American Speed Festival: Le Mans racers, Corvettes and Indy cars

Posted by Talbot Payne on September 29, 2023

Pontiac — Celebrate 100 years of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, 70 years of Corvette, and 50 years of the International Race of Champions as the third annual American Speed Festival takes over M1 Concourse auto club this weekend.

The celebration of motorsports performance, which opens Friday and runs through Sunday, puts an exclamation point on a month of auto shows in Metro Detroit, including Detroit 4fest, the North American International Auto Show and Concours d’Elegance.

Race car drivers A.J. Foyt and Dan Gurney won the 2'4 Hours of Le Mans', the first Americans ever to do so, in this Ford GT40 Mk IV in 1967. It's among the sportscars that will be at the American Speed Festival this weekend at M1 Concourse.Race car drivers A.J. Foyt and Dan Gurney won the 2'4 Hours of Le Mans', the first Americans ever to do so, in this Ford GT40 Mk IV in 1967. It's among the sportscars that will be at the American Speed Festival this weekend at M1 Concourse.

American Speed Festival is not just an opportunity to see some of the most historic race cars ever made, but to see them in their natural habitat — on track — as many of the cars take to M1’s 1.5-mile Champion Motor Speedway.

“The American Speed Festival aims to preserve the rich heritage of motorsports and ignite a passion for automotive excellence in present and future generations,” said M1 Concourse CEO Tim McGrane of the 2023 event sponsored by Comerica Bank and WLLZ.

Held on M1’s 87-acre property at the corner of Woodward and South Boulevard in Pontiac, the event hosts a wide range of historic performance cars from Indy racers to NASCARs to endurance racers and state-of-the-art supercars. Attendees can ogle the cars under M1’s large paddock tent and talk with the owners and race teams that maintain them. Then they can grab a hot dog from a food truck and head to the grandstands as the four-wheeled greyhounds go out on course in their respective “Speed Ring” sessions.

The chorus of V-12, V-8, and turbocharged engines is beautiful music at the facility. Friday will feature a special parade of Corvettes and Saturday a Ford GT40 parade.

Endurance cars from 100 years of France’s prestigious 24 Hours of Le Mans will headline the event. Le Mans has long been the standard for sportscar speed and reliability. The so-called Circuit de la Sarthe has seen battles over the decades between some of the most famous marques in racing with the Ford v Ferrari battle of 1966 recently the subject of a popular Hollywood film.

Among the Le Mans cars present will be the red-and-white-striped 1967 Ford Mk IV, which AJ Foyt and Dan Gurney piloted to victory in 1967, the second straight year that Ford beat Ferrari to the finish line. The 427-cubic-inch Mk IV recorded speeds on the nearly four-mile long Mulsanne straight of 230 mph and won the race at a record average speed of 135 mph. The Speed Festival will be a rare appearance for the ’67 Ford outside of its Henry Ford museum home.

Honoring the 70th anniversary of Corvette will be gems like the 1963 Z06, which raced and won in both SCCA A/Production class and international FIA racing. The Z06 was piloted by Dr. Dick “The Flying Dentist” Thompson. Other notables include numerous Calloway Corvettes that competed in endurance racing in the 1990s and early 2000s, a 1962 Le Mans Corvette entry, and a 1959 so-called CERV-1 from Chevy, which was an early exploration of mid-engine layout that eventually found its way into the 2020 Corvette C8 that’s on the road today.

The International Race of Champions — IROC to enthusiasts — was motor racing’s All-Star game, which ran from 1973-2008. The series featured the sport’s best drivers competing in identical sportscars like, say, Porsche 911s. Speed Festival will showcase three championship-winning cars from the IROC era.

But wait, there’s more. In the tradition of Speed Festival, the grounds will be littered with significant Indy cars.

Consider the 1968 Lotus 56 STP Turbine, one of that decade’s experiments with jet engines in race cars that produced astonishing speeds around Indianapolis. The Lotus 56 pumped out 500 horsepower at, ahem, 45,000 RPM and was banned for being too fast.

Other notables include a 1963 A.J. Watson Roadster, the first Indy car to record laps in excess of 150 mph, Gordon Johncock’s sixth-place 1990 Lola T90 and a 1977 Team Penske McLaren driven by Mario Andretti at the Indy 500.

After the on-track action Friday, spectators can buy a ticket to the Garage Reveal and stroll M1 garages where local collectors keep some of the area’s finest cars. Ogle collections of Ford GTs, Lamborghinis, Porsche 911 GT3s and more. Dinner is included on the tour.

It wouldn’t be a Metro Detroit show without a charitable ball, and Saturday ends with the swank Checkered Flag Ball presented by the Checkered Flag Challenge, M1’s philanthropic arm. The ball benefits M1 Mobility and the Pontiac Community Foundation.

General admission ickets for the American Speed Festival are available for $25 (66% off last year’s price). For tickets and more information, visit www.americanspeedfestival.com.

Henry Payne is auto critic for The Detroit News. Find him at hpayne@detroitnews.com or Twitter @HenryEPayne

Comments are closed.