Thursday, August 19, 2010

1975 Parnelli VJP-4 will race at Infineon.

The Historic Grand Prix, often called “The World's Fastest Museum,” will again be part of the Indy Grand Prix of Sonoma at Infineon Raceway, Aug. 20-22.

This marks the sixth appearance for Historic Grand Prix in the Sonoma Valley, where it will again showcase more than 20 authentic Formula One racecars from the years 1966-1983. The historic racecars will be on display in a fan-accessible area of the paddock.

The race weekend will be headlined by the IZOD IndyCar® Series, with racing also taking place in Firestone Indy Lights and Formula Car Challenge, making for a great open-wheel race weekend.

The Historic Grand Prix roster will include iconic racecars from Ferrari, McLaren, Lotus, Brabham and Williams and March that were driven by world champions Jackie Stewart, Mario Andretti, Niki Lauda, James Hunt and Jody Scheckter.

The owner-drivers of Historic Grand Prix take great pride in the balance they maintain between racing these valuable historic cars, yet not getting “over the edge” to an incident or crash. The credo "The Cars Are The Stars!" is supreme with Historic Grand Prix.

The field will include representative cars from three of the four American teams that competed in the FIA World Championship since it began in 1949, Vel's Parnelli Jones Racing, UOP Shadow and Team Penske.

Tiburon’s Dave Olson will drive his 1975 Parnelli VPJ-4, which was raced by Andretti in 1975. This beautiful car is a remarkable tribute to the metal fabricator's art and was built in Torrance. The Shadow team was based in Des Plaines (Ill.) and was a serious contender in F1 in the mid-1970s.

The 1976 Penske PC-4 will also be in action; it is the actual car driven to victory in the 1976 Austrian Grand Prix by John Watson, scoring Roger Penske's only F1 victory. The car will be piloted by Doug Mockett of St. Croix in the U.S.Virgin Islands.

Several local driver-entrants are part of the field this year including San Anselmo's Chris Locke in an ex-Mario Andretti Lotus 77, John Anderson of Sebastopol driving a 1978 Wolf WR-2/4 and Steve Cook from Yountville in his 1974 March 741.

Photo taken by MoVilla at David Oldon garage in San Leandro, CA

For more information about Historic Grand Prix visit www.historicgrandprix.com.

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