November 30, 2001

Magnaflow Vintage 2.5 Challenge


IT'S OFFICIAL...Magnaflow is the official sponsor of the 2002 Vintage 2.5 Challenge. Magnaflow's support made the inaugural 2001 season possible and their expanded support for 2002 indicates that it was a very successful endeavor .

The series has quickly gained a reputation for close racing and fair rules applied equally to all racers along with great social interaction. The most common feedback we received during the year was along the lines of "this is the best thing that ever happened to vintage racing". And this is just the first year! We plan to build on that solid foundation and with Magnaflow's support, 2002 should be a truly great year.


What a great way to end the season. The PIR weekend was awesome with great weather and a really fun track. As most of you know, Kevin McKee took the season championship with a win but it was not a cakewalk. Kevin and his crew got a lot of practice at trackside transmission changes over the weekend but the box held together long enough for a win. Timo Passi put on a great show in Saturday's qualifying race to take the pole and as always Alan Ward, Jeff Hecox and Steve Link turned in a great performance.

It was good to see Neil Hadfield back with us driving his Alfa. Anthony Rimmicci made the tow and seems to have found more horsepower since the last time he raced with us.  One of the sponsors of the series, Les Cannaday of Classic Datsun Motorsports, brought the somewhat rare Datsun 1200 sedan. This car only has a 1300cc motor but it could well be a real sleeper as we noted some really fast laps turned in and they are still sorting the car!


The 2002 schedule is almost complete and it contains a number of exciting new races. We now have a second spectator event with the addition of the Fontana Vintage Festival at the California Speedway. Unlike other club races that use a short, very tight course at Fontana, this three day event will use the 2.5 mile "pro" course. Because of it's proximity to Los Angeles, it is quite possible that this vintage race will have the largest spectator attendance of any vintage race in the U.S.

Looking closely at the schedule you will see that we also have a Buttonwillow date set aside. If you have not driven this track you will find it to be a long, fun track that drivers really love.   We do not plan to visit Las Vegas due to the historically low turnout for this track. We do plan to return to PIR if it is available. We have heard that there is a possibility that it will not be usable due to construction of a new tunnel that will destroy much of the infield road course. However Ed Swart indicated in the past few days that he has been assured the track will be available late next year.

March 9,10 Willow Springs, HSR-West
April TBA
May 18,19 Thunderhill, HSR-West
June 21,22,23 California Speedway, Fontana Historic Festival, spectator event, HSR-West
July 5,6,7 Seattle, Pacific Northwest Historics, spectator event, SOVREN
September 28,29 Sears Point, Trans-AM feature weekend, CSRG
October 19,20 Buttonwillow, HSR-West
November 16,17 Phoenix, HSR-West (tentative date)

 

We began working on the 2002 season before the final race of the year at PIR. We have been most impressed by how much everyone has enjoyed the social aspects of our events and we plan expand on that. Some of the things we plan for next year are:


The Road & Track article on the original 2.5 cars will be on magazine racks in next few days (January 2002 issue). The photo's for the article were shot at our Laguna Seca event we understand that our series is mentioned a number of times in the article. What a great way to start 2002!

The BSedan.Com Classified page has only been active a few weeks but it already has a number of great racecars listed. If you really want to join the fun of the Magnaflow Vintage 2.5 Challenge and don't have a car yet, then this is the place to find a race ready car.

Classic Datsun Motorsports has reproduced the impossible to find 2.5 Challenge stickers and will make these available for $6.00 each to VSRG members.  Les Cannaday has also told us that he will soon have the Nissan promotional video "Against All Odd's"  available for $20.00 which includes shipping and taxes.  You can contact Classic Datsun Motorsports at 760-940-6365 or via e-mail  dennis@classicdatsun.com

If you are using Netscape you might have encountered problems with some of our pages or maybe not even able to display some pages.  We apoligize for this but we are making a lot of changes on the web site and some have affected those using Netscape.  We are working on this problem and hope to have it corrected very soon. 

This is our last newsletter before the Christmas and New Year Holidays and we want to take this opportunity to wish everyone great Holiday season.