Sports Car Digest - The Sports, Racing and Vintage Car Journal
Sports Car Digest focuses on Classic Car Auctions, Concours d’Elegance, Vintage Car Racing, Road Rallies and other historic automotive events.
By Art EvansWhat is the foremost racing series in the world? If you said Formula One, you are in the company of most other enthusiasts. The series consists of a yearly Grand Prix in each participating country (although in a few instances, there was more than one). Even though the Formula One series was started in 1950, the concept of having a country’s premier event began long before that. … [Read more...]
Sebring in 1973 was the beginning of a new era for the legendary track. The Alec Ulmann era had ended in 1972 because he was not able to do the track upgrades demanded by the FIA and as a result they withdrew their sanctioning of the ’73 race as part of the FIA World Championship.Saving the Sebring race from the trash heap of history was John Bishop and the newly formed International Motor … [Read more...]
By Art Evans What do you think was the toughest and most difficult race ever? After reading my September 2011 history column, you might say the New York to Paris. Then there was the 1950-54 La Carrera Panamericana. But these were short-lived point-to-point contests. How about a closed circuit race? In the opinion of many who competed there, it was the Targa Florio. The first was in 1906; the … [Read more...]
The 12 Hours of Sebring was held March 17, 2012 at Sebring International Raceway in Sebring, Florida.The 60th anniversary Sebring endurance race, the opening round of the 2012 FIA World Endurance Championship, was an event full of tension all the way to the finish. After covering 325 laps at Sebring International Raceway, it was the Audi team of Tom Kristensen (DEN), Allan McNish (GBR) and … [Read more...]
1966 Sebring 12-Hour Grand Prix of Endurance - Ford Triumphs Amid TragedyBy Louis Galanos | Photos as creditedDuring the third week of March 1966 the annual pilgrimage of sports car aficionados was taking place in South Central Florida as fans of the Sebring 12-hour race descended on the aging 5.2 mile road course that was laid out over the runways and access roads of an old World War ll … [Read more...]
By Art EvansThe Tourist Trophy is the oldest motor race in the world still being run. The first was in 1905 on the Isle of Man, organized by the Automobile Club of Great Britain and Ireland. The trophy itself is given by the Royal Automobile Club to the winner. Over the years, Tourist Trophy races have been part of the World Manufacturers Championship, the World Touring Car Championship, … [Read more...]
By Bob HarmeyerSebring International Raceway, located on a former Army Air Force base situated among the orange groves of south-central Florida, is celebrating the 60th anniversary of the legendary 12 hour endurance classic in 2012.Sebring has always been one of my three favorite races to photograph, along with the 24 hour races at Daytona and Le Mans. At all three, the lengths of the … [Read more...]
The Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona 2012 was held January 28-29 on the 12-turn, 3.56-mile Daytona International Speedway, a combined track made up of portions of the NASCAR tri-oval and an infield road course.With the minutes ticking down on the Rolex clock in Pit Row, there was an epic battle for the 2012 Rolex 24 at Daytona title taking place on Daytona International Speedway’s road course. … [Read more...]
1967 24 Hours of Daytona - The Revenge of “Il Commendatore”By Louis Galanos | Photos as creditedThe year 1966 was not a good year for Enzo Ferrari. Ford beat Ferrari with a humiliating 1-2-3 finish at both Daytona and Sebring and for the first time in six years they lost, again to Ford, at the Holy Grail of endurance racing the 24 Hours of Le Mans.With the 1966 World Sportscar … [Read more...]
By Bob HarmeyerDaytona International Speedway in 2012 is celebrating the 50th anniversary of the track's first road race, a three hour event won by Dan Gurney when he coasted across the finish line with a blown engine.The first two road races were three hour events, the third and fourth were expanded to 2000 kilometer contests, and the now-traditional 24-hour race distance was first run in … [Read more...]
By Louis Galanos | Photos as creditedJanuary 2012 marks the Golden Anniversary (50th) of sports car endurance racing at the Daytona International Speedway (DIS) in Daytona Beach, Florida.DIS was opened in 1959 by NASCAR founder, Bill France, Sr., after years of driving in and promoting stock car racing on the beaches of the Daytona area. From the beginning the new speedway was associated … [Read more...]
The Vanderbilt Cup, America’s First International SeriesBy Art EvansThe first Vanderbilt Cup Race, held in 1904, amounted to pandemonium according to press reports. Newspaper and poster promotion drew a huge crowd. Estimated to be as numerous as 50,000 spectators were lined dangerously close to the entire course, some actually straying onto it. There were so many people that they became … [Read more...]
By Art EvansThe series we now know as Formula One traces its roots back to 1906. Before the term, Formula One, was coined in 1950, essentially the same sequence of events were called the Grand Prix Series. But those words became bandied about so much that different ones were needed to describe the contest for the World Driving Championship. Nevertheless, each country’s race is still called a … [Read more...]
By Art EvansAs I described in my July column, the first motorized-vehicle race on land is acknowledged by historians to be the 1893 Paris to Rouen. Other place-to-place races followed in Europe before the turn of the century. Many of them involved Paris as a location of origination or destination. Paris-Bordeaux-Paris followed Rouen in 1895, Paris-Marseille-Paris in 1896 and so on. The … [Read more...]
By Art EvansWhen younger motor racing enthusiasts think of Daytona, images of stock cars on the International Speedway come to mind. But older folks remember that Daytona Beach was a site for setting early land-speed records.The history of racing at the beach extends almost to the turn of the last century when cars themselves were in their infancy. Famous automobile personalities of yore … [Read more...]
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