2012 Virginia International Raceway Historics

[Steve Holmes]

Huge thanks here to Roaring Season member Grant Ellwood, for sending me the following pics and details from the 2012 Virginia International Historics. We have members strategically placed around the globe to cover as many events as possible! Grant also sent me captions describing each vehicle, so the details in each post are his. There was a lot of interesting machinery at this event, so here we go.

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[Steve Holmes]

The first pics are of the Audi R8 entered by Travis Enger, caption could read - "Hardly vintage but certainly historic!" It ran with a bunch of ex-Cart Lola T97/20s.

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[Steve Holmes]

The Escort BDA was built in SpecFab's UK workshop by ex-Broadspeed engineer Tivvy Shenton. Later it was shipped to USA and Tom Ciccone entered it in TransAm and IMSA races for Paul Newman to share driving duties. They won the IMSA under 2 litre race at Lime Rock in 1974.

The Escort is now owned and raced by Ross Bremer from Florida.

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[Steve Holmes]

BDA Escort as posted above. Rear end shot shows disc brakes, single leaf "slipper" spring with coil-over shocks just visible. Axle location was 4 tubular trailing arms plus Watts linkage.

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[Steve Holmes]

Michael Snowdon from Canada drives the ex - Dave McConnell GRD 272 F2 which went down-under for the 1972 Tasman Series. The green colour scheme was McConnell's sponsors colour - Jim Russell Driving Schools.

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[Bruce302]

Excellent pics, I love the underside detail as on the Escort shot. Thanks to Grant for his superb coverage.
Bruce.

[jamie]

Hi Grant Thanks for the shots, more Sports Cars if poss ?? Merry xmas Jamie A

[Grant Ellwood]

Hi Grant Thanks for the shots, more Sports Cars if poss ?? Merry xmas Jamie A

Thanks Jamie (and Bruce), I'm fortunate to live close to VIR, probably the best track in USA when you look at the track rebuild, layout, facilities, it was a courageous effort by Harvey Siegel and Connie Nyholm to invest so much time and money. And all the officials and staff are friendly!
Jamie, Steve has more pics on hand to upload, I think there are more brit cars here now than in pommyland! And Merry Xmas to you too (oops, have to be pc and say Happy Holidays here nowadays......).

[Steve Holmes]

This FJ Elva 100, chassis 100/28EX for the historians, was delivered new from the UK works to the Elva importer in Maryland,USA in 1959. Now owned by James Yule from Texas, it runs the original A35 engine and running gear suitably modified of course!

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[Steve Holmes]

Bobsy SR6 BDG - Larry Wilson, South Carolina

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[Steve Holmes]

The late Hap Sharp is best known as driver and co-owner, with Jim Hall, of Chapparal Cars. The innovation and success of their cars deserves a separate thread here. I met James (Hap) Sharp Jr at VIR along with a group of Texans who each year pick an "away" track to visit as a change from their local events. Last year it was Road America, prior to that Watkins Glen and this year VIR.

James was running one of his father's first cars, a Cooper T56 Formula Junior, chassis number FJ-1-61, first off the line of that model. Jim Hall gave the Cooper its first race in Mexico City and Hap Sharp raced it for the rest of the year including the support race at the Sebring 12 hour event. Hap then sold the car and went on to an illustrious career including six F1 races before forming the Chapparal team.

More recently James Jr tracked down and purchased the T56 and is enjoying part of his fathers (and Cooper's) early racing history, full circle indeed.

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[kiwi285]

That Elva FJ is a really great looking car and beautifully presented too.

[ElCoyote]

Hi Grant Thanks for the shots, more Sports Cars if poss ?? Merry xmas Jamie A

Settle down Uncle, you know real cars have roofs

[Steve Holmes]

1957 Elva Mk2

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1974 Corvette

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[Steve Holmes]

Another shot of the Audi

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[Steve Holmes]

Tivvy Shenton moved to USA and lives just down the road from me. He has a race prep business and this is Tivvy with his rapid XK140 which usually runs at the front end of his class.

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Tivvy's shop wagon!

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[Grant Ellwood]

Tivvy built the Paul Newman Escort BDG in Post #3 above.

[Steve Holmes]

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[Steve Holmes]

'57 Corvette - Bob Harvey, Maryland

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Lotus 11 - James Hamlin, Virginia

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[Steve Holmes]

OK, time to resurrect this one. Bit of a mixture here of some newer Nascar and Trans-Am cars. There are now classes in US vintage racing that cater for both stock cars and Trans-Am cars from the 80s, 90s, and 00s. Ten years ago, you couldn't give away 80s and 90s Trans-Am cars, but now they've really found favour in historic racing, and although their values are on the rise, they're still quite affordable.

From Grant:

The 3 pics are cars from the Historic Stock Car series which regularly compete in various vintage races, mainly on the east coast.
In order - ex Kevin Harvick 2002 Chevy Monte Carlo driven by John Cloud,
2000 Ford Mustang Cobra driven by Debbie Cloud ( must make for interesting dinner conversation in the Cloud household)
2006 Dodge Charger driven by Jack Finch.

It is possible to pick up similar cars for circa $40-50,000, that's a lot of car for the money especially if already set up for road racing.

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[Yeah yeah na]

Yeah, you are dead right about affordability of some of the early NASCAR type cars, at one point in time i would spend a huge number of hours on 'racingjunk.com' dreaming about what i could buy without mortgaging the house! As usual i just dreamed....