Sounds like a blast having a snowy autocross!

 

That's so much fun! There aren't many times where you'll be paced by a pickup truck on a track What tires did you run?

 

Nokian all-weathers that I run thorough out the year! (I have another set of RE71Rs for autocross!)

 

Hey guys, I've participated Road America's Winter Autocross event this past Saturday and it was super fun.

After the Autocross event, RA allowed participants to drive around snow filled Road America race track.

This along with 640mile Road trip that I took leading up to Road America event allowed me to see that Evora is surprisingly good at tackling snow.

Pretty wild...looks like great fun! RA is a wonderful venue.

Your POV track video driving up the hill and under the pedestrian bridge reminded me, I attended the historic CanAm races there last year. UOP Shadows from the 1970's were the featured marque. There were 13 of them including the CanAm's, F5000's, and even an F1 - all shiny and pristine, like they were built yesterday. It's quite evident they are pampered with lots of professional attention and $$.

But not so pampered on the track. At one point two of the Shadow CanAm's were dicing for the lead, neck and neck at full tilt blasting up the hill under the ped bridge. As one tried to pass the other he caught some turbulent air from the other Shadow, went airborne, flipped and landed upside down. Thankfully the driver walked away relatively unscathed.

The owner was surprisingly calm about it and said they would rebuild the car. He also said his driver broke the cardinal rule with old CanAm cars - never follow too close. I guess their aerodynamics were not the best.

Anyway congrats on your results...and not flying off the track at Road America! 😃👍

 

Oh wow, it was my first time at RA and I could see that they do a lot of historic races but it must have been amazing to see all the CanAms race!

I wish I lived bit closer to RA...!

 

That looks like so much fun. I need to find a place for winter auto-x!

 

I drove 5 hours to do it (one way so total 10 hrs), so I won't be able to do it again until next year but yeah... its SO FUN!

Stay very near your phone and leave it on overnight.....Mr. Penske only calls once. But Congrats on the win - it's not easy is it?

Hahaha, thanks for this comment, I laughed so hard! Well, I was doing so bad in the morning that I wasn't expecting to win until I saw the result!

 

Stay very near your phone and leave it on overnight.....Mr. Penske only calls once. But Congrats on the win - it's not easy is it?

 

@71type65 I was at Road America for the historic races last year also. I've been going for a few years now, and it is a truly exciting weekend. I did miss the parade from the track into downtown Elkhart Lake, those cars are such a raucous. Also, you mentioned the Shadow Can Am incident, that was horrific. The driver walking away was a relief for all of us.

 

Yep. There was a very nice Lotus representation as well. 🥰

@SuHong Kim hope we are not getting too far 'off track' in your thread...🙂

 

Only issue is that I'm getting jealous for missing the event!

I have to make a note to myself to make sure I go to the next historical event!

(Also, please do share more photos and stories about RA!)

 

2019 was an exceedingly fun year at RA for this event as Lotus brought their factory vintage F1 cars. They weren't there just for show, they raced. It was so incredibly thrilling to watch, listen, smell, and almost feel them go by while observing from thunder alley. Even my wife was in absolute shock at the level of energy these kind of events stir within your soul. I have converted her into a car gal. Actually I had nothing to do with it, exposing her to the right cars in the proper environment works magic.

Lotus won it's class that year but unfortunately as the driver was driving up to the podium area one of the track employees directed him away. The driver was trying to reason with the guy, and even others were trying to tell the track employee that the Lotus driver won, but he stubbornly wouldn't listen. It ruined the podium celebration.

I will try and see if I can locate some of my photos from that year, specifically the Lotus F1 cars.

 

Many years ago I was privileged to also attend a winter x there! It was blisteringly cold but there was no snow so we got paced by a corvette. Good times!

 

September 2019, RA was the site of the 50th anniversary of Formula Ford. Over 180 Formula Fords convened to celebrate the event in 3 run groups. It was nuts. The test day was full rain, first practices daily on a wet track. Yours truly is in #81 holding everyone up.....

The first Formula Fords were Lotus 51s built and supplied to the Jim Russel Racing School at Brands Hatch in England. It was intended purely as a "School car" with a stock production engine and production car based running gear. People found the cars were fun and inexpensive to race instead of faster cars with expensive built race engines. Things took off from there, including exporting them to the US with trial racing starting in 1968 and the first recognized "National" race held in Feb 1969 at Willow Springs, CA. Formula Ford was once the bottom rung on the ladder to IndyCar and Formula 1.

We're still at it. The feel of these cars are just like an Elise, right down to the rattles and odd noises. Same tactile steering as an Elise but better brakes since the cars are 1100# including driver.

 

Nice!

I've never driven a formula car but hope to, maybe this year with a Formula Car Experience track event.

I did however use FF rear tires on my Europa SCCA E Production racer. Primarily because the better-funded FF guys would buy new tires for every race, and we'd get their single-weekend-use castoff tires for free. Too good to pass up. 🥳

This beautiful Lotus Type 69 was also at the 2020 RA event. Apparently there were FF, F2, and F3/B variants of the Type 69. A little difficult to read but the s/n seems to indicate this one was built as a FB.

 

The 69 was an excellent chassis for its time. You are right, they were used as F2, F3, FF in Europe. FB, and FF in the US. Many were imported and changed back and forth as the need and budget arose.

 

Great read!!!

 

The OP video is awesome. So much good sound, too.