Pittsburgh Vintage GP

Post by: **elancoupe** » Mon Jul 23, 2012 12:39 am

The PVGP is always a great weekend event, I usually attend on Saturday, as there is a large international car show along with race practice and qually. This year, the weather was cool and overcast, and attendance at the car shows was very large.

Lotus was a "spotlight" marque this year, and Lotus Cars of Pittsburgh had a large tent with the new models on hand. There were about 25 Lotus cars in the show, ranging from the new cars down to 3 Sevens, some Europas, a RHD Excel (!!), a very original Elite and a couple Elans.

I was chatting with some friends, when I heard a familiar voice behind me. I turned to see Wayne Carini, host of the TV show Chasing Classic Cars, perusing the Lotus Show. Wayne was honorary race director for the event. He was very nice, and allowed me to take his pic next to my car. He also told me that he had just bought an Elan Coupe with no drive train from the west coast, and that he had a badly smashed Coupe sitting at his shop. He said that he would combine the two.

There were three Elans competing, and I was able to photograph two of them on the false grid before practice. The blue car belong to Bob Criss, and the green one to Bob Leitzinger. I also saw Clark Lance's Elan in the paddock, but missed seeing it run. The Leitzinger car only made a few laps of the session before a c clip holding the diff axle popped off, so it came in on the hook. The Criss car suffered some kind of failure (brakes?) and had an off course, removing the front nose.

Also of note was a very rare Ferrari 330 GTO, among many other rare and cool cars.