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On Saturday March 10th, Southern California sports car legend Jack Ernest McAfee died at the age of 84 from liver cancer. He was diagnosed with the disease just two weeks previously and spent his remaining days at a hospice home in Long Beach CA.

Long before he was old enough to drive, Jack’s passion for cars and racing was fueled as a spectator at the famous Gilmore Stadium race track. The sounds and smells of the Offy powered midgets were intoxicating, not to mention the excitement of the racing itself. Wanting to get in on the “action” himself, Jack lied about his age and joined the Hollywood Throttlers hot rod club. After hopping up a Ford model-A that he bought for $14, Jack’s first run on at Muroc dry lake yielded an 84.9 mph average speed. Through dry lakes racing, Jack started meeting many of Southern California’s most notable hot rodders and racers, and soon found himself making payments on a HAL sprint car, then owned by 12 time Indy driver Babe Stapp.

WWII put a halt to racing and sent Jack to the South Pacific where he was an aviation mechanic on the island of Espiritos Santos. After serving 4 years, Jack returned to open his own garage in Manhattan Beach CA where he crossed paths with a wealthy customer named Tony Paravano. Jack invited Paravano to watch him run his HAL sprint car at Carrell Speedway in Gardena, and Tony was instantly bitten with the racing bug. Throughout the next several years, McAfee’s driving talents combined with Paravano’s cars yielded some very impressive results including two top-ten finishes in the grueling “Carrera Panamericana” race, and several overall wins in big V12 Ferraris.

 

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The very best drivers, riders, navigators, organisers, companies and journalists of the European historic motorsport world were honoured at last night's annual Historic Motorsport Awards Charity Dinner, held in association with Race Retro (the 4th International Historic Motorsport Show).

All profits from the dinner will be shared between the Motorsport Foundation (to assist in the provision of specialist training and research) and the Joey Dunlop Foundation (which benefits people with a disability, especially children; see www.joeydunlopfoundation.com).

Nominations were invited from throughout the historic motorsport community. The final award winners were chosen by a panel comprising Graham Robson (Chairman), George Beale, Dean Butler, Robert Coucher, Tony Dron, Gunnar Elmgren, Colin Francis, Dave Gittins, Martin Grant-Peterkin, Mike Jackson, Jamie Knight, Flavien Marcais, Marcus Pye, Carol Quiniou, Ian Shapland, Carol Spagg, Mick Walsh, Grahame White, Paul Wignall, Barrie Williams, Simon Woodall and Jason Wright.

 

You should watch this full Length documentary made by the band Pink Floyd during their run of the 1990 La Carrera Panamericana.



Did you ever race the Carrera Panamericana?

 

At a star-studded Charity Awards Dinner on Saturday 24 March 2007, the winners of the 2006 Historic Motorsports Awards will be announced. These highly prestigious awards are part of Race Retro, the fourth International Historic Motorsport Show, which takes place on 23-25 March 2007 at Stoneleigh Park, near Coventry.

The shortlisted nominations are listed below.

Tickets for the black-tie Historic Motorsport Awards Charity Dinner, to be held at the Chesford Grange Hotel near Stoneleigh, are available for £75 to members of the public, who will mingle with a host of celebrities from the worlds of rallying, racing and motorcycling.

Richard Attwood, Vic Elford and Jack Sears will be there, along with rally stars Pentti Airikkala, Russell Brookes, Andrew Cowan, Paddy Hopkirk, Michele Mouton, Rosemary Smith and Bjorn Waldegard, plus motorcyling heroes such as Mick Grant, Frank Perris, Phil Read, Jim Redman and Charlie Williams.

 

Eighty colorful vintage race cars and “specials” lined up in Veracruz, Mexico on November 10 for the 19th annual La Carrera Panamericana or Pan Am. This was the largest field since 1999. Half of these entries were from the USA. The others were from Mexico and Europe. The event was a sell out in the States.

One week later the survivors of this grueling endurance event straggled across the finish line in Monterrey, Mexico, 1800 miles north. The ultimate victor was a Mexican crew, Gabriél Pérez (driver) and Angélica Fuentes (navigator) in their ‘54 Ford.

The Pérez-Fuentes victory was somewhat unexpected because their Ford runs in the Turismo Production class, which is limited to 305 cubic inches. The Turismo Mayor cars boast up to 366 cubic inches and have dominated the event. But not this year.

Pérez and Fuentes are certainly among the best crews in Mexico; however, most of their rivals in the faster Mayor class suffered mechanical problems or minor crashes. This race proved once against that the most powerful cars do not always win endurance races.