From 1964 to 1978, a series of flat-bottomed formula cars were manufactured to serve as steppingstones to Formula One and the upper echelons of open-wheel racing. In the late ’50s, F2 and F3 were consolidated into Formula Junior. However, with that category’s demise at the end of 1963, F2 was reformed, utilizing highly developed 1,000-cc,...
Photo Gallery from the Jan. 25, 2020, Daytona 24 Heritage laps, Daytona Beach, Florida.
For most of my adult life I have lived within two miles of the Goodwood Motor Circuit. Between the last in-period race meeting in 1966 and the first Revival Meeting in 1998 it did not lie fallow. It was used for testing by F1 teams until 1982. It hosted club sprints and rallies, track days...
Driving legends Janet Guthrie and Dale Earnhardt will comprise the 2020 inductee class of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Hall of Fame. The two drivers – who pushed forward the envelope in motorsports in very contrasting ways – will be honored at the 2020 IMS Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony and Indianapolis 500 Oldtimers Dinner presented by Firestone on Thursday, May 21 in downtown Indianapolis. The two were chosen from a ballot of 14 nominees by a distinguished panel of more than 140 auto racing journalists, participants and historians. “Once again the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Hall of Fame voting panel has…
An unprecedented reunion of Roger Penske’s Bahamas Speed Weeks winners will mark the Silver Anniversary Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance. The trio of Bahamas winners is led by the Brumos Porsche RS 61 that took Penske to his first Bahamas victory in 1961. As the calendar wound toward the final month of 1960 the entire road racing universe looked to Bahamas Speed Weeks, a week-long party race meeting and celebration that drew racers from all disciplines of motorsport, from NASCAR to go-karts and sports car champs to Indy 500 and Le Mans winners. Brumos Porsche founder Hubert Brundage — “Mr. B”…
The National Motor Museum’s Land Speed Record breaking 1920 Sunbeam 350hp has been fitted with a replacement gearbox to match its rebuilt engine, decades after losing its original gearbox. The ongoing project to restore and preserve Sir Malcolm Campbell’s iconic machine, which set a 150mph World Land Speed Record nearly a century ago, has been a labor of love for Beaulieu’s workshop engineers. Having painstakingly rebuilt its complex V12 engine, they triumphantly took this landmark vehicle back to Pendine Sands in South Wales in 2015, for a low-speed reconstruction of its World Land Speed Record 90 years earlier. However, while…
Attending shows is always fun, and you never know what you might find among the entries. The Highlands Motoring Festival is a small show in the western North Carolina mountain town of Highlands. There were a number of very interesting automobiles in the show, including a ’39 Ford racecar that appeared, at first, much less...
The perfect description of the 1973 Can-Am champion Porsche 917/30 comes without qualification or equivocation from Mark Donohue in his landmark book The Unfair Advantage. . . “It is to me the perfect racing car.” Porsche’s mighty 917/30 turbo Can-Am champ was the perfect car at the wrong time, a time of massive change. Politics and global economics would soon disrupt the grammar and conduct of international motorsport. Porsche’s doomsday 917/30 Group 7 racer was playing by rules — or the lack of them — composed a decade earlier when new technologies mingled with expanding economic power. By 1974 that…
The Road Racing Drivers Club has announced that it will be hosting an “Evening with Rick Mears” Dinner with proceeds going to benefit the RRDC’s young driver initiatives. Google “Rick Mears” and, by rights, you should be directed to multiple Wikipedia entries: Four-time Indianapolis 500 winner of course, but also racer and gentleman. For his singular fusion of scrupulously clean racing and modest grace made Rick not just a racer’s racer, but one of motorsports’ finest ambassadors; one who autographed countless hats and tee shirts “Rick Mears – Thanks!” And meant every word of it. Although he didn’t make the…
Indianapolis 500, May 30, 1963 Jim Clark in his Lotus-Ford. He qualified on the second row and finished second overall, after a close race with Parnelli Jones. Photo courtesy of: THE KLEMANTASKI COLLECTION PO Box 8204, Stamford, CT 06905 USA., Tel: (203) 461-9804 • Fax: (203) 968-2970 E-mail: info@klemcoll.com • Web site: www.klemcoll.com
March 2020 will mark the 50th anniversary of what many feel is the greatest endurance road race in history – the 1970 Sebring 12-hour. Yes, there have been many great 12- and 24-hour races over the years, some with more historical significance. But none can match the 1970 Sebring for its combination of legendary drivers, great cars, and an incredible finish. It’s difficult, today, to truly appreciate the international status Sebring had in its first 20 years. All the greats raced at Sebring at one time or another: Fangio, Moss, Hill (both of them), Surtees, and Stewart. Even Jim Clark…