I don't have the press release in front of me, but at
the traditional Saturday evening dinner at Lime Rock
Park's annual Labor Day Vintage Festival the themes for
the 1996 & 1997 Vintage Festivals were announced.
For 1996 it will be a reunion of cars & driver from
the SCCA Continetal Championship era, roughly 1968-72
when Lime Rock hosted the series as its traditional
Labor Day fixture, though cars through the end of
the F5000 era are also welcome. The Continetal
Championship theme encompasses not only the Formula
A/Formula 5000 style cars, but also the 1600cc
Formula B cars, 1100cc Formula C and, as we discovered
when we dug into the archives, air-cooled SuperVees,
which made up the support race program.
This was a notable transition period as the formula
cars went from no-wings to high-wings to low-wing
comprehensive aero-packages, so there's no shortage
of variety possible.
In conjunction with the cars of the era, Lime Rock
will also be trying to bring together again the
notable, and perhaps notorious 8-), personalities
of the era. David Hobbs and his long-standing
adversary Sam Posey are two of the first names
to come to mind, along with Brian Redman, whose
vintage mount these days is Lola T330 F5000 car.
Hobbs was at LRP this year, and allowed as how
he'd suit up again for F5000 ride if a car could
be found that would fit him 8-)
There are lots of other names too that have surfaced:
George Wintersteen and his erswhile teammate Dick
Smothers, Canadians George Eaton, Eppie Wietzes, and
Bill Brack, Peter Gethin, Brett Lunger, Dick Simon,
etc etc etc. and that doesn't even get into the
FB drivers like Jacques Couture, Alan Lader......
Lime Rock's management includes two vetereans of
this era, Skip Barber and Mike Rand, so there's a
real potential for this one to be a weekend to remember.
1197 will mark Lime Rock's 40th anniversary AND 30 years
since the track hosted its first TransAm, so there'll
be no shortage of history for that one either.
I'll pass on more info as it comes along
Regards
Greg Rickes
Lime Rock p.a. announcer
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