he Labor Day weekend Vintage Festival at Lime Rock Park is one of my favorites and this year, as usual, Jonathan Kirshtein and I made plans to go on Monday to watch the races. I always look forward to this event—a chance to see the cars that made motorsport history running hard on the track.

My first memories of the Fall Vintage Festival will always color my expectations for the event. The array of hardware on display was truly staggering—cars from the ‘20s right through the ‘70s. Of course, there were tons of Alfas, including plenty of pre-war race cars right up through Tipo 33s. Bentley, Bugatti, Shaguar, Maserati, Healy, MG, Lancia, Triumph, Lotus, Brabham, Morgan, Elva, Cobra, Mustang, Camaro, Firebird, Javelin, Lister, Allard, Corvette, ERA, O.S.C.A., Turner, Lola, Chevron, Volvo, and more. Big GT cars like Ford GT 40s, Lola T70, Ferrari 512s, Trans-Am cars (the real ones driven by Donohue, Jones, Follmer, Gurney, Kwech—both V8 & inline 4, etc.) The ocean of cars was endless, and the level of preparation and presentation was staggering. There were massive transporters filled with Astons and Ferraris, all in team livery and with uniformed mechanics buzzing around. One team even had Stirling Moss driving for them! By the way, Stirling does like chicken salad sandwiches—’cuz I heard him say so! 

In recent years, the entries had been drying up considerably. Less and less pre-war hardware, fewer and fewer big GT racers. As much as I enjoyed it, the event had been losing some of its former luster. This year, however, the weekend was organized by Steve Earle of Monterey fame, so I had high hopes of a better show—and they were justified!

Monday started out crisp (i.e. cold) and clear, and promised a gloriously sunny day. With the top up on Jonathan’s ‘74 Spider and heading west on the Mass Pike, we passed plenty of other cars obviously going to LRP. We passed, were passed by, and then passed again (zoom zoom my ass!) a long line of Miatas (tops down!) with one lonely Lotus Elise in their midst—the closest he could come to family, I guess. Unfortunately, we did not see one other Alfa on the way.

Once off the Pike, the top went down and it was topless motoring all the way through antique shop territory to LRP. We parked in the Outfield—and immediately bumped into AONE’s Tom Freiberger and some other Vermonters who made the trip with him.

We then cruised the pits, ogling all the hardware. This year, there was a serious upgrade in the cars indeed! There was a multitude (relatively speaking) of Maseratis—from a 1932 4CM to Birdcages (3 or 4 of them!).  A flock of Ferraris—500 Mondial, 750 Monza, 250 TR, GTO, 250 GT SWB, 330 LMB. There were practically no Porsches (three or four 911 variants and a couple of 356s).

As to Alfas, the turnout was actually a little disappointing; the number of Alfa entries was definitely down. In Group 6 (1955-1962 GT/Production Cars), Bob Kullas ran his Giulietta Spider, as did Santo Spadaro, and Bob Russell drove his bellisimo Giulietta Sprint Zagato. There were several more Giuliettas entered, including an SVZ, but they did not turn a wheel. In Group 9 (1962-1966 GT/Production cars, mostly Mustangs, Corvettes, Lotus 7, Mini Coopers—and a shockingly orange Saab 99), Alfa was represented by Dave Rivkin’s lone GTA. Unfortunately, in the morning practice session, he had a disagreement with a Mustang over a specific patch of pavement in the Esses—which Dave lost. I was not able to stay for the group’s race session, so I don’t know if he ran.

The most impressive Alfa had to be Peter Greenfield’s 1933 8C 2600. If you look up the word "patina" in the dictionary, there will be pictures of this car.  It doesn’t look like it has even been washed, never mind restored! It looks just like what it is—a race car really being raced! Set up at the "Ferrari of Long Island and New England" compound, it put the shiny trailer queens to shame! Everything in good functional shape, just no spit and polish—an absolute road warrior.

Our own Steve Silverstein had his Sunbeam Alpine there, and he also drove a 1935 Sprint Car in the Group 1 (Pre-1941 Sports and Racing Cars) race.

This Vintage Festival was sponsored by BMW, which was celebrating its "75 years of Driving Performance". Aside from one 328 that ran, the only BMWs there were the ones BMW brought! These included most of their factory race cars from the ‘80s on up—some intense hardware, including a McLaren F1 Le Mans race car.

On the British front, this was apparently sort of the 50th anniversary of the Austin Healey 100, so there was a ton of Healeys (both 100s and 3000s) there, all of them beautiful. There was also a handful of Shaguars—a D type, lots of XKs (120s & 140s). MGs, Allards, Kurtis etc.

Actually, the three most vivid memories I have of the day aren’t Alfa-related, but they do run from the ridiculous to the sublime: