Palm Beach International Raceway, 26th of January, 2018

Today was the second and final day on the Palm Beach International Raceway, formerly known as Moroso. Traditionally the Cavallino Classic starts with the sportive part of the weekend with two days of track action on the small circuit between Jupiter and Palm Beach. Although the glorious days of the Ferrari Historic Challenge with countless cars and thousands of spectators are long gone still a few enthusiasts use their car as they were intended: driving them fast. Certainly the times of hard duels fighting for prestigious race wins are no longer so a few regular entrants use the track time to play with their toys and against each other.

With the increasing value and new owners seeing them more as an investment unfortunately the average age of the potential entrants is getting higher every year so from time to time one of the known names is stepping back leaving the size of the field decreasing from edition to edition. After Ed Davies already missing last year’s track days this year both Jon Shirley and Tom Price were the next to step back and whereas Shirley´s son Erickson took over racing the ex-Nuvolari Alfa P3 and the white 250 GTO Price on the other side went into the cruise classes rather than the races. Although this did not mean that he was driving slow the competitive factor is taken out leaving a fun drive on a closed track.

So after the morning sessions with the practice runs and the cruise laps both for modern and historic cars the afternoon saw the remaining two races after the pre-war and the drum brake class were merged to a single race. Both the drum and the disc bake race only saw about half a dozen of cars going out but there was still something to enjoy one barely sees (of hears) these days: the cars at anger. Especially the disc brake race with no less than 3 of the 512 BBLM was interesting although the field was stretched quit soon and the 3 Le Mans racers only could be seen close together on the opening lap. After problems with the fuel pump the day before Jim Fuchs´ 512 did not seem to be fully on power today either so he had to give way to his annual rival Todd Morici with Chuck Wegner following in third. Behind the three BBLM the Ferrari 250 GT SWB of Arnold Meier on its first appearance in Palm Beach and the GTO of Shirley fought for the off the podium with Meier having the better end on his side.

Shirley on the other hand was successful in the drum brake race with the Alfa Romeo P3 followed by Peter Giddings in the Alfa Romeo 8C-35 defeating the post-war Ferrari 250 TDF of Wegner and the two Boanos of Thomas and Bruno.

Tomorrow will see the highlight of the Cavallino Classic with the annual concours at the breakers. Celebrating the cover cars of the past many former Concours winners and cars from the last 222 covers spanning 40 years of the magazine will be present to make this another memorial event.

Sunday finally will see the Mar-a-Lago Concours featuring Mercedes-Benz.

Report & Images ... Peter Singhof
www.ClassicCarPhotography.de