 I'm John Seaman. I'm with Kerry Kautzer and we're at Road America Race Track in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin. This is a 35th consecutive Elkhart Lake vintage festival September 18th 19th and 20th. This year is also the 70th anniversary of road racing at Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin. Presented by the Vintage Sports Car Driver Association, this vintage racing event features several hundred cars competing in 10 race groups. The featured marks this year are pre-war cars in the West feature race and Japanese cars in the East feature race. Friday will have practice sessions and the traditional one-hour Enduro benefiting disabled American veterans. Saturday will have morning qualifying sessions and afternoon sprint races with the 11th annual Gather on the Green Concours Car Show in the evening. Sunday begins the group races and the 11th annual Kimberley Cup, Sheldon Cup and Elkhart Lake Cup race. I'm with Steve Bonk and Steve has a lot of history with Datsuns. We're standing beside a car that he has driven several times in the vintage races. What we've done this year for Road America is we're doing a all-Japanese feature which has mainly Datsun in these times. We do have a Honda over here but we brought all these cars together. We have nine or ten Datsun 510s which this is. We also have 10 or 11, 240, 260, 280 Z cars. A couple other newer Datsun Nissan's. This car I picked up 23 years ago. We race a series called the B sedan series which is emulating what they did back in the day in 1971 and 72. John Morton has driven this car a couple of times. John's alive and well. He's 78 years old. This car has an L18 in it which was what they put in the car's 1800 cc engine in 1972. It's got a five-speed transmission. It's making about 200 horsepower. This is my son Keegan. He's just joining us and he's racing this weekend. I'm his crew. Just did my first practice session ever in this car. It's probably it's a pretty big deal you know. I've grown up. I've watched my dad race this like since I was a little kid so for my first time to hop into the car and finally experience it it's pretty exciting. Still learning the track in this race car I mean it's completely different to what my Nissan 350Z was or anything else I've driven. I'm with Guy Morder and this is a 1929 Ford Speedster. Very close personal friend of mine and a good customer Bob Prince decided after we found a magazine article where a guy had recreated a Bugatti out of a Model A. He came to me and he said is this something you could do and I said well probably but it's not going to be exactly like a Bugatti and it can't have a four cylinder engine in it because it needs more balls than that so we compete in a pre-war class so we used a 1941 Chevrolet engine. The rear suspension and stuff is a Model A from 1929. The front end is a 1929 Ford axle. We have 1935 Ford wire wheels on it. All the suspension is home engineered. This is our third season racing it and I'm not sure it's done yet. I think this time I made too many changes. I added three carburetors where I had one before and it really woke the engine up. The body is hand formed. It's made out of aluminum. I would say that I did about 99% of it. I ran into a little bit of trouble on the most intricate compound curves in the back when I was working on it. I had to build a buck first and I was trying to make the metal fit the buck. I met a generous guy named Steve Hamilton up in Fondalac and we worked out a deal where he showed me how to use his equipment and I paid him for the amount of time that he had invested in it. The end result is I got something that I probably never could do at home with just a stump and an English wheel. The rear compound curves are very hard to do without power shrinking tools. When you were just getting started how did you get the proportions of the car right? Bob wanted a Bugatti, a Type 35 Bugatti. So I went online and he did as much research as I could find and I found some line drawings and things of the car and I projected it on the garage door and and then I rigged up the engine and the transmission on a rolling cart and I moved it around in front of the drawing of a full-size drawing and then I laid out the frame over that mostly in my mind but I sketched it out and that's basically what I did. I started chopping up the model A frame until it fit the configuration that I wanted. Well I love Road America. I don't live far from here. I've been coming here for I don't know since the late 60s for one reason or another. It's fast. The car goes probably faster than I want to drive it at this point. I'm with Douglas Stewart and he has a 1935 Riley. Well this car was converted from a 35 Kestrel. It's a 1500cc dual cam. It was converted I think not sure 60s or 70s. The previous owner bought it in 85 and he ran it from 85 to 2015 in England and Europe. Campaigned quite extensively. I got it from him in 2017 and been running it the last few years up here but it's a 1500cc. It's got four A-mil carburettors and that was one of the modifications they made in period. It's got mechanical brakes, friction shocks, pretty much standard 35 stuff. How is it on Road America's four mile track? You know it's this car is really a better short track car. How is it on maintenance? It's been good. I haven't just normal maintenance. It's been easy to run and no transmission issues. There's still little engines these 1500cc Riley engines. I'm with Leah Bauer and she has MG Midget and this is her actually pretty much the first time she's been in the car this weekend. It's time in the car, first time on the track. I bought it with my dad about a little over a year ago and just a whole bunch of stuff was wrong with the car and so we've been rebuilding it and now finally it's ready to go. Still having a little bit of issues today. It's popping out a third but it's fun. I'm just happy to be on track learning how to drive the car. Grew up driving my dad's and so this is a whole new ballgame in this one. I know your dad has been racing here at Road America for many many years and he has a bug-eye sprite so and you've had a chance to drive that I think last year. That's actually what I took my driving school in and this is his 22nd year of racing so now it's I'm catching up to him so I had to get my own car and now we're both on track in the same class and we're having such a blast. It's so much fun. Yeah I've been coming here for years so it's it's a comfortable track for me to be at because I know the track I know the layout but yeah it's a blast every weekend we come. I'm with Bill Wessel and he has a Datsun 1600 Roadster. Again it's a G production 1600 Roadster owned by Colonel Joe Hauser. It's a third of Roadsters that Joe had. He's a four-time national champion and a three time with the Roadster. This car is actually the car he won with in 82 his last runoff championship. I bought the car from Joe in 99. I qualified for my first runoff in 2001 and ran runoffs up until 2013. In my career with SCCA I made it to the podium three times three-thirds once in 2004 2010 and 2012. 2013 was the last runoff that was here. I rode America. I broke two engines and didn't even qualify. After that I got out of SCCA racing and been doing vintage racing. It's still a kick especially to come and vintage race here at Road America. I was just saying my practice left. Got down full bore into turn five and all the way through the gears down into first gear and it felt like runoffs again. Felt competitive. I bought my first street car a 68 Roadster just stayed with Datsun Roadsters. It's all I got in my garage. It's all Datsun Roadster stuff. I'm with Bill Oates and he has a Datsun 240Z. It's a 1973 Datsun 240Z. I've had it now 11 years. Bought it as a race car from a gentleman out in Virginia and have been racing it with Midwestern Council and with the SCDA for 11-12 years now. We just went up to Groton this year for the first time which was a great track. We had a great episode of the VSCDA event. It's a stock engine and so it's a straight six 2400cc engine that was built by my previous owner as a Sunbelt engine and was run for I think about 10-15 years as an SCCA ITS car. Suspension is coil over so that was but I was fortunate to buy it pretty much prepared. I've done some upgrades on the brakes so it's full Wilwood brakes. It's been pretty reliable then? It's been very reliable. It's a lot of the other race car drivers are jealous. This is now year 10 on this engine. Yeah so it's been a very reliable car and a lot of fun to drive. How do you like Road America compared to Blackhawk? It's a completely different track. It's like night and day. I just put a five-speed transmission back in this car which it had before and for Road America it's almost a necessity. Blackhawk I can get away with the four-speed. Blackhawk is kind of our home track. I've driven there more than anywhere. Road America is a real treat. A lot of history, a lot of fun, a lot of speed. I'm with Steve Jacobson and he has Datsun you don't see around very often. It's a 1967 and a half Datsun Roadster it's kind of a special year for these. It's a 1600 pushrod engine and I've had it for about 15 years and just been racing and having fun with it. It's a body-on-frame car so unlike the MG's of the era which were a unibody car it's a very stout car. I certainly raced Blackhawk. I've been to Mid-Ohio really like Mid-Ohio that's a great course. Autobahn so some of the Midwestern courses so far. They have done a lot of engine work but this is a very period-prepared car unlike some of the other cars that have a lot of race parts. This just has Nissan competition springs and that's about it. Just keep the engine going and grease the bearings and the brakes. The brakes are about this square so you do have to watch out on the brakes but here at Road America they get a chance to cool off pretty well. For Road America we say we bring a magazine for the straight. It's a long course and a horsepower track and this doesn't have a lot of horsepower so you really have to make it up in the corners and be smart in the corners. Smooth, very well, smooth the smooth always works good. I love the vintage racing mostly for the people. You know the cars just entry and I just love hanging out with all the vintage stuff and the people are just great. Good, good fun. It was really nice especially this weekend. It's a nice weekend. It's really nice to go here with the VSCD8. Mike Fisher, Mike, I think you drove it last weekend. So how was the race? The car's running great. I mean it's just this thing's been a ball and a drive for I think about 12 or 13 years I've had it. We want to thank all the VSCD8 people and corner workers and everybody that's out here. It's a great event. It's wonderful. The other has some great weather here this time of year. Thank you to the HSR guys for showing up and filling up the grid a little bit more but what a great weekend. Yeah, you ended up getting great at last in a race where if you break the time limit you're done, you're out. And there were five people in front of you that got disqualified who were running too fast. And you were able to come from the last at first, not break out on the time. That's the real consistency. So congratulations on that. Tom McLean who's from Naples, Florida, Porsche 993. I've run here quite a bit and I've never won a race here at Amcar. Even though I consider it my home track, Mountain Dew Trans Amcar was gridded number one. And the crew chief came back on the pre grid and said, oh by the way, we're having a lot of trouble with this car. So he might break his transmission and then he came home and said, oh, there's my opening. And I think something broke on the base lap. He told me to put weight on the base lap. Perfect. So now I'm on goal and I just have to not screw up, which thank God it didn't. Things break. So, you know, you took advantage of that and you got yourself a win. So congratulations. It ends up our cup presentations. I want to thank people for showing up because it's always nice to have a little bit of a crowd here for the people that managed to pull off that win.