Vintage Racing at the Rock

One thing that hadn't changed with the new talent, thankfully, was the wonderful scenery that has defined the "Road Racing Center of the East" ever since it opened in 1957. Nestled in a verdant, green valley where the roar of unmuffled exhaust turns into song as it bounces off the surrounding Berkshires, Lime Rock is arguably America's most beautiful racetrack. And you can always count on a huge crowd toting picnic baskets and binoculars at the hill overlooking the Esses. Stressing how it was just a fluke that he happened to be treking through the area on Labor Day Weekend with his wife Gail, Frank Lewis of Orlando, Fla., said, "I've been to Sebring and Daytona but this is the best spectator track I've ever been to. It's got so much charm with the hills and the grass. We don't have anything like this down in Florida." Jim Rea, who was scoping out the track for his 1952 Jaguar XK-120 roadster that he campaigns at Old Riverside, Willow Springs and other California circuits, added, "You can tell the locals are really fond of the place because you get great conversation whether you're at the track or the bar in town."

Vintage competition cars, of course, played a central role in Sunday's car show, memorably compensating for the local prohibition against racing on the Sabbath. Murray Smith's concours hosted a reunion of Jaguar C- and D-Type racers from Scotland's legendary Ecurie Ecosse team, a supercharged 1929 Stutz that competed in the 1997 Peking To Paris rally, and an elegant-yet-muscular 1949 Ferrari 166 MM Barchetta (which means little boat in Italian) owned by Bud and Thelma Lyon.

In addition to a half-dozen prewar Bugattis with horseshoe-shape radiators and well preserved patinas, Don Koleman's Competition Motors of Portsmouth, N.H., fielded a 1932 Buick straight Eight Shafer Special constructed under the so-called "junk formula" (stock engine, transmission and front/rear ends) in force at Indianapolis during the Depression.

Ben Bragg, who has scored two class wins at Lime Rock in the car over the last 10 years, confirmed, "It's extremely hard to drive with its primitive suspension and mechanical 4-wheel brakes, but it'll easily do 120 mph on the straight here. The engine was sourced from a 1933 Series 40, during the first and only year it came from the factory with roller camshafts, and the racing mods included a special cylinder head producing 325 hp on methanol. The fastest it ever went at Indy was 141.7 mph," he said, "and I got it up to 140 at Pocono in 1996. Everything it ever had, it still has!"

Weathered paintwork notwithstanding, another one of the most colorful vehicles at Lime Rock was the Eliminator, a Mercury flathead-motivated mongrel (later replaced by a Chevy overhead-valve V8 sporting triple Stromberg carbs, a hot Iskenderian cam and huge exhaust collectors made from '36 Ford driveshafts). It is fitted with a 1925 Ford T-bucket roadster body and front brake cooling ducts made from Japanese Army helmets sawed in half. Used by go-kart builder Duffy Livingstone to strike fear into foreign sports car drivers on California's road race circuits from 1953-59 ("It ought to be banned," one rival in a Jaguar reputedly told him.), the car was discovered in Tucson by veteran auto journalist Brock Yates. He had the So-Cal Speed Shop do a strictly mechanical restoration in 1997.

Also showing his "new" Eliminator Special, which combines a Dodge Viper V10 with a carbon-fiber body built by Riter Restoration of East Rochester, N.Y., Yates observed that "there are not many circuits today where you can see so much of the racetrack by walking. It's intimate and chummy here, like sports car racing used to be."

BMW's suitably extensive exhibits included a 1938 328 roadster that the carmaker's U.S. chief Tom Purves drove on this year's Mille Miglia revival. There was also a pair of "whale tail" 3.0 CSL Art Cars that were decorated for their mid-1970s Le Mans appearances by Alexander Calder and Frank Stella. Calder's theme used mobile-like wedges in primary colors, while Stella opted for a grid covered with arcs and circles.

Calling it "the ultimate evolution of the American sedan," with its 550-hp 427-cu.-in. side-oiler V8, Michael Hallenbeck showed a 1969 Ford Torino fastback used by Richard Petty during the only NASCAR season that he didn't drive a Chrysler product. "Dodge was coming out with the Daytona [touting a wedge-shape nose and roof-height spoiler to enhance high-speed stability]," Hallenbeck said, "but Chrysler wouldn't let Petty race it, telling him 'you're a Plymouth driver.' But the '69 Plymouths weren't aerodynamic enough, and Petty wanted to drive a car that was going to win, so he went to Ford. To get him back in 1970, Chrysler developed [a Plymouth version of the Daytona called] the Superbird."

Even though Connecticut is one of the first places in America where foreign cars earned a perceptible following, it was still amazing to see how many obscure overseas makes were represented at Lime Rock. Ivo Slezak brought a 1966 Tatra 603 T-2 from his native Czechoslovakia. The car seemed almost extraterrestrial with its split rear window and trunk-mounted, air-cooled V8 engine. Axel Coelln exhibited an elegant, Frua-body 1967 Glas 1300 GT cabriolet, completed the same year that this West German scooter and minicar maker (best known, maybe, for the Goggomobil it launched in 1955) was acquired by BMW. Charles Gould of Newton, Mass., whose 50-vehicle microcar collection can be seen at www.bubbledrome.com, puttered around the paddock in a 1951 Bond Model B that was barely bigger than his children's plastic play wagon. "I found it in Arkansas," he recalled, "where it was originally supposed to pull coal out of a mine. They quickly found out it didn't have enough power for that." Displacing only 122cc, its 2-stroke, single-cylinder Villiers motorcycle engine was mounted on forks so it could steer with the single front wheel. "The British always come up with great ideas like that," Gould quipped.

British Cars
Given that Lime Rock Park President Skip Barber raced a Turner during the 1960s, it was no surprise, perhaps, to see so many of these tube-frame, fiberglass-body British sports cars in one place. Initially situated in a Wolverhampton blacksmith shop, former aircraft engineer Jack Turner completed 673 cars from 1955 to 1966 and it's estimated nearly 40 precent still survive. "I used to get beat by a Turner all the time so I decided to get one," Steve Agins explained beside his 1964 Mk III Sports with its Formula Ford Cortina engine. David Lewis, displaying a 1958 model 950 Sports with a BMC A-Series motor and rear-hinged "suicide" doors, added, "They're easy to maintain, and the handling is very good because the torsion-bar rear suspension has a degree of adjustability built in. It also attracts attention because most people have never heard of one."

When it came time to clear the track for eight different 15-lap contests on Monday, it was most satisfying to see multimillion-dollar exotics being driven just as furiously as the humblest participating MG, Triumph or Austin-Healey Sprite. Sandra McNeil epitomized this spirit by joining in the Group 5 race with a meticulously maintained but never-restored 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO (one of only 36 constructed in pursuit of the Manufacturers World Championship) that her husband Jim had the foresight to purchase in 1966. Brian Donovan's dark blue '62 Jaguar XKE thrilled the crowd by cornering on three wheels when its lever-arm front shock absorbers overheated and seized during the Group 6 contest for 1962-66 GT cars.

The Group 8 Trans-Am reunion race, moved 1-1/2 hours ahead of schedule in response to a rainy weather forecast, witnessed a spirited battle for first place between Ken Epsman's yellow No. 77 Dodge Challenger and the red, white and blue No. 2 AMC Javelin driven by Scott Rubin. Ultimately, the most exciting race of the afternoon was the Group 3 event, pitting the brute Chrysler Hemi power of Bob Girvin's 1958 Allard against the handling finesse of Tivvy Shenton's 1955 Jaguar XK-140 coupe. As the lead switched back and forth, the crowd's spontaneous applause couldn't mask how hard Girvin's eight cylinders were working to stay ahead of Shenton. But the white Jag from Vermont forged decisively ahead as the pair encountered slower traffic in the 10th lap, and its final margin of victory widened to 13.87 seconds as the brakes faded on the nose-heavy Allard.

"A vintage race is still a race," Sam Posey said as he observed the action from the Michelin Tower overlooking the main straight, "and there is no turn here that isn't difficult. There's real driving to be done in the Uphill Turn and West Bend, and when you're in the Esses you have to compromise your line for the left-hand turn to get set up for the right-hand turn. And, if you can get through the Diving Turn smoothly, you'll be ready for any circuit in the world."

Text by Gregg D. Merksamer
Courtesy Popular Mechanics

BMW 328 Mille Miglia roadster

BMW 3.0 CSL Batmobile

Alexander Calder's Art Car

Frank Stella's Art Car