Carroll shelby and paul newman, all being prepared to race. This past year svra produced a special oneofakind event at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, a racing proam, former indy 500 competitors and winners sharing the driving duties with vintage car racers. You wont want to miss it. Its all coming up next on. Hey, little cobra dont you know youre gonna shut em down . I took my cobra down to the track hitched to the back of my cadillac everyone was there just waiting for me. That is the 1964 hit hey, little cobra by the rip chords, a classic song for a vintage car. Hi, im paul page, and every one of these automobiles were at one time involved with sports car racing, and they all have a history, a documented record of their sporting lives when, where and how they fared. All of them eventually stopped racing. They were retired and put away. They became vintage cars, but that was a good thing because now these cars are back on the track, and vintage car racing is about as much fun as any amateur sports car racer can ever have. Through the auspices of the sports car vintage racing association, the vintage car racing spirit is alive and well, and svra is sanctioning vintage racing events all over america. But dont take my word for it. Watch this. Tell me that doesnt look like fun. That is vintage car racing. A vintage car race is wheeltowheel racing with similar cars of the same era, like pre1973 formula cars or a group all of them restored to their original racing specifications. Lets hear what the racers have to say. A few of my friends and i got together and said, lets try vintage racing. We went as spectators, thought they were crazy, and we went and tried it. 1989 was the first time i tried it, and i was hooked since then. These cars are collectible, and theyre objects of art, and theyre objects of history. My guess is i feel differently about my car than Dale Earnhardt jr. Feels about his. I was racing in scca, and my husband was restoring collectible cars, and i realized we were going separate directions every weekend. I had a mustang. He had a shelby, and we were able to put the two together, and this was the only sport that allowed us to take the show cars and actually race them. I know im not going to win every time, but i wod like to have a good race. The sebring, 12 hours in 1965, my grandfather drove my fathers corvette, oddly, so ive been around em since i was a little kid. I dont care who you are, okay . I dont care if youre a formula one driver or whatever. The guy that tells you hes not nervous before a race is lying. Whether you come here to run as fast as you can and challenge yourself as much as you can, or just to say that you turned a wheel in this historic race car at this historic track, everybody gets Something Different out of it. Thats the beauty of vintage racing. You take it to whatever level you want. Page when we come back, well visit the race track, take a look at some vintage cars gonna get ready to strike the 2014 svra circuit was a year of great racing at some of the most iconic tracks in america sebring, road atlanta, midohio, sonoma, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the circuit of the americas. The visit to each track, especially indy, flipped open the history books and dropped a few more stories for the record. Tony parella there was this amazing phenomenon. Were staging them outside of gasoline alley, and literally better than 50 of the field got tears rolling down their face. Men and women, grown men and women, are crying before they go out because they cannot believe that theyve gotten a chance to race at indy. Circuit of the americas, we raced at. Thats the big, new, fancy formula one track, and that doesnt have the historical effect, but it has the i cant believe im on this track. Watkins glen for me is unique, but its for a lot of people cause thats an iconic track. And now were doing things at sonoma, on vir and so many wonderful circuits. I can go on for 18 of them. Theres really some very special places we go. When can you ever shoot a round of golf at the masters course in augusta, or pitch the ninth inning against your friends in yankee stadium, or go a couple of sets on center court at wimbledon . Now with the growing popularity of vintage racing, the axel legendary sports cars of decades past have returned to race the most hallowed race tracks in america. Parella these are real, actual, honest to god race cars that are prepared as they were back in the day, and running right to the ragged edge. Youve read interviews, and youve seen Stirling Moss or jackie stewart, or john fitch. Youve seen these guys describing the track and talking about this race and that race, so when you find yourself at sebring or watkins glen or limerock, and it dawns on you back at the second, third time around it that, wow, you know. Youre where these great guys raced. Every svra event schedules testing, practice sessions, qualifying and two races per group. The majority of svra races are time sprints, anywhere from 25 to 30 minutes in length. From costly maintenance and repair. For a vast majority of vintage racers, equipment reliability allows them to compete several weekends a year and finish races. The 2015 svra season started at the classic home of sports car racing in america sebring, florida. Vintage racing, which had been popular before we even thought about it, started to emerge at sebring in the late 70s when the promoters saw an opportunity to bring back a lot of former race cars to parade around sebring before the 12 hours of sebring. It was hugely successful. So by the early 80s, i saw an opportunity to create a club cause i felt like it needed some structure and other events. So we created the southeast vintage racing association in the spring of 1981. Page many of the race cars that made sebring such a mecca of sports car racing returned decades later in dramatic and hotly contested races cheering applause it really harkens back to road racing in the 50s and the 60s. We didnt hit each other back then. You gave the guy room. You never blocked. The last thing wed do is pick up the time sheet on our way out to see what kind of time did we get. Did we beat our previous times that we, you know, had done. The first car that i raced, was lucky enough to be an aston martin db4, pretty much the james bond cars, arguably one of the prettiest cars in the world, so. Its crazy that youre racing, like, a da vinci painting every time that you get into some of the cars. Page in 2012, vintage racing got a muchneeded jolt and rejuvenated energy, expanding the reach and the scope of the svra. Ive been a member of svra since the mid80s, and there have been a lot of changes, and i have to say, and this is truly from the heart, tony has really improved the series. Vintage racing cars, always been a car person, and, you know, taking all the Lessons Learned in 30 years in business, ive just been applying them to something im passionate about. Weve grown it, and weve tried to consolidate it and make it more valid. Weve really tightened down how we inspect the cars. We try to have one hell of a party every saturday night. What im trying to accomplish is to take vintage racing to where its mentioned in the same breath as these household names like the nhra or nascar, indy car, etc. Page coming up, what it takes to become a vintage driver, gonna get ready to strike vintage car racing has clearly defined rules and regulations to make the racing fair and equitable. Theres no point in a prewar indy big car racing against a super vee. However, many of the vintage cars built by manufacturers over the years have consistencies in their specification that makes racing together competitive. Theres a weight class and specification class for tire sizes and brake size. Some lists are longer than others, depending on how competitive these cars are, you know, how they were raced back then. Page the svra divides vintage sports cars into 11 groups. They range from small displacement production sports cars to big boar sports cars and sedans, all the way to wings and slicks formula cars. The bottomline is that no matter what car a racer chooses, it will be placed in a group where they can have fun and be competitive. On a group 10 stock car, you know its going to stop straight. You can go in deep and really carry some gs, whereas a c1 corvette, you have to stop way short and then give yourself room on either side of the car cause you dont know which direction its gonna go, so each car is their own experience, but theyre all fun. My approach was to right away sign up for a Competition Driving School course. Page to race in sanctioned svra events, every racer must have a current competition license. To acquire that license, a racer must have been licensed previously and a graduate of a recognized and accredited road racing school. I took the Bob Bondurant school and did well. I took the scca driving school. Ive been to the skip barber driving school. I recently took an open wheel school, just because. Once a racer decides to compete at vintage car racing, vintage race cars cost anywhere from a few thousand dollars to a few hundred thousand dollars, and usually a few more dollars to make them safety qualified and race ready. You know, you find a car that you love that looks great. Ive always wanted one of these, or i love the look of that, and you find something you can afford and go after it. My dad and i went over and looked at the car, and it was sitting on the side of this guys house, and it looked pretty disheveled, and so we offered the guy 200 for it, and he said yeah. As soon as that engine ran, my brother went running to the auto trader, and we bought our second jaguar, and thats when the disease started. laughing my very first car, when i was 17, was a 68 convertible shelby mustang, and i went to school and paid for it by washing dishes seven nights a week. Lauren fix i rode my bike to a local used car lot, and i found a 76 camaro, and i negotiated with the guy, and i purchased the car; but i wasnt able to drive it home, so he had to deliver it to my house. Put a new fuel cell, and you put a different seat, cause i cant sit in the seat, and bring it to the race track for me, then ill buy it, and by the way, id like to pay for it 1,000 a month for 12 months. So he sold it to me for 12,000. As i was finishing college at colorado state, i had the option of going into a professional lifestyle, where i could actually make money, or i could go and join my father and go vintage racing, which i was assured of making no money, although id have the opportunity to race with my father, so what kid cant take em up on that . Page the svra conducts a Driver Orientation Program for licensed drivers that have not competed in vintage events and for racing School Graduates whose goal is vintage licensing. Room on the right side at the exit of turn 3, and bend the car back to the right. Page theres a track Orientation Program for drivers that have not driven at a particular venue. The reason that i took the class this weekend is i have not been on sebring in many years, and its always best to refresh yourself. Curt vogt peter has moved ahead with the times with the technology and learned how to use onboard data to be a better instructor and to teach the driver. You can almost teach a driver without even going to the track, just by looking at his data and pick up quite a bit. Page the svra will visit 18 tracks during a racing season. One of the favorites is watkins glen. Before the current track was built, the races at the glen passed through the heart of town and around the local countryside. To honor that tradition, a parade follows the original course through town and country to kick off vintage racing weekend, and one of the most popular races during that weekend is the historic transam, we respect the cars. We drive the cars really hard. This is an art object in motion. Detailed make and Model Specifications for preparing a vintage car at a race can be found on svra. Com. Now they must be followed and applied to make the car race legal, pass tech and safety inspection. First and foremost thing is you have to put a really good roll cage in it, you know, because thats safety, and then its got to have good seat belts. You also have to have a fuel cell in there, and a fire system, and a kill switch just in case something happens. So, you know, those are the basic requirements. And design the car around the aptitude of the driver. For a beginning driver, you make a low horsepower engine thats gonna run a lot of hours, so they can get as much seat time as possible. Were gonna build a shorthour, highrevving motor. That gives them the best opportunity to do well. Page those specifications are the heart and soul of vintage racing. Lets take a look at some of the other things larry ligas has to do to get one of his jaguars on the racetrack. What were doing is, were aligning the car, and the purpose of this is to make a perfect rectangle around the car, and once you have that, you can make accurate measurements on all four wheels. Were scaling the car. Were doing this for two reasons. One, because svra has a weight requirement for this particular car, and the other reason is we want to get the corner weights as close as possible. This is a camber gauge. Its used to measure wheel angle in relation to the ground, and it helps the car handle and corner better. No question that there is some advantages to excellent car preparation, but you see driver talent come through page next on. Hey, little cobra dont you know youre gonna shut em down in only its Second Annual svra National Championships held in austin, texas, in early november of 2014 at the circuit of the americas, svra showed how bright the future is for vintage car racing. 600plus racers and cars from all across america as well as an International Contingent accepted the challenge to be the best in their class. In its brief existence, the event has unified vintage racing across america by standardizing its rules and regulations. At the National Championships, five principles of vintage car preparation rules prevail proper tires, proper brakes, correct engine displacement, the weight of the overall car and no modification to the body panels. Places the chance of winning solely on the drivers ability. This super bowl pageant of vintage racing awards the coveted gold bell helmet as the championship trophy to 29 sprint race class champions and 14 enduro race champions. The 2014 svra National Championships was unique and immensely popular, as it put a cap on the season. This is the 1936 indianapolis 500, held at the birthplace of American Auto racing, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. It was a record third win for louis meyer and the first time the winner celebrated by drinking the milk. And arguably, the highlight of the 2014 vintage car season was another oneofakind, first time, fantastically fun time vintage car proam race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, past indy 500 competitors like lyn st. James, eliseo salazar, willy t. Ribbs and al unser jr. Shared the driving duties with vintage car racers in a 45minute race, complete with driver changes and a mandatory fiveminute pit stop. Anybody thats watched indy racing and knows the unser name and to have, you know, al run with us, its gonna be a thrill. Im really happy to be here and happy to have my car be paired up with a great driver. In my wildest dreams, i couldve even imagined doing this. Got out in a section, where i was just by myself driving around, and it was it was extremely emotional. Its hard to describe. I had no idea. I was shocked when they walked me up to the podium. They fitted me for a ring and had me drink the milk and kiss the bricks. Page corvettes, mustangs, camaros and a shelby gt350 filled the field of cars. The indy drivers enthusiastically joined in the fun. Their donation of time ensured a hefty contribution to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway hall of fame. Just coming here, getting into gasoline alley, give you the chill. Its fun. It was fun. Thats the key. It was fun. A great car, i got a great car owner, and were gonna do well. I havent smiled this much since i dont know when. Page the chance for 24 vintage car racers to share seat time in their own cars with past indy greats was a bellwether moment for the svra. Willy was more than just a competitor. He was fast. We got a full course yellow. I was coming in. Hes got to bring her home, and i think we got the best driver out there right now, so thats good. These guys just went to town. They just had a ball, and they got their race face on, and they went for it. Announcer Scott Goodyear and al unser jr. Look at the finish line. The 500 miles is about to end. The checkered flag lies ahead, and its gonna be close its gonna be close al unser takes the win al unser it feels great. Any time you win at indy, its a good day, no matter what. Vintage racing is fast, furious, fun and famfriendly. At every event, hundreds of these classic, iconic cars invite admiration and inspection. At svra events, the paddocks are open to the spectators. Fans are encouraged to meet the drivers and get an upclose look at cars that will inspire memories. Im paul page. Thank you for watching. When you go to a race track, you go to try and beat mr. X, who you have diced with many times before. Theres nothing as sweet or as good, man, as having one that looks that way and it running really, really well. Winning the National Championship means the respect from my competitors. Our cars are all valuable, and were basically all driving museum pieces. People that are just getting into the sport, they need equipment that will run for multiple weekends, maybe a year. I bought the car from a detective who works outside of fort lauderdale, florida. I bought this car for 100. I just went through tech just before coming here. They were checking things ive never seen checked, which is good just to be close with somebody in the turns and traffic. I like to be in traffic. Thats especially exciting, to keep something as beautiful as this rolling and working, man, i prepped for six months. Thats all i thought about every day was coming out here and winning, and we did it. This has been a production of freewheeling films ltd. , aspen, colorado. Pursuit of passions is syndicated by new visions worldwide distribution. Judge judy youre either being cute with me or being thick with me. Announcer this landl