No One Has a Bad Time at the Lime Rock Historic Festival

Labor Day weekend. It marks the end of summer, the end of fun, and perhaps a certain dread of the cold months ahead.

At Lime Rock Park, however, it means something else, and the folks there had no plans to go quietly into fall. Instead, they were kicking out the jams one more time and tearing it up at the 42nd running of the Lime Rock Historic Festival.

The late Jim Vaill opened Lime Rock in 1957 in Connecticut’s Litchfield County on the site of a sand and gravel quarry owned by his father. Vaill’s friend Jack Fisher owned an MG TC, and they often drove it rapidly in circles in the cornfield at the top of the hill. 

In the mid-1950s, people heard of Vaill’s “racing’ activities,” and members of the Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) paid a visit to the site to see if it would be suitable as a circuit.  Vaill began planning a course. He brought in his friend, the racing driver and road safety pioneer John Fitch, to develop the track layout using Cornell University’s Aeronautical Labs. It was the first time that scientific and highway safety principles had been used to determine the configuration of a circuit in North America.   

Lime Rock is one of the three oldest continuously operating road courses in the U.S., along with Road America and Laguna Seca. The layout has remained the same over the years, with only a repaving. At 1.5 miles, it is the shortest of the three tracks. It is deceptive in its simplicity, but it is a true challenge to drive it quickly, and drivers have spent years perfecting the best line around the course. 

Historics 42 gathered various racing machines from different decades—everything from a 1933 Alfa Romeo 2600 Monza to a 2015 Volkswagen Golf GTI. The weekend begins on Thursday with a parade of cars through the countryside to nearby Falls Village for a gathering of cars and car people. The next day, drivers got down to business with practice and qualifying. Saturday and Monday racing sessions were separated by a stellar Sunday in the Park Concours.

We caught up with several racers to get their take on this wonderful weekend of vintage racing and what it means to compete at Lime Rock. 

Tony Carpenzano 1993 Formula Atlantic Reynard 93H/Toyota

“This car is impressive around the track. It’s a ground-effects car. I can get through the corners faster than the older flat-bottomed Atlantic cars. It generates tremendous grip, and because of that, there are a lot of lateral G-forces, so I wind up with a bruise on my elbow and a bruise on my leg, which is in a padded area. The most challenging thing when I got this car was to trust the downforce. Other drivers told me if I wanted more grip, go faster. You think you are at your limits going through a turn; you have to push through it and go faster, and you get more grip. It’s counterintuitive. In the hands of a pro, it would be several seconds faster, but it’s fast enough for me.”

Alan Tosler, 1977 Crossle 321

“It’s only my third time in the car. The first time was the first practice session at this event. It’s a fantastic bit of kit. It has reignited my passion for racing. I’ve been doing this for 20 years with MGs and Lotus. I wanted to try something different. I wanted a new challenge, really. My group has some speedy cars, and the closing speed is something. You have to keep one eye on your mirrors and one eye on the apex the whole time. It’s challenging, but it’s a lot of fun. It’s not like a production car. It’s a proper race car. It does everything a little bit better. You have to be very smooth to bring everything out of it.”

Charles Bordin, 1959 Philson/Falcon  

“When I got the car in the late 1980s, it was a basket case. It was built by a man named Norbert Philson. He used to build Midget racers and used a lot of Midget technology to make this car. The one problem is it’s too heavy. The engine is a Ford Falcon six. The cars were in the showroom in July of 1959. Philson was a USAC tech inspector, and he was building the car to run in USAC. He got the engine in pieces from Ford. I’ve been racing at Lime Rock since 1963m when I came with my father, who was racing a B Production Vette. He would let me go out in it, which was fun. And he was paying the bills! Then, all of a sudden, he realized I was wearing out a lot of tires. So, I got myself a Triumph Spitfire. I learned a lot about driving an underpowered car. With the Philson, it’s good on the straights and sweepers, but it doesn’t like tight turns. It has a TR3 front suspension, a rack-and-pinion from a Morris Minor in the front, and an MGA rear. Philson used whatever was in his shop. I know the car like the back of my hand. My worst fault is I drive around the car’s faults instead of fixing them.”

Steve Francis, 1967 Gilbert Cheetah

“This car is one of two built. It was built for Masten Gregory to race in the 1968 Indy 500. About six months after that it was sold to Bill Simpson, who took the Ford engine out and put in a stock-block Chevy. I’ve been racing here at Lime Rock for about 30 years, but it’s my first time here with this car. Even though you would think it was for ovals only, it seems pretty happy on a road course. The car keeps me busy on this track, but I love it. I’m doing about a minute point nine a lap, which is conservative. The car is capable of much more than I am, but it’s happy and pretty easy to drive. It was a dream of mine to race one of these cars since I was 10 years old. And now I have my chance.”

Chris Turner, 1974 Porsche 911 & 1996 Porsche Carrera 993 RSR

“It’s an incredible opportunity. I’m just happy to do it. We’ve had the ’74 since 2006. It’s like an old pair of jeans. We’ve just finished a six-year restoration on our factory-built RSR and are still sorting it out. It’s also an endurance car, and it drives in a completely different way than the other car. It’s not as fast as the green car; it’s built for a longer race. It is incredibly well-balanced, the suspension and steering are excellent, and the car does everything well. I’m unsure which is better suited for the track, but the ’74 is better suited for me. But both are great.”

Gaspare Fasulo, 1968 Porsche 912

“It’s great fun to run the 912 here. I’m racing against David Porter in Lotus Cortina Mk1. I’m the kind of driver who goes faster when I’m chasing someone. If I’m out front, I’m fast, but faster if I’m chasing. David Porter is an excellent rabbit for me. If I have a good clean run, I might have the chance to get around him.”

Peter Greenfield, 1933 Alfa Romeo 2600 Monza

“I’ve had the car now for 20-plus years, and it’s very much a part of me now. It’s an easy car to run. You get in, press the button, and it starts up. It runs on race fuel, not methanol. I first came to Lime Rock in 1978, so I know my way around the place. But I’m not getting any quicker. I’m 82 now, and it doesn’t get any easier. But there is still the draw to come and race. The car is like a go-kart. It has a stiff suspension and it’s not very compliant, so it’s a hard ride. You steer it a lot with the throttle. You don’t have a proper seat like in a modern race car, so you must support yourself with the steering wheel and steer simultaneously, which is very physical. You start looking for the one-lap-to-go sign. It takes a lot out of you. But I keep coming back.”

Mitch Eitel, 1975 Chevron B31 

“They only built six cars with a Hart engine. Of all my vintage racers, this is the fastest. I’m doing 55-second laps here. I used to drive a Lola, but the Chevron is just a friendlier, easier car to drive and drive quickly. The cornering speed is so high. Like [former racer and commentator] David Hobbs says, “It’s a real neck-stretcher.” No race seems longer than a race at Lime Rock, as you do so many laps, and you never get a break from the action. I love this track. It’s my home track. I have been racing here since 2004, but I have been coming here since 1965 to watch racing. My father was a car nut and worked on a pit crew when he was young. If we went somewhere for a weekend as a family, it wasn’t Disney World. It was Indy, Pocono, Watkins Glen, or here. When I was set in my career, I started racing with the VSCCA [Vintage Sports Car Club of America] in a 750-cc Fiat Abarth, and I worked my way up to a car that goes down the straight at 140 miles an hour. I keep coming back for more. It’s a disease.”

Peter Krause, 1974 Fiat X1/9

“I’m a professional driving coach, and Lime Rock is my favorite of the 200 tracks I go to. People ask why that is, and I tell them, “It’s easy to go fast, but it’s very hard to go very fast.” And that is the supreme challenge. The first car I raced was a Fiat 850 Spyder. Now, I’m racing a 50-year-old Fiat that I bought on Facebook Marketplace. I paid about what it would have cost to fabricate the roll bar for this car, for the whole shooting match. It ran and drove, and I found out later it had been built by a friend of mine named Judge Parker, who was one of the founders of the SVRA [Sports Car Vintage Racing Association]. He was a Fiat fanatic. This was his last shot. He built it to go vintage racing, but he encountered resistance, became frustrated, and gave up. He sold it to a man in Texas, who immediately blew it up. It then went to South Carolina, and that owner blew it up. It then sat on a trailer under a tarp for six years. As soon as I learned that Judge had built the car, I bought it sight unseen. I worked on the car non-stop for three months. On a wing and a prayer, I would have the car ready. There was no transmission in it a week before the Historics. Everything came together magically though. I hadn’t done one lap in anger. I ran 15 laps on the test day and was gobsmacked. The thing was magic, even though I ran out of time and couldn’t do a complete setup. It was benign when I took it out, and I started smiling in my helmet. To be able to win my first race in this car after getting a rusty bucket of bolts from Facebook, it is proof positive you can find your dreams and make them happen.” 

(Peter went on to win all four of his races in his Facebook Fiat.)

Whit Smith, 1959 Stanguellini FJ 

“It’s a whole new experience after driving production Alfas. The Stanguellini is a race car. From that perspective, it’s amazing. It’s doing what it was built to do. It’s not a repurposed road car. The cool thing was that I was on a grid with other open-wheel Formula Juniors. I’ve never been in a race like that. It’s a great coming together of cars that raced together in period.”