Barber Motorsports Park will host the first event in a new historic racing series led by Bobby Rahal, three-time CART champion and winner of the 1986 Indy 500.
The series will feature Formula One, Can-Am, Grand Prix, Trans-Am and other classic cars mostly from the 1960s and 70s competing in eight races May 21-23.
The series, tentatively called Legends of Motorsports, has three races scheduled -- Barber, Watkins Glen in New York in June and Circuit Mont-Tremblant in Canada in July -- with plans to add one or two more, Rahal said Friday.
Rahal said he and his two partners in the series expect 200 to 250 cars to be entered with drivers coming from all over the United States, Canada and Mexico.
“We think 10,000 to 15,000 would be a good number the first year,” Rahal said of expected attendance.
The cars will be required to be historically accurate.
“If the car had drum brakes in its day, it has to have drum brakes for the race,” Rahal said. “It has to be true to the original.”
Tires will be less strict on historic accuracy, but cars like Corvette Stingrays will have to use treaded tires while Can Am cars will have racing slicks.
“We’ll probably have cars worth more than a million dollars in this race,” Rahal said.
That raises the question of whether the driver of a million-dollar car will be willing to mix it up on the track and risk a wreck. Rahal said that shouldn’t be a problem since most drivers of these cars are “Type-A personalities.”
“If you can afford a million-dollar car, you can afford to fix it,” he said.
The event will include qualifying heat races. The races will be 30 minutes each with about 20 to 25 cars per race and no pit stops.
There is also a road rally scheduled from the track to Mountain Brook Village the day before the event starts.
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