Lime Rock celebrated it’s 35th annual Historic Festival over the Labor Day weekend and despite a very rainy day during the Sunday In The Park concours, the weekend was well attended as it offered vintage racing, an auction, swap meet, and Sunday concours.
The Lime Rock Historic Festival is one of those smaller events that have everything that larger events such as Monterey Car Week have, but in a more manageable and lower-key style. It is much like the WeatherTech International Challenge with Brian Redman that happens at Road America in July. Both events attract great cars to the track, have a concours during the no-racing times, and gather famous drivers from the past.
All of this leads to nice-sized but manageable crowds and something for just about everyone who is interested in classic sports cars.
This year, which also is the race track’s 60th, the Lime Rock event had Richard Attwood as the honored racing guest and Bruce Meyer as honored collector. Both were on hand to meet fans, tell stories, and sign autographs at the Vintage Motorsport magazine booth. Meyer also brought an assortment of his many fine collector cars, including the 1960 Chevrolet Corvette No. 2 that competed at Le Mans, 1962 Shelby Cobra CSX 2001, the first production Shelby Cobra, and the 1932 Ford Doane Spencer Roadster (see below).
The action on track (see below) was exciting with hundreds of cars competing in classes such as Tin Tops, grand tourers, road-going sporting and sports racing cars, and not-quite-street-legal racers.
Each year, Lime Rock has a featured class and this year it was Formula Junior reunion with more than 24 of these historic and fast cars on the track. Seeing the diversity of this group was fascinating as each manufacturer executed the Formula Junior idea differently.
The Sunday At The Park Concours was amazing considering that it rained for the entire day. The fact that so many amazing cars showed up to be judged and seen by spectators speaks to the enthusiasm of the owners and the spectators. Some of the cars on display were a 1929 Alfa Romeo 6C 1750 SS, the 1963 Corvette Rondine Coupe by Pininfarina, and the 1950 Ferrari 166 MM by Vignale, which was the very first Vignale-bodied Ferrari.
The best of show honors were won by the amazing 1961 Ferrari 250 GT ‘Speciale’ Comp 61 by Pininfarina. This astounding car looked for the world like a 400 Superamerica and had to be the template for that car.
