Quoth Sir Sterling Moss, “Movement is tranquility.” Particularly when that movement is frozen in time, catching a beautiful car skillfully handled to within a fraction of its capabilities, pitting the immutable laws of physics against the timeless drive to win at any cost.


We’re close to the end of our coverage of the 2010 Sonoma Historic Motorsports Festival that took place at Infineon Raceway, but we’re saving the best for last. In this slideshow I’ve compiled all the best shots of maximum g-force cornering from both days of the historic racers driving their immensely expensive machines much harder than any sensible person would. In fact, a financial advisor would likely be in breach of his fiduciary duty if he didn’t advise you to refrain from racing your hundreds-of-thousands-of-dollars worth of vintage iron. Of course, that’s the beauty of historic racing – despite the insanity of pushing that #31 Alfa (which should be familiar to readers following these posts by now) as hard as it was, it would be a crime to let it sit in a museum. And so there it is, at the ragged end of adhesion clawing through corner #2 as if there was something more valuable than bragging rights on the line. Vintage racing might be a (very) rich person’s sport, but at Infineon they took off the kid gloves and put on the string-back ones. The Class 3B racers blowing through corner #4 really put it in perspective. Look at the silver #15 Jaguar E-type in turn #4 and the orange #11 Morgan coming out of the s-curves at the back of the track lifting their front inside wheels as they turn in. Does it get any better?
Tune in tomorrow as Han will detail his favorite car of the races, and after that for a wrap-up with a gigantic gallery of all the Sonoma Historic photos.
All images copyright 2010 Alex Kierstein