The racing community is made up of a seemingly endless mix of high-performance cars, trucks, motorcycles and powersports vehicles that get on track, dirt or water and mix it up with incredible acceleration, speed and fender-to-fender competition.
Whether you’re into slinging mud, circle track, drag racing, ripping waves or diving into a turn at your favorite road course, there’s an outlet to get your adrenaline pumping. It doesn’t matter if you’re young or old, or if you like the most modern performance vehicles or iron from decades ago.
Not ones to let winter slow us down, we took a trip to Sebring International Raceway in Sebring, Florida to experience vintage road racing at the Sportscar Vintage Racing Association’s season opener.
Sebring is one of America’s most storied racetracks and the Sportscar Vintage Racing Association (SVRA), which is part of the Mission Speed Tour Experience Motorsports exceeded our expectations.
SVRA, originally called the Southeast Vintage Racing Association, was founded in 1978 by Ford Heacock III following the success of the Kendall Vintage Grand Prix held as part of the annual 12 Hours of Sebring.
It conducts events across North America at legendary racetracks including Road America, Sonoma Raceway, Watkins Glen International, and Virginia International Raceway to name a few.
In addition to the vintage racing, the Sebring event included modern Trans Am and TA-2 racing, Hagerty Cars & Caffeine Car Show, Optima’s Search For The Ultimate Street Car and more.
We witnessed the wide range of classic and historical vehicles, which are classified into different groups. Some of these include International GT, vintage Trans Am, Pre-1972 under 3.0 liters, GTP/Group C, ALMS, Grand Am, SCCA P1 and P2, Vintage NASCAR, and a host of others.
Fans can get up close with the cars in the paddock and then watch their favorites compete wheel to wheel in the beautiful liveries and with engines that roar with amazing sounds.
While there were many types and classifications of race cars, we were most excited about the field of over 20 early Trans Am race cars that thundered around Sebring’s historical 3.740-mile, 17-turn course.
I imagined it was like being back in the early 1970’s as the pack of Mustangs, Camaros, Cougars, Javelins and a lone Pontiac Tempest battled for brand supremacy with suspension, brakes and bias-ply tires from an era gone by. But more than the amazing sights, was the sounds of those muscular small-block engines, each howling with a seemingly different tone.
Fans were treated to practice, qualifying and two feature races over the four days of racing. We also spent ample time in the paddock admiring favorites like the Mark Donahue ’67 Penske Z/28, the Penske Javelin, the slathering of Boss 302 Mustangs and a rare, original ’67 Shelby Coupe Mustang driven by TV personality Peter Klutt.
Along with the roar of the Trans Am machines were endless Porsche 911s, Lolas, MGs, Ferraris, Mercedes, Fiats, Fords, and a smattering of additional cars like Vipers, Corvettes, Aston Martins, and the list goes on and on.
It really was a spectacular day and if you’re excited by our gallery of photos, we encourage you to check out an event near you.
You can see the entire schedule at Speedtour.net.
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