But there were plenty of beautifully-prepared runners, including fleets of Porsche 356s, Lotus 23s, Corvettes, and
McLaren M6s and M8s, to individual cars like Augie Pabst's 1958 Scarab MkIII. Pabst is a director and big supporter of Road America and also runs a Jaguar XKE. In addition, there were tremendous fields of formula cars from the sixties, seventies and eighties - Formula Fords, Formula Bs and Atlantics, F5000 and Indy cars - as well as more modern formula, GT, sports/GTP and Champ cars.
And, of course, there was James King's Historic Grand Prix group, with more than twenty cars, most of them from the seventies and early eighties, and most with Cosworth DFV engines, although there are a trio of
F1 Ferrari twelve-cylinders as well. The F1 cars put on a good show, particularly the front half of the field who drive enthusiastically and race pretty hard.
Of course, the sound of the many DFVs and few Ferraris is exquisite and played perfectly through the hills, dales and forests of Road America. It's a real treat watching these cars from the concession stand at the top of Hurry Downs as they exit turn six and sweep downhill into the Carousel, and also from the outside of Canada Corner amid the trees on the backside of the track.
James King would love to run the historic GP cars as a support race at the revived Road America Champ Car weekend and I, for one, would love to see it happen. As I say, King's fleet of F1 cars look and sound good and a short ten-lap sprint race on Saturday afternoon or Sunday morning would be a perfect addition to the Champ Car weekend at Elkhart Lake.
I talked to a handful of fans during the historic weekend about Champ Car and Road America, and they were hopeful, but frustrated, with the overall state of Champ car racing and worried also that the late September date - outside the July-August summer holiday season - was not the best time to draw a big crowd. I agree and would love to see Champ Car find a workable mid-summer weekend to race at Road America and do it in company with King and his historic GP guys.
