It’s a Gift! Yes, Rusty Wallace’s 2005 Penske NASCAR Dodge Charger was the “gold watch” retirement present given to him by “The Captain,” Roger Penske, at the conclusion of his last race at Homestead in 2005.
On the cover and featured on 7 pages in our Salon section, the car is on loan from Rusty’s collection to the Motorsports Hall of Fame in Daytona exactly as it left the track at Homestead. Great story!
One of VM’s most popular series is the “My Favorite Race” feature in every issue. We’ve done more than 86 My Favorite Race stories with retired drivers, a crew chief and now with a famous Indianapolis 500 TV race commentator, Paul Page. His favorite race? A difficult decision for him but it was the 2016 “500,” for a number of reasons you’ll love reading about. Hint? His son was doing the fuel strategy on the winning car.
When NASCAR wasn’t the only game in town for major league stock-car racing, in the northern parts of the Midwest, USAC ran the show, and the show took place on dirt tracks, paved shorter ovals and superspeedways. Part 2’s 8-page feature covers the years from 1964 to 1984, when drivers like Paul Goldsmith, Norm Nelson and Don White went fender-to-fender in Fords, Mercurys, Pontiacs, Chevys, Dodges and Plymouths.
Al Holbert is fondly remembered in racing circles and especially among Porsche enthusiasts as a five-time IMSA Champion and three-time Le Mans winner. Al not only raced sports cars but tried his hand in NASCAR and finished 4th in his only Indy 500 race. In Part 1 of “A Life Well Lived—Remembering Al Holbert,” we learn how Holbert set high goals for himself as both a racer and a person and succeeded at both, becoming a race car designer, constructor and team manager, as well as Director of Porsche Motorsports North America. It’s a wonderful story about a man much missed.
Despite the many challenges all of us faced in 2020’s pandemic, Vintage Motorsport’s race photographers also faced new difficulties in covering vintage competition around the country. In looking back at the year in photos, we selected our favorites that got the wave of the green flag and proudly display them in our 8-page Best of Photos 2020 feature.
The Matra brand was made famous through the production of a successful range of racing cars and sports cars, several legendary as winners of F1 Drivers and Constructors Championships in 1969 and three-time winners of the 24 Hours of Le Mans. So, what better than to visit the museum in France that honors the cars in our 4-page feature?
We also cover the racing action at SVRA’s Road Atlanta Grand Prix that took place in Braselton, GA, HSR’s amazing Classic 24 at Daytona, SVRA’s U.S. National Championship at Circuit of the Americas in Austin, TX, and VRG’s Turkey Bowl at Summit Point Motorsports Park in Summit Point, WV.
Columns by BS Levy, Le Mans 24-Hour winner Jochen Mass, Pete Lyons, Jeff Allison, Fritz Frommeyer and D. Randy Riggs are here too, along with all the recent virtual and live auction action from John L. Stein.
The Mar/Apr 2021 Vintage Motorsport issue is in the mail to subscribers and if you are a subscriber, thank you! It’s also on newsstands at Barnes & Noble bookstores nationwide. If you’re not a subscriber, you can go to RACER.com/VMsubs or call 877-425-4103. Single copies can be purchased at our online store here.
