This weekend saw Jim Karamanis take his ELBRacing 1972 B-Sedan Vintage Racer Pinto back in time. For the first time in 15 years, the car was run in an SCCA Regional Event. The last time that the car appeared at an SCCA Regional Race was at Summit Point Raceway in October of 1996 during a Mid-Atlantic Road Racing Series weekend put on by the Washington DC Region (WDCR). The car was run in the GT-3 class at that event. This time, it was back to Summit Point at another MARRS WDCR event, but running in the class SPU.
SPU (Super Production Under) is for cars that don't meet the criteria for specific current SCCA classes, are under 2.5 liters, and meet the safety requirements of the SCCA General Competition Rules. Some extremely fast cars normally compete in this class (baby grand cup cars). On this particular race weekend, no other cars appeared in this class, so Jim was one of one throughout the weekend. The race group however is mostly composed of Production Cars and the majority of them were vintage eligible. It was very much like competing in a vintage race. In fact, even the mentality was very much like vintage, with racers giving each other lots of racing room. Jim and his vintage Pinto held it's own, despite racing on vintage spec treaded race tires instead of the competition slicks run by the other competitors.
For the weekend, ELBRacing teamed up in the Paddock with Shelton Racing. Bruce Shelton had two GT Pinto race cars on the grid. One for himself and the other for long time SCCA Racer Matti Vilkkila. Bruce went on to win his class with Matti taking second.
Some photos and video of the two races:
Saturday Race:
Sunday Race:
Adventures in Vintage Racing with an Extremely Low Budget
