So this olelongrooffan has shared with my fellow Hoons that I had the opportunity to party my ass off attend the Rolex24 at Daytona with a great bunch of friends a few weekends ago down here in the World Center of Racing. While out at my local race track, I checked out a bunch of pretty cool, at least to this olelongrooffan, car related stuff and one of those things was the Heritage Exhibition in the TheFanZone down there in the infield. While I have previously shared a few images of Grand Marshall Hurley Haywood’s Porsches and lone Jaguar, there were a bunch of other classic racecars there and, if so inclined, feel free to make the jump to see a few more of them.

One of the pretty damn cool cars spotted was the Porsche 962 sponsored by Lowenbrau and fielded by Holbert Racing beginning in the 1984 season. Based on what those boys over at sportscardigest have to say about it, it was the most successful 962 ever run. And I have no reason to doubt them based on its overall record. The other racecar in the above image is also a 962 although this one is a 1987 model year beauty. According to The Gentlemen over at Hemmings, this number 5 race car was run for Bob Akins by this year’s Grand Marshall. Although the one Hemmings talked about had black front fenders, this olelongrooffan can’t help but believe that given the fact it was included in this year’s Heritage Exhibition, there is some Hurley Haywood connection. And of the 92 Porsche 962s built here are two of them in one place gathered up just for your and my enjoyment. Yeah, life is grand. But in my favorite tagline ever, “But Wait! There’s More.” Thanks AW.

Now I realize this image of this Group 44’s TR7 racecar is not the most clear, this olelongrooffan just had to include it just because wedge racecar.

Just behind that wedge racecar was this iconic 1966 Porsche 911. According to the placard just to the driver’s side of this racecar, it is one of the first two 911s delivered to the United States and it was delivered to Brumos Porsche in Jacksonville, Florida for demonstrations. Porsche said “if anybody who wanted to drive a 911 just had to get to Brumos and they could test drive the 911.” Jack Ryan, a racecar driver and VW dealer in Hotlanta bought this 911 and decided to run it in the 1966 24 Hour race in Daytona. 

The director of motorsports at the time, Huscke von Hanstein, frowned upon this idea as he felt that if the 911 was ready to run the 24, Porsche would have brought one of their own. “It’s my car and I’m entering it,” was Jack Ryan’s response. And he did. When 1/2 way through the race it was leading its class, Herr Hanstein threw the entire support of the extensive factory teams toward that Brumos prepared 911. Regardless of that involvement, it ended up winning its class and became the first 911 to win a road course race. A 911 had previously won a rally race but this one was the first to win a road race in the world. And this olelongrooffan was inches away from it. And as much as I wish I were a really good fiction writer, this olelongrooffan just can’t make this shit up.

By The Way…wasn’t Jack Ryan the name of a hero in certain spy novels in years past? Knowing that Author, I would suspect there could be some obscure connection between the two.

And just to demonstrate the range of racecars seen at the Heritage Exhibition this year, sitting catty-corner from that milestone race winning 911 was this Lucas equipped Lotus powered Ford Cortina.

This is a pretty sweet oleracecar that was built by Ford and powered by the British powerhouse, Lotus. This olelongrooffan believes it may be the first time I had ever seen one of these in the flesh metal. One of my Hooniverse contributors used that “metal” terminology and this olelongrooffan is shamelessly stealing it. Thanks BTW.

Yeah, the date plate on this one verifies it is “A Ford Product Made in England” racecar and those carbs just to the north of that data plate? I wanna say they are Strombergs or something equally as obscure. Unfortunately the image this olelongrooffan took of them was nibbled by my elcheapoebay acquired image taker and I just don’t seem to remember. What say my fellow Hoons?

And just a quick look at the dashboard of this somewhat rare LHD Cortina before this olelongrooffan spun around to see

the ass end of a bunch of Hurley Haywood’s racecars I had seen earlier from the front side. And I gotta tell ya, I love the Brumos slogan, “We Race What We Sell.” The “Ultimate Driving Machine” is the only other tag line that comes close, IMHO. “Joy” will never do it for me.

The last Heritage Exhibition racecar this olelongrooffan is going to share with my fellow Hoons is this Chevrolet Intrepid. It was designed in conjunction with Pratt and Miller Engineering and Bob Riley to compete in its class in IMSA. It proved to be too slow on my Daytona Beach track even with Tommy Kendall behind the wheel as it had to much downforce. It was easily 30 MPH slower than its competition and it was completely redesigned by Bob Riley and his son, Bill, and that redesign later went on to win numerous 24 Hour class wins at the Daytona International Speedway.

Ever wonder why Chrysler didn’t do this with their Intrepid?

Image Copyright Hooniverse 2013/longrooffan