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.
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...]
Story and photos by Art EvansSome 25 years ago, there was a vintage event like none other. It was the 1985 Palm Springs Vintage Grand Prix. Why was it so different? Would you believe 19 Formula One and Indy veterans on the same grid, all in competitive open-wheel cars? How about Dan Gurney in his Spa-winning Eagle! Or Bobby Unser in the 1975 Indy-winning Eagle! Stirling Moss in a Lotus, the … [Read more...]
By Art EvansThe occurrences at the 2011 edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans brought to mind those of 1955, the race that lives in infamy. More than 80 spectators were killed plus some 120 injured in the most horrendous accident in motor racing history.My longtime and very close friend, John Fitch, was on the Mercedes team, co-driver with Pierre Levegh, whose car caused such carnage. A few … [Read more...]
History of the Indianapolis 500 – Part Two (See History of the Indianapolis 500 - Part One)By Leigh DorringtonThe first Indianapolis 500 in 1911, won by Ray Harroun on the Indianapolis-built Marmon ‘Wasp’, began one of the longest sporting traditions in the world. And soon the whole world was watching. The history of the race reflects a century—The American Century—that … [Read more...]
In April 1931, Rudolf Caracciola became the first non-Italian to win the Mille Miglia road race. Alongside his co-driver Wilhelm Sebastian, the Mercedes-Benz works team driver won the 1,635km race, which took place from 12 to 13 April 1931, in a Mercedes-Benz SSKL racing car.Caracciola achieved an average speed of 101.1 km/h in the race from Brescia to Rome and back. It was the first time that … [Read more...]
Story by Leigh DorringtonThe story of the Indianapolis 500 is the story of America in a pivotal century—the beginning of the American Century. A rural nation rushing to embrace industrialization. Farm boys, fairgrounds and big city promoters. Seat of the pants courage and genuine genius. Foreign invasions—so to speak—and homeland traditions.In 1910, the city of Indianapolis was … [Read more...]
By Martin SwigJay Lamm is a long-time friend. Back in 2006, when he first thought of “LeMons,” I encouraged him. I told him he should simply go ahead and do it; the sooner he started, the quicker he’d discover exactly how it should be done. “Just make your mistakes and move on.”The first 24 Hours of LeMons at Altamont Speedway, near Livermore, California, was a huge success. … [Read more...]
The 12 Hours of Sebring 2011 was held Saturday, March 19th at Sebring International Raceway in Florida. The 59th annual 12 Hours of Sebring endurance race, the first event on the 2011 Intercontinental Le Mans Cup (ILMC) calendar, offered exciting racing and ended with an unexpected winner. … [Read more...]
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