Rolex Vintage Festival at LRP (Sam Posey)

[dalyduo]

The Rolex Vintage Festival presented by BMW took over Lime Rock Park on Labor Day weekend where both the weather and the cars were spectacular. Among those being displayed were one of Carroll Shelby’s classic Cobras, a 1959 Aston-Martin DBR1, which was driven by Sir Stirling Moss to victory in the Nurburgring 1000km race, the 1962 Leader Car 500 Roadster that won the Indianapolis 500 with Rodger Ward, and a 24 Hours of Le Mans-winning 1952 Mercedes-Benz 300 SL.

The Rolex “Moments in Time” display also included the ‘Old Grey Mare’ 1934 Ford V-8 Special; a 1950 Cunningham Cadillac ‘Le Monstre’, a 1954 Troutman-Barnes Special, a 1958 Scarab Mk III and a 1961 Chaparral I.

All the Rolex feature cars were lit and displayed so you could get close to them and see detail or photograph them easily. Many had video monitors showing original race footage or more recent vintage race footage with narration. If you love the history of auto racing you had to love this years Rolex exhibit.

For those too young to know him as a racer, Sam Posey was a world class driver in a variety of cars against the likes of Mark Donahue, Peter Revson, David Hobbs, Brian Redman, Skip Barber and many others (One example from Shelby’s web timeline: May 1969 - At Lime Rock, in the Trans-Am racing series, Sam Posey pilots a Shelby team car to the company's last Ford victory.) before moving on to a long distinguished career as a racing expert TV commentator. Sam grew up just down the road from Lime Rock and is also the architect/designer of the current start/finish line tower at the track.

On Saturday Sam drove a few ceremonial laps in the Caldwell Can-Am car he now owns. After parking the Caldwell in the Rolex viewing area he strolled down near the spot where Lee & Jane Englebardt and my daughter Julia and I were sitting to enjoy the sights and sounds of the other vintage racecars at speed. I took advantage of his close proximity to ask which vintage cars excited him. He said he’d love to see more of the old monster motor Can-Am cars (his Caldwell was the only Can-Am car in attendance this year) as well as the super fast GTP cars that still hold the absolute track record around LRP. (LRP’s web timeline: May 29, 1993 - P.J. Jones breaks the track record with a 43.112-second lap (128.595 mph) in a Toyota Mk III GTP car.)

Being a racer at heart, Sam said more than any specific racecar he loved seeing all kinds of vintage racers in their original form being driven at the limit as they were meant to be. Both Sam and the large appreciative crowd on the hill recognized and applauded all those who were really hanging it out for us in their well-preserved machinery.

Knowing that Posey had been the first driver to break the one-minute mark at Lime Rock, (LRP’s web timeline: July 4, 1967 - Sam Posey enters a Northern New Jersey Region SCCA National with the expressed purpose of setting a new track record. Driving a USRRC McLaren-Chevy, Posey shatters the record and breaks the one-minute barrier with a 58.0 lap. Later that summer, Skip Barber lowers the mark to 56.3 seconds also in a USRRC McLaren-Chevy.) I mentioned that I’d recently, for the first time, navigated the track in under a minute in a skippy car. Sam said he was reminded how far things had advanced a few years back when, while taking a passenger around for some quick demonstration laps in a Corvette, chatting and pointing out points of interest along the way, he later discovered he'd been turning 58 second laps! He said the McLaren-Chevy he first broke the record with had loads of power but was really a handful getting it to the ground.

It’s always neat when someone you’ve long admired in racing exceeds your expectations in person and that was the case with Sam Posey. What I’d expected to be a brief greeting turned into a long enjoyable conversation about racing, the beauty of Lime Rock Park, and how lucky we were to be there enjoying so much history on that day. Good stuff!

If you’d like a more detailed down and dirty of who was there and who did what to whom on the track, here’s the link to LRP’s nicely written weekend recap.
http://www.limerock.com/events_rolex.htm

And here are some shots of Sam, his Caldwell and me chewing his ear off on the spectator hill. (Thanks to Lee Englebardt for the hillside shot)

[rhpearson]

Great stuff Pat! I caught a snapshot of Sam Posey with Bob Varsha at LRP back in May... they were busy so I did't bother them. Would have been neat to have been able to meet a racing legend like Posey. But I'm too young to have seen him drive, I simply recall him as a TV announcer.

[dalyduo]

Originally Posted by rhpearson

Great stuff Pat! I caught a snapshot of Sam Posey with Bob Varsha at LRP back in May... they were busy so I did't bother them. Would have been neat to have been able to meet a racing legend like Posey. But I'm too young to have seen him drive, I simply recall him as a TV announcer.

Thanks Robert,

Sam's thoughtful demeanor, education and social skills made him an early eloquent TV spokesman for the sport, but he was first a very good racer and always a favorite son of Lime Rock Park.

How 'bout posting that shot of Sam and Bob?

[jcraige]

Great story, Pat. Would have loved to have been there.

[rhpearson]

Here's the shot... they were just shooting the breeze under the tower