RJ Hamster
Save the Date: Historic Festival 44
| Save the Date for Historic Festival 44 – September 3–7, 2026If you joined us for Historic Festival 43, you know what a weekend it was — our biggest and brightest event in modern history. From legendary cars and drivers to unforgettable moments on track and around the paddock, HF43 set a new standard for celebration at Lime Rock Park. Now, get ready to do it all again — and more. Historic Festival 44 returns Labor Day Weekend, September 3–7, 2026, with a full slate of excitement: the Historic Festival Parade on Thursday, three days of vintage racing, a world-class concours, and the largest car show you’ve ever seen — stretching around our 1.5-mile circuit. Mark your calendar now and stay tuned for more details.You won’t want to miss this one.Get Tickets for Historic Festival 44 Celebrating the Spirit of Alfa Romeo at Historic Festival 44This year, Historic Festival 44 puts Alfa Romeo center stage—a marque forged from artistry, ingenuity, and raw mechanical passion. To an owner, an Alfa is never just a car. It’s a living companion with character, a machine that whispers, sings, and demands to be driven. From the feather-weight poise of a Giulietta Sprint to the scalpel-sharp Giulia GTA, every Alfa rewards with vivid feedback and an intimacy few rivals can match. Crowning the lineage are the 33TT12 and 33SC12—Alfa’s fire-breathing V12 prototypes. In the mid-1970s, these open-cockpit warriors didn’t just race; they dominated, their flat-12 howl ringing across Dijon, Monza, Spa, and Watkins Glen to secure back-to-back World Championships for Makes and etch Alfa Romeo into motorsport legend. Whether you cherish a pre-war 8C, a sun-faded Spider, a track-honed GTA, or the carbon-tubbed 4C, HF44 is your summons. Bring your Alfa to the rolling hills of Northwest Connecticut and share it with the tribe that speaks its language.Get Tickets for Historic Festival 44 Opening Day: When Lime Rock Raced on a SundayOn April 28, 1957, Lime Rock Park threw open its gates and made history — not just by hosting its very first race weekend, but by doing so on a Sunday, a day we can only dream of racing on now. And in the very first race ever run here, the combined G-Production/MG feature, Ted Sprigg stamped his name into the record books by winning in an Alfa Romeo Giulietta. That opening-day victory wasn’t just a class win — it was the first checkered flag in Lime Rock history, carried home by an Alfa. Alfa owners, drivers, and collectors are invited to join us for this special celebration.Get Tickets for Historic Festival 44 How Alfa Romeo Helped Skip Barber Build a School, a Series, and a 50-Year Legacy.In 1975, Skip Barber launched his racing school with two borrowed Lola Formula Fords and a bank loan he jokingly labeled “bathroom renovations.” It was just enough to get the first class on track: four students, identical cars, and a curriculum built around the essentials — cornering, braking, vehicle dynamics, and the confidence that only comes from learning at speed. As the school gained momentum, Skip began seeing a different kind of driver show up — sports-car owners who had no interest in racing but a deep desire to learn real high-performance driving. Inside the shop, they became known as the “street school” drivers. Skip wouldn’t offer a program for them until he had a manufacturer he truly believed in. He wanted Alfa or Porsche. When Alfa Romeo stepped up with factory support, the high-performance street driving school taught on a racetrack was born — and a quiet revolution began. This year also marks another milestone: the Skip Barber Race Series turns 50. Five decades of drivers, instructors, mechanics, coaches, and office staff built something extraordinary — and many of those people have drifted out of touch over the years. We’d love to reconnect with anyone who was part of the Series in its golden years. If you raced in it, worked in it, taught in it, turned a wrench for it, or supported it behind the scenes, we want to hear your stories. And if you know someone who hasn’t heard from us in a while, please pass this along. We’d like to gather the extended Skip Barber family again — to preserve the history, celebrate the people, and plan something meaningful for the future.My Skip Barber Race Series Memory Historic Trans Am Turns 60,And they Chose Lime Rock to Celebrate It.Did you know? The very first race of what became the Trans-Am Series ran at Sebring on March 25, 1966 — Jochen Rindt took the overall win in an Alfa Romeo GTA, setting off a revolution in American road racing. But the heartbeat of Trans Am’s golden era was here in Connecticut. Lime Rock Park became one of the series’ fiercest proving grounds — a place where the stands shook, the hillsides overflowed, and the cars and drivers put on some of the most unforgettable shows in Trans Am history. Boss 302 Mustangs, Camaro Z/28s, Javelins, Cougars, under-two-liter Alfas… the legends didn’t just race here; they became legends because they raced here. For their 60th anniversary, Historic Trans Am is coming to Lime Rock Park.Not somewhere. Not anywhere. Here. They’re bringing the real cars from that golden era — the originals that shaped the sport, made the headlines, and left dents in the guardrails and in people’s memories. And they’re bringing them to Historic Festival 44 to celebrate the milestone where so much of their story was written.Get Tickets for Historic Festival 44 Echoes of the Uphill: Lime Rock’s Formula Junior RoarIn 1957, Lime Rock Park carved a 1½-mile ribbon of asphalt out of a Lakeville potato field, turning former farmland into a new kind of harvest: speed. Within a couple of years, Formula Junior had arrived. Born in Italy in 1958, these 1,100 cc single-seaters, Count Lurani’s ladder to the Grand Prix, were scaled-down Formula cars with production-based engines and oversized bravado. By 1959 they were a fixture at Lime Rock, their high-revving wails ricocheting off the Berkshire hills like chainsaws in a cathedral. Falls Village’s own Brooks Fryberger was the local heartbeat. In his Lotus-Ford Junior he chased SCCA National points across the Northeast, with Lime Rock an essential stop on the road to the 1964 SCCA Formula Junior National Championship—one of two drivers crowned that final year of the category. And no name is more tightly woven into Lime Rock’s early Junior lore than Jim Haynes. Before he ran the place, Haynes hurled himself into Formula Junior with the one-off Jocko Special, a front-engined Fiat-powered creation from Jocko Maggiacomo. On one legendary practice day the car barrel-rolled through Big Bend, landed on its wheels, and Haynes simply drove it back to the pits. He later moved to a Stanguellini, then a Lotus 18, then a Lotus 20—the car that carried him to the 1963 SCCA National Championship. Lime Rock was his proving ground long before it became his office. By 1965, the SCCA closed the book on Formula Junior and ushered in the new Formula B and C categories. And right at that turning point, a new local name flashed onto the Lime Rock timing sheets: “Fast Freddie” Fred Stevenson of Lakeville. Freddie arrived with a Lotus 18—a former Formula Junior chassis now classed as Formula C—and immediately showed the kind of pace that made him a Northwest Corner legend. He became one of the sharpest Lotus drivers on the East Coast, later co-founding Lotus East and returning to Lime Rock in ever-faster machinery. His rise culminated in a 1969 Formula B/C triumph here in a Lotus 59B, sealing his reputation as one of the quickest open-wheel drivers ever produced in Lime Rock’s shadow. For six quick, glorious seasons, the Juniors owned the place: Stanguellinis, Coopers, Lotuses, Lolas, Elvas—bright little single-seaters howling up the Uphill and dancing through the Left-Hander. And though the name disappeared from the programs after 1964, the lineage didn’t end. Drivers like Fast Freddie carried the torch into the Formula C and Formula B era, keeping the sound and spirit of lightweight open-wheelers alive at Lime Rock. This Labor Day, when the restored Juniors return for the Historic Festival, the clock spins backward. The chainsaw chorus is back, the locals are still leading, and the Uphill sings its same fierce song. Come stand on the hill and listen—it’s the early ’60s all over again.Get Tickets for Historic Festival 44 Sunday in the Park Concours & Gathering of the MarquesSunday at Lime Rock Park is unlike any other day in motorsport — a “quiet day” that celebrates motion through stillness. The Sunday in the Park Concours and Gathering of the Marques transforms our entire 1.5-mile circuit into the largest car show for people who simply love cars. From pre-war classics to modern exotics, every curve of the track becomes a gallery under the open sky. This year, Alfa Romeo takes center stage as the Honored Marque, its sculpted lines and racing soul reflected in a dazzling lineup of historic models — from elegant 8Cs and Giuliettas to Giulia GTAs and modern 4Cs. Families wander the circuit beneath the late-summer sun, enjoying fine food, automotive treasures, and fine vendors, and the easy rhythm of a day spent among friends, fans, and machines that define automotive artistry. It’s the radiant heart of Historic Festival 44 — a timeless Lime Rock tradition where the cars rest, but the passion never does.Alfa owners and collectors email us here A New Year. A New Festival. A New Story at Lime Rock.And this is just the beginning. Over the next few months, we’ll be sharing more news, more stories, and a few revelations we think you’ll love. Historic Festival has always had its own loyal crew — die-hards who live for the whiff of hot brakes, the metallic snap of old gearboxes, and the unmistakable sights, sounds, and smells that only vintage cars can make. If you count yourself among them, invite a friend or two to join this wonderfully eccentric corner of the motorsports world. Because when Labor Day rolls around, the hillside will come alive again — remarkable machines, great food, paddock mischief, and a few surprises we’re not quite ready to unveil. It wouldn’t be the same without you.Get Tickets for Historic Festival 44 Lime Rock Park | 860.435.5000 | limerock.comShop The Lime Rock Park Store | limerockgear.comJoin Lime Rock Drivers Club | limerockclub.comCater Your Event | limerock.com/cateringBuy & Sell Your Car | limerock.com/classifieds VIEW AS WEBPAGE: View as WebpageConnect with us @limerockpark |
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