‘What can we do?’ He realized SVE was the area to build him his basic vehicles. We had some marketing people there for a brainstorming session. Stuart said he needed something to go rallying with and needed something Escort, so the Escort Turbo was born. Then he asked what else we could do and the marketing people wanted support for Sierra. I mentioned the fact that there was a normally aspirated Cosworth engine around the place that might work for turbocharging and wouldn’t that make a nice car for touring car championships.”

The signature whale-tail spoiler of the Cossie that followed almost became something else. The motorsport people originally wanted it to be doubled-up, with the main wing supplemented by an additional, small, bootlid spoiler. For whatever reason—possibly styling—it didn’t happen and the single version was adopted, producing 20 kg (44 pounds) of downforce at high speed. It was significant because during testing, the standard Sierra body shape, which had never been designed for that pace, generated enough lift to make the car unstable. The single whale tail combined with the low front spoiler fixed that, and fixed it well.

At around the same time, I paid a visit to the hallowed ground of Ford Motorsport at Boreham airfield in Essex, this time to meet Mike Moreton, the project manager of Ford Motorsport Europe. As if “Boreham,” as it was economically known, wasn’t legendary enough, its location in a former wartime RAF airfield and ramshackle appearance made it even more so. Moreton’s office wasn’t located in one of the glass towers you might expect for an operation that had dominated much of the world’s saloon-based motorsport for almost quarter of a century, but in a single-story building made of wood. While the material side of the place may have been shaky, the atmosphere made up for it, and the workshops where cars were prepared were impressively spacious.

The first thing I wanted to know was how powerful would this Sierra Cosworth evolution be. Moreton was coy, saying only that in international touring car racing, “It should completely dominate the class.” He also explained how the difference between it and the Sierra Cosworth wouldn’t be that great in road-going form. “In round figures, the car already does 150 mph, is there any point in producing a car that does much more? A little extra speed was added to the specification, more to justify the extra cost than anything. Most of the changes to the evolution car were made to allow for the requirements of Group A and, as Moreton explained, “the regulations forbid the adding of metal.”

That’s the best clue as to what the RS500 is like to drive as a road car, and in back-to-back testing with my original long-term test Sierra Cosworth, we found it disappointing. Why? Because most of the mechanical additions for Group A didn’t do anything on the road-going version and they weren’t expected to. Only when they were “actuated” in racing car form would the brutal reality of the difference they made hit home.

The double rear spoiler is an example. “The original spoiler wasn’t put there to cope with the 150 mph of the road car,” said Mansfield. It was to deal with the problem we knew we would have at 180-mph-plus on the race track. The spoiler wasn’t engineered for maximum road speed, though we don’t recommend anyone takes it off because it does have a significant effect.”

“All along, Motorsport wanted a spoiler that we never got,” explained Moreton. “Now the two rear spoilers give us an additional 105 kg (231 pounds) downforce at 100 mph and the front spoiler changes give us an additional 20 kg (44 pounds) over the standard Cosworth.”

The re-engineering of the spoiler was typically informal and made at the Ford wind tunnel in Cologne. This was all pre-computer-aided design, remember. “Eberhard Braun, a motorsport engineer, took a car and some bits of card and aluminum into the wind tunnel at Merkenich,” Moreton told me. “From there it went to the design studio, where it was properly designed by Tony Grade. The panels were made by Phoenix, a German company.”

The official maximum power of the RS500 was 224 bhp (221 hp), against 204 (201) for the Cossie, but maximum torque was only 3 lb-ft more. In race trim, though, we now know the engine will make north of 550 bhp (542 hp) in a Group A racer, transforming the quite benign road car into beast. Some crucial bits of “added metal” on the RS500 included a much larger Garrett T31/T04 turbocharger with pressurized bearing lubrication, providing enough air to generate so much power. The turbo went hand-in-hand with a substantially bigger intercooler. It’s the huge turbo and air intake system that dulls low-down punch of the RS500 compared to the original.

On the road car, the boost remained the same as the Cossie, at 9 psi, but in the racers the “wick” would be turned up much higher. More fuel would be needed to generate the extra power, so there was a second row of “yellow” fuel injectors (yellow denoting higher capacity) complete with wiring and pipework to feed them, but on the road car these weren’t active. Rear suspension changes would allow racers to change the angle of the semi-trailing arms to alter camber and tracking as the car cornered hard.

The engine’s iron cylinder block was cast with thicker walls surrounding the cylinders. The bolts fastening the cylinder head to it, rather than simply screwing into the top, ran right the way through to prevent head gasket failures at the awesome pressures it would be running. There were even stronger forged pistons, a beefier oil pump, and oil spray cooling for those pistons. All these mods hinted at the massive potential the engine had.

“This car was designed to be the winning car in Group A,” said Moreton. “And the evolution car has some very significant changes in it. I don’t think anyone realizes how significant they are when it comes to reliable, high-power 24-hour racing.” As a road car though, the RS500 lacks the driveability of the original Sierra Cosworth, only getting going at around 4500 rpm, compared to 3500 rpm, making it feel laggy and less punchy. That compromised flexibility showed up when Performance Car (of which I was the editor at the time) tested it at Millbrook Proving Ground. Against the standard Sierra Cosworth, the RS500 was actually slower from 50 mph to 70 mph in fourth and fifth gears.

So what of the design? My third stop in the RS500 story was a visit back to Dunton and a chat with Ford of Europe’s director of design in 1987, Andy Jacobson. In those days, Ford exteriors were designed in Germany while interiors were penned at Dunton. His opening gambit at our meeting was, “I have two Cosworths, one here and one in Germany.” At the time, Ford execs traveled regularly between the two sites. “The fantastic thing about having one in Germany is being able to use the car at full throttle, at top speed, without going to jail.” Jacobson was chief designer in the UK when the original Sierra Cosworth was designed and recalled, “If you’re designing a car like the RS200, you know damn well all you’re really going to need is a credit card and a tooth brush. With the Cosworth, you can have your cake and eat it. That, to me, is a really good piece of design.”

If it’s the ultimate driver’s car you’re after, don’t choose the RS500, because the original Sierra Cosworth is that much nicer to drive and looks just as good, if not better, with its cleaner rear end. If it’s rarity you’re after, then the RS500 is the choice for collectors. That said, perhaps the value of the RS500 today is not just about scarcity, because it didn’t just triumph over the opposition in world-class saloon car racing—it pulverized it.

The legend is fuelled by numerous videos of the RS500s at Bathurst and elsewhere on YouTube, which are truly gobsmacking to watch. When I met Rod Mansfield for a story on the Sierra Cosworth RS500’s namesake, the Focus RS500, years later, he pondered those days of the Sierra supercars. “Even before it was built, the intention was for it to be the European Touring Car Challenge champion,” he said. “And it was.” And that pretty well sums up why collectors today are willing to pay north of half a million pounds for an old Ford.

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.