{"id":28061,"date":"2021-10-02T13:53:31","date_gmt":"2021-10-02T17:53:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/?p=28061"},"modified":"2021-10-02T13:53:31","modified_gmt":"2021-10-02T17:53:31","slug":"jim-halls-chaparral-racers-highlight-pontiacs-american-speed-festival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/2021\/10\/jim-halls-chaparral-racers-highlight-pontiacs-american-speed-festival","title":{"rendered":"Jim Hall’s Chaparral racers highlight Pontiac’s American Speed Festival"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pontiac\u00a0<\/em>\u2014 The ground will shake this weekend when three of the most legendary race cars in motorsport hit the M1 race track at the inaugural American Speed Festival.<\/p>\n

Created by Texan Jim Hall, the Chaparral 2, 2E\u00a0and 2F revolutionized motorsport in the 1960s with their daring aerodynamic designs. Along with Lotus-founder Colin Chapman of England, Hall \u2014 who also raced his cars \u2014 helped define a golden age of racing that pushed the boundaries of technology and speed.<\/p>\n

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Hall is being honored with the Festival\u2019s\u00a0Master of Motorsports Award as his creations headline a unique weekend celebrating auto racing past, present\u00a0and future. In addition to ogling dozens of racers covering the spectrum from NASCAR to IndyCar, fans will get to see the thoroughbreds perform on track \u2014 including the rare Chaparrals in their signature vanilla white livery.<\/p>\n

The Texas engineer\u2019s showcase is timely as motorsport experiences a second renaissance with more offerings than ever before \u2014 yet in a very different industry environment where a government and corporate electrification push is forcing the homogenization of production and race cars alike.<\/p>\n

\u201cI came along at a time when a lot of latitude was given to change cars,\u201d said Hall, 86, in an interview looking back on six decades of racing. \u201cAs anything becomes standardized and everyone focuses on the best equipment, then everyone heads in the same direction until someone comes up with a new idea.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to industry pressures, motorsport\u00a0has\u00a0self-regulated\u00a0to encourage competitive racing that attracts TV coverage. The \u201860s, by contrast, were the Wild West of motorsport\u00a0and independent innovators like Hall, Chapman, Dan Gurney and Bruce McLaren were full of new ideas.<\/p>\n

Some of those ideas are prominently displayed in the Festival\u2019s Chaparral Corral.<\/p>\n

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Powered by a ground-thumping\u00a0Chevy V-8, Hall\u2019s Chaparral 2 exploded on the scene in 1963 with an aviation-inspired chassis design. Using fiberglass-reinforced plastic, a mid-engine layout\u00a0and automatic transmission, Hall notched 22 wins in 39 races.<\/p>\n

The next-gen Chaparral 2E, however, would be the car that captured the world\u2019s attention. Entered in the 1966 Can Am series \u2014 the fastest sportscar series on the planet \u2014 the sleek racer featured a high-wing (operated by the driver\u2019s left foot) to generate downforce to push the car into the road for better cornering grip.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe started with a brand-new sheet of paper and put everything we knew about aerodynamics at that time into the car,\u201d said Hall, who calls the 2E his favorite design. \u201cIt was a major change . . . and after (people) saw that, they realized (the wing) was a very important feature.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Jim<\/p>\n
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Wings are ubiquitous on race cars today. Hall competed with the 2F \u2014 designed with a similar high wing \u2014 in the 1967 World Manufacturer\u2019s Series, competing neck-and-neck with full\u00a0factory-funded teams from Ford, Porsche\u00a0and Ferrari.<\/p>\n

Models from those famous marques will also be on display in a sweeping look at motor racing\u2019s evolution.<\/p>\n

Henry Ford\u2019s original 1901 Sweepstakes car \u2014 the winning racer that grabbed the attention of investors \u2014 will take laps around M1 Concourse\u2019s 1.5-mile race track. A 1973 Porsche 917\/30 \u2014 generating more than 1,000 horsepower \u2014 will make an appearance, as will a 2015 Ferrari Challenge GT car.<\/p>\n

\"Jim<\/p>\n
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Modeled after the Goodwood Festival of Speed in England, the track days will also showcase great drivers including England\u2019s David Hobbes and Indy 500 winner\u00a0Bobby Rahal, who will demonstrate his 1966 Eagle-Ford V-8 Indy car. Hall will not make the trip to Pontiac, but his son and grandson will be on hand to pilot his cars on track.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe American Speed Festival allows race fans to get close to some of the greatest performance and race cars in the world and learn more about some of the legends of the sport,\u201d said Tim McGrane, CEO of M1.<\/p>\n

Speed Festival follows an active summer at the private racing club that began with legal drag racing at Dodge\u2019s Roadkill Nights kicking off Woodward Dream Cruise week on Aug. 14. Roadkill was book-ended by the Woodward Dream Show the following Saturday and featured some of the wildest modified cars in existence. Last weekend, M1 hosted the inaugural Motor Bella \u2014 a scaled-down, outdoor version of the Detroit Auto Show that focused on experiential rides in everything from Ford Broncos to Dodge Hellcats.<\/p>\n

American Speed Festival continues the show trend away from static displays \u2014 and toward\u00a0putting vehicles into action. Each year, ASF will feature a class of cars and honor an industry legend. This year\u2019s featured Can Am cars defined a ’60s racing era with no limits.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know that there is anyone who, by himself, changed the sport of auto racing globally as much as Jim Hall,\u201d said George Levy, president of the Motorsport Hall of Fame of America and author of a coming biography about Hall. \u201cTo car-crazy kids like me in the 1960s, Jim Hall was the Neil Armstrong of motorsports.\u201d<\/p>\n

The American Speed Festival kicked off Thursday with an exclusive \u201cDine and Drive\u201d event throughout Metro Detroit for behind-the-scenes looks at Motor City automotive history. Friday and Saturday heat\u00a0up with fast laps, while Sunday offers the ASF Exposition, which judges the best cars in all classes. Guests also have a chance to ride shotgun with a pro drier in a Dodge Hellcat or Lexus sports sedan.<\/p>\n

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The family friendly American Speed Festival offers a Festival Pass for $75 per person with free attendance for children under 12. In addition to the cars, there will be daily live entertainment, including music and RC cars for kids to race.<\/p>\n

\u201cI get a real good feeling from the youngsters who read about (my racing) but didn\u2019t get to see it,\u201d said Hall. \u201cAnd they still get excited about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

For more information, go to\u00a0https:\/\/americanspeedfestival.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n

American Speed Festival,<\/strong>\u00a0Friday, Oct. 1-Sunday\u00a0Oct. 3<\/p>\n

Gates open at 7 a.m.-10 p.m. Friday and Saturday,\u00a07 a.m.-6 p.m.\u00a0Sunday<\/p>\n

Henry Payne is auto critic for The Detroit News. Find him at hpayne@detroitnews.com or Twitter @HenryEPayne.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pontiac\u00a0\u2014 The ground will shake this weekend when three of the most legendary race cars in motorsport hit the M1 race track at the inaugural American Speed Festival. Created by Texan Jim Hall, the Chaparral 2, 2E\u00a0and 2F revolutionized motorsport in the 1960s with their daring aerodynamic designs. Along with Lotus-founder Colin Chapman of England, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28061"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28061"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28061\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28062,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28061\/revisions\/28062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}