The Velocity Invitational is a motorsports and life-style occasion held at Sonoma Raceway in Northern California. It’s primarily devoted to celebrating pace, historical past, and the tales of racing in a festival-style ambiance, the place you may see and listen to the entered automobiles each on observe and up shut.
Kicking off in 2019, the occasion brings particular race automobiles out of their quiet garages, and invitations them race so drivers and fanatics can relive the sights, sounds and smells of motorsports’ bygone eras.
For the Velocity Invitational’s fourth annual working final month, McLaren headlined the occasion on their sixtieth anniversary. However that’s not all. Ford unveiled their model new track-biased GT Mk IV, and a Mustang vs. Mini race styled after that of the Goodwood Revival was amongst a collection of different historic race classes that took to Sonoma’s difficult 12-turn highway course all through the weekend.
Velocity makes an attempt to face out from occasions of this style by staging automobiles in a rigorously curated atmosphere, drawing inspiration from European counterparts just like the Goodwood Pageant of Pace and Revival. The occasion commits to showcasing not solely extraordinary and traditionally appropriate racing machines, but additionally offering an environment of wine, meals, sim racing, ride-alongs, artwork, know-how and extra. The purpose is to introduce a brand new era of fanatics to a pastime that can hopefully carry ahead the love of racing.
On that word, a enormous contingent of youthful followers flocked to the racetrack over the weekend to fulfill British-Belgian F1 star Lando Norris.
McLaren’s enormous show of historic racers from its heritage assortment included many automobile by no means earlier than seen in North America. On prime of Can-Am and Le Mans automobiles, the weekend witnessed a number of championship-winning McLaren System 1 machines initially piloted by legends like Lewis Hamilton, Ayrton Senna, Mika Häkkinen, Alain Prost and Bruce McLaren himself, being exercised near their higher limits by Norris, Pato O’Ward, Tony Kanaan, Tanner Foust, Stefan Johansson and Zak Brown.
Trendy supercars and hypercars from Pagani, Ford and McLaren additionally graced the event, with a outstanding set of 4 McLaren F1 highway automobiles being current in a single place. The trio of Le Mans GT1 race automobiles from McLaren, Porsche and Mercedes drew a lot consideration, as did the dynamic show of rally machines from DirtFish Rally College. Pre-war race automobiles weren’t spared both, and had their very own class titled Rag Time Racers.
The 2023 Velocity Invitational in the end highlighted that the easiest way to protect historic racing is to supply a possibility for drivers, groups and spectators to overtly expertise and talk about what makes these automobiles so vital. In 4 years of working, the occasion has carved itself out to be a vital pilgrimage for North American classic racing fanatics. The keenness displayed by the younger crowd in attendance underlined that the way forward for motorsports and classic automobiles is in sound fingers.
Vijay Sankar
Instagram: pink_helmet
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