Reports on vintage auto racing’s classic competition events
from the USA and around the world
by Jake Grubb
What more compelling venue to end the vintage racing season on than the venerable Sebring, a storied American road race track that has hosted the iconic sports racing cars of the ages and the legendary drivers from around the world for nearly seven decades of speed and quest.
For the fourth successive year, Historic Sportscar Racing LLC will host the unique “Pistons & Props Classic 12-Hours of Sebring,” from December 4th through 8th at Sebring International Raceway. Revisiting the Sebring of golden eras, drivers will compete in the finest racecars of the 1950s, 1960s, ‘70s, ‘80s, ‘90s and early 2000s on the challenging 3.8 mile Sebring road race course, amid the illustrious aircraft of those very time periods.
Channeling the drivers of Sebring’s historic eons, vintage car competitors drive in both day and night conditions just as their predecessors did, however the format by which they do this is less taxing on both cars and drivers. This is by design. Racing is arranged so that the cars don’t actually race for 12 continuous hours as in the classic long distance 12-hour style. Here, all cars run 40-minutes at a time, each with their own specified class in a succession of run groups. Each class heat starts on the hour and the individual groups are released in a round-robin succession until all cars have performed in their respective time allotments. This format results in fast and tight racing from daytime to nighttime on the challenging and notoriously bumpy aircraft taxiways of the classic Sebring circuit, yet limits the wear and tear on high value vintage racecars as well as their drivers; all-in-all a spectacular experience for both drivers and spectators, unique among racing events. – John Dickinson
