{"id":28094,"date":"2021-10-12T16:02:00","date_gmt":"2021-10-12T20:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/?p=28094"},"modified":"2021-10-12T16:02:00","modified_gmt":"2021-10-12T20:02:00","slug":"american-speed-festival-chaparrals-hot-laps-100k-for-pontiac-charity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/2021\/10\/american-speed-festival-chaparrals-hot-laps-100k-for-pontiac-charity","title":{"rendered":"American Speed Festival: Chaparrals, hot laps, $100K for Pontiac charity"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pontiac\u00a0<\/em>\u2014 Parting is such sweet sorrow.<\/p>\n

Workers packed up Jim Hall\u2019s legendary Chaparral race cars at M1 Concourse after headlining the inaugural American Speed Festival. The display of the pioneering race cars \u2014 the first to sport aerodynamic wings \u2014 was the first time the vehicles had been seen on track outside their Midland, Texas, museum home since 2005.<\/p>\n

The Chaparrals led the fourth major public auto event at the private race club facility in two months as the COVID pandemic has shifted the epicenter of Metro Detroit auto events to Oakland County.<\/p>\n

\"Jim<\/p>\n
<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

The American Speed Festival, touting a \u201ccelebration of speed past, present and future,\u201d played host from Oct. 1-3 to more than\u00a0100 cars covering 120 years of race history. Taking laps around the 1.5-mile Champion Motor Speedway was everything from the 1901 Sweepstakes car that Henry Ford piloted to Grosse Pointe glory to a 1973 1,100-horsepower Porsche 917\/30 Can-Am car.<\/p>\n

Other highlights included the 1952 Hudson Hornet (financed by the Detroit department store of that name) that dominated NASCAR in the 1950s and a state-of-the-art 2020 Ferrari 488 GT racer. Both were among the 11 winners for best in show.<\/p>\n

The show-stopper was Hall\u2019s high-wing Chaparral 2E, which pioneered aerodynamic tech in the mid-1960s CanAm series. Today, wings are an essential aerodynamic feature on everything from IndyCars to IMSA sports racers.<\/p>\n

\u201cChaparral is going to be a tough act to follow. To see that kind of racing history on track was such a unique opportunity for the fans that won\u2019t be soon forgotten,\u201d smiled Tim McGrane, CEO of M1 Concourse, a transplanted Brit who previously ran Laguna Seca Raceway in California.<\/p>\n

\"Henry<\/p>\n
<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

He has overseen the facility as it played host, since August, to Roadkill Nights, Woodward Dream Show, Motor Bella\u00a0and the Speed Festival.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re very pleased with the success of our inaugural Speed Festival weekend,\u201d McGrane continued.\u00a0 \u201cAlthough weather hampered us a bit Sunday, we had a tremendous three days of on-track time trials.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Festival also played host to a sold-out Checkered Flag Ball charity event supporting M1 Mobility. The event raised more than $100,000 to assist with the needs of transportation-challenged Pontiac residents.<\/p>\n

Hall was also honored at the ball as ASF\u2019s first Master of Motorsports for a career that is compared with that of Lotus\u2019s Colin Chapman for racing innovation. Hall, 86, accepted the award in a live feed from Motorsports Hall of Famer David Hobbs. The weekend was livestreamed globally by Speedsport TV.<\/p>\n

Category winners as voted upon by ASF attendees and officials were:<\/p>\n

Best Can Am Car \u2014 1966 Chaparral 2E (Jim Hall, owner)<\/p>\n

Best Indy Car \u2014 1972 Parnelli VPJ-1 (Chuck Jones)<\/p>\n

Best Endurance Car \u2014 1959 Maserati Tipo 61 (Team Stradale)<\/p>\n

Best Featured Car \u2014 1992 Jordan 192 Formula One (RM Motorsports)<\/p>\n

Best Stock Car \u2014 Kyle Petty #42 NASCAR Pontiac (Michael Haislet)<\/p>\n

Best Super Car \u2014 2020 Ferrari 488 Challenge EVO (Bob Hertzberg)<\/p>\n

Best European Performance Car \u2014 1967 Maserati Ghibli (Larry Smith)<\/p>\n

Best American Performance Car \u2014 1952 Corvette Duntov Mule (Ken Lingenfelter)<\/p>\n

Best Import \u2014 2008 Subaru WRX STI (Michael Aumick)<\/p>\n

Selection Committee Award \u2014 1952 Fabulous Hudson Hornet (Al Shultz)<\/p>\n

M1 Concourse Award \u2014 1901 Sweepstakes Race Car (The Henry Ford)<\/p>\n

The American Speed Festival will return Sept.\u00a029-Oct. 2, 2022, featuring the Shelby race cars in honor of the 60th anniversary of Shelby American.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pontiac\u00a0\u2014 Parting is such sweet sorrow. Workers packed up Jim Hall\u2019s legendary Chaparral race cars at M1 Concourse after headlining the inaugural American Speed Festival. The display of the pioneering race cars \u2014 the first to sport aerodynamic wings \u2014 was the first time the vehicles had been seen on track outside their Midland, Texas, […]<\/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\/28094"}],"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=28094"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28094\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28095,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28094\/revisions\/28095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}