Music and ground-pounding thunder were featured at last weekend’s SVRA Vintage Racing Festival at Oregon’s Portland International Raceway. Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels provided a ’60s soundtrack for the Saturday night concert, while Detroit iron handled the rest.
Thirteen Historic Trans-Am racers took to the 1.9-mile, 12-turn circuit, with Bill Ockerlund’s Boss Mustang just edging the similar 302 of Jim Hague in Round One. Hague bounced back to take the win over Jim Halsey’s Mustang and Ike Keeler’s Mercury Cougar in the second race.
Included among the nearly 150 entries for the festival, supervised by Grand Marshal Lyn St. James, was Arnie Loyning’s factory-built Lotus Elan. In the race for production sports cars and sedans prior to 1979 the Elan bested a bevy of Datsun 510s, 2002 BMWs, Volvos and Porsches. Loyning bought the car from Lotus in 1966 and has raced it ever since.
Other highlights included one of only three Holman & Moody 7-liter 1968 Mustang Notchbacks, raced by Oregon’s Ken Sutherland, along with a an ex-Mark Donohue 1971 AMC Javelin in which George Follmer won Trans-Am races for Roy Woods Racing in 1972.
Not to be outdone by such legendary company was the unusually named 1953 Pooper, which placed first overall in its race group. This is a 1953 MK7 Cooper F3 converted to an aluminum sports car with first an OSCA 750, and later a Porsche 1720-cc engine. The Pooper is now owned and raced by Cameron Healy.
The “small bore” category was led by Brian Waters’ Austin Cooper S besting veteran pro Parker Johnstone’s Austin-Healy Sprite in Race One. In the second matchup Waters won again, but this time brothers Donald and Dennis Racine in their Mini Coopers followed in close pursuit. Donald’s #61 Mini is the last surviving member of the 1970s Peterman-Unsbee three-car Mini team that won numerous Midwest championships.
SVRA jumps coasts for its next races at historic upstate New York’s Watkins Glen on July 23-26, followed by the triangle at Pocono on August 20-23 and the Coronado Speed Festival September 18-20 at the Naval Air Station in San Diego.
