A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO
THE SHOW...
 When Nika asked me to be
the roving Racerchicks.com correspondent for
the Canadian International Auto Show, I was
all too happy to oblige. I had been going to
this show pretty regularly over the past
twenty five years, but had been missing them
recently. Maybe it was the ticket prices,
maybe it was the crowd. Whatever it was, I had
fallen into an Auto Show funk. I was hoping
this would snap me out of it.
Nika sent me there
specifically to cover the press conference
that was celebrating the motorsports
contributions of Dr. Don Panoz, held at the
display celebrating Juan Manuel Fangio, the
first driver to win five World Driving
Championships in Formula One. Before the
tribute, I got to spend time around the area
where some vintage cars were displayed. There
were two 1936 Delahaye 135M Competition Court
Coupes, a 1947 Talbot Lago T-26 Convertible, a
Ferrari 330 GTC, a 1903 Curved-Dash
Oldsmobile, a 1929 Bentley 4.5 Liter Short
Chassis racer, and the Buick “Y-Job” concept
car. Behind those cars was another display
consisting of significant Corvettes throughout
history, including the 1961 Mako Shark, the
1970 Manta Ray concept, the 1976 AeroVette
(complete with 8-Track tape deck!), the 1963
Corvette Sting Ray, and a 1968 Corvette Sting
Ray convertible, among others. Settled between
those two areas was the Fangio exhibit which
had a Maserati 250F, a 1954 Mercedes W-196 R
Silver Arrow and a 1940 Chevrolet Coupe in
which he won the 9500 Km Gran Premio
Internacional del Norte (Buenos
Aires-Lima-Buenos Aires) race with, long
before his Formula One career began.
 The eclectic display of
machinery served as a stunning yet timely
backdrop for the festivities. Ron Fellows,
defending GTS champion in the ALMS for the
Pratt and Miller Corvette Racing Team offered
tribute to Don Panoz, creator of the American
LeMans Series. “Don Panoz has provided a
vision and direction for sports car racing
that has produced a level of interest in the
sport not seen since the 1960’s.” He also
recalled talking to Dr. Panoz in depth for the
first time at Texas World Speedway in 2000,
where the Corvette team got its first victory.
He noted that unlike other promoters who were
busy bragging about things they haven’t done
yet, Don had quietly built up the sport
without much fanfare, doing more for sportscar
racing in the last seven years than anyone
else had done during their lifetimes.
Other personalities
weighed in as well, including Dan Proudfoot,
motorsport writer for Carguide Magazine, Myles
Brandt, President of Mosport who presented Don
Panoz with a painting from Norbert Lisinski
which was featured on the souvenir program of
the 2002 ALMS event at the track, and Carl
Tupper, Speed Channel Special Projects
Consultant, Canada who offered Dr. Panoz some
Niagara region Ice Wine. I’m pretty sure Don
Panoz has his own Chateau Elan wine label, so
it smacks a bit of bringing sand to the beach
but hey, it’s the thought that counts.
David E. Davis, publisher
of Automobile Magazine and of Car and Driver
fame, gave a brief presentation on Juan Manuel
Fangio and mentioned that Jackie Stewart
considers his highest honor was being a
pallbearer at Fangio’s funeral. Mr. Davis also
mentioned that 1940 Chevrolet which Fangio
left to him.
Some final words were mentioned by Tom Tonks,
the General Manager of the Canadian
International Auto Show and Mr. Panoz ended up
with an original Inuit Innokshuk. It was a
worthy tribute to a great promoter, race car
builder and track owner.
 After the press conference, I cornered Richard
Pickering, the man responsible for producing
the classic car display, and I asked him what
process he goes through when acquiring these
cars for the classic and vintage display. He
says its mostly seat-of-the-pants, but he
tries to come up with a theme around June, and
then goes about trying to get the cars on his
list. The Fangio tribute was a priority seeing
how Michael Schumacher had just won his fifth
championship and the display would have lost
its impact had it been staged next year. The
other theme he incorporated was Design, hence
the Talbot-Lagos and the Delahayes and the
Y-Job, as well as the AeroVette, Manta Ray,
and Mako Shark concepts. With Don Panoz being
honored for his work in creating the American
LeMans Series, it was fitting a 4.5 Liter
Bentley that competed on that track in 1929
should find its way there. Ron Fellows’ racing
history with the Corvette team dove-tails
nicely with the Corvette display, and the fact
that the World Design Contest with its
futuristic renderings happened to be situated
beside some of the most significant automotive
design concepts in the last century makes
everything on that floor converge into a
subtle but brilliant statement on Design Past
and Design Future. The Present state of Design
is busy occupying the rest of the Metro
Convention Centre from February 14th to the
24th.
A final anecdote from Mr.
Pickering…he was constantly asked by friends
why he goes through the trouble and stress of
locating these cars for the show when not that
many attendees find their way down to that
part of the Auto Show. He says he does it for
those ten people in Toronto who see the
display and “get it”.
And that snapped me out
of my Auto Show funk. I can only thank Richard
Pickering for that.
Andre Vieira
Andre,
a resident of Toronto is a motorsport
addict who isn't interested in any sort of
recovery. |
