Formula for Success
February 1, 2006
The racecars of historic grand prix are to vintage
automobile collectors what original manuscripts are to bibliophiles. In each,
authenticity is forever embedded in the object; its place in history fixed.
Rivaled only by Europe’s Grand Prix Masters and TGP (Thoroughbred Grand
Prix), the California-based organization represents and embraces every motor
sportsman’s dream—to own and drive a Formula One car that once performed under
the racing genius of the world’s best Formula One drivers, such as Jackie
Stewart, Alain Prost, James Hunt, Niki Lauda, and Mario Andretti.
Roughly 60 of these prized cars, dating from F/1’s 3-liter era (1966–1983), are alive and still racing, thanks to the efforts of a cache of HGP owners and drivers in the United States and Canada. For HGP’s year 2000 birth, we look no further than Monterey Historic Automobile Races impresario Steve Earle, who, along with vintage racecar engine and restoration wizard Phil Reilly, set HGP rules and standards that have propelled the sketchy earlier-seeded show into motion. Bringing the number of HGP cofounders to four, Rebecca Hale-Tweedie and James King joined to serve as directors of what now amounts to half-a-dozen appearances per year.
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Photography by Kyle Burt. (Click image to enlarge.)
The venues are as revered and varied as these historically correct F/1 cars—road courses including Laguna Seca near Monterey; Infineon Raceway at Sears Point; Long Beach on the Pacific; Road America at Elkhart Lake, Wis.; Watkins Glen in upstate New York (home to the 1961–1980 U.S Vintage Grand Prix); as well as Canada’s Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal and St. Jovite at Mont Tremblant, Quebec. Never before have the exotic sights and sounds of Formula One been so accessible to North American fans. “These cars are the stars,” says HGP ringmaster Hale-Tweedie. “A combination of attitude, skills, mutual respect, and a sense of camaraderie between drivers is essential.”
“There’s a real and often romantic reason we buy these cars,” adds King, who drives what was once Italian ace Vittorio Brambilla’s 1976 March. “They are a living connection with older technologies and history’s most brilliant drivers.”
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