Coronado Speed Festival

Not having attended in a coupe of years, I forgot how much I enjoy the Coronado Speed Festival.  For people in the San Diego area, it’s easy to reach, parking and getting in is a breeze, and there is a lot to see and do in a fairly compact area.  I really like that the grandstand, car show, paddock, vendor row, and food & drink areas are so close together. And of course, the Historic Motor Sports Association (HMSA) puts on a great show.  Some really interesting cars showed up at this year’s festivities.  With the passing of the great Carroll Shelby, there were many Cobras and GT 350s in attendance.

Car Show & Paddock

Coronado Speed Festival

Lamborghini Espada

Coronado Speed Festival

1971 AMC Javelin Trans-Am

Coronado Speed Festival

Mercedes-Benz 300SL

Group 5 Race

Group 5 includes 1959 to 1966 Production Cars equipped with disc brakes.  This is a large and diverse class ranging from a 1540cc Lotus S7 to a 5770cc Chevrolet Corvette.  The race pictures are taken looking back into the last turn onto the front straight & start/finish.

Coronado Speed Festival

1969 BMW 2002 & 1971 Alfa Romeo GTV

Coronado Speed Festival

1958 Corvette, 1971 Alfa Romea GTV, & 1967 Porsche 912

Coronado Speed Festival Group 6 Race

Group 6 includes 1962 to 1966 Production Cars over 2500cc.  This race had quite a few Shelby GT 350s as well as unusual cars such as the ISO Rivolta and a very fast Ginetta G4.

Coronado Speed Festival

1965 Ford Mustang (#151) battles with 1966 Shelby GT 350 (#6)

Coronado Speed Festival

1964 Cobra

Coronado Speed Festival

1966 Shelby GT 350

Group 7 Race

Group 7 includes 1965 to 1988  FIA Manufacturer Championship Cars such as Ferraris, Lolas, and Porsches.

Coronado Speed Festival

A couple of Porsche RSRs battle

Coronad Speed Festival

1972 Ferrari 312PSPL

Coronado Speed Festival Group 8 Race

Group 8 is historic NASCAR.

Coronado Speed Festival

Group 8 Race – Historic NASCAR

Coronado Speed Festival

Historic NASCAR – 2004 Ford Taurus

Many more pics here.

HSR West 11th Annual Southern California Historic Sports Car Festival – Auto Club Speedway

Auto Club Speedway hosted the HSR West 11th Annual Historic Sports Car Festival this weekend for two days of vintage and historic racing in the SoCal sun.  HSR West was running 10 run groups this weekend:

  • Group 1 – Formula Vee
  • Group 2 – Small & Medium Bore Production
  • Group 3 – Formula Ford Pacific
  • Group 4 – 2.5 B-Sedan
  • Group 5 – BOSS, Formula 5000, & Formula 2.0
  • Group 6 – Historic Stock Cars
  • Group 7 – Big Bore Production
  • Group 8 – GTP, Trans-Am, Can-AM, & FIA
  • Group 9 – Champ & Indy Car
  • Group X – Datsun-Nissan

HSR West ran a quality event with an open paddock, an entertaining race announcer, podium celebrations, and generally a really friendly atmosphere.  The luxury box seats on the inside of the main straight were open, and some folks brought their portable party along.  Add in dignitaries like Adam Carolla, a passionate historic Datsun racer, and Tony Adamowicz, the Trans-Am, Can-Am, Formula 5000, and IMSA veteran along with beautiful weather, and we had a recipe for some good old fashioned – literally – Southern California racing fun.  Tony Adamowicz also has a long association with Datsun-Nissan and Riverside International Automotive Museum, who had a big celebration event earlier in the week.  Being here with the HSR West crowd around all these historic race cars made me think of what it must have been like at Riverside or even Ontario back in the day.  Unfortunately I wasn’t here back then…

All pictures in this gallery were taken with a Canon EOS 40D; most were shot with Canon EF 100-400mm f4.5-5.6L IS USM Telephoto Zoom Lens for Canon SLR Cameras.

I also recently bought a new SanDisk Extreme Pro CompactFlash 16 GB Flash Memory Card SDCFXP-016G-X46,Black because my old card with a 30 MB/s write speed could not continuously keep up with the 6 fps of my Canon 40D.  The new card was fabulous; I could hold the shutter release down essentially indefinitely without the card slowing down my shots.  A really important consideration when shooting live action sports.