News in brief, September 2001

The Group C Revival races at the Silverstone Historic Festival will feature a rare Zakspeed Ford Mustang Probe. The 1985 car was built for the IMSA series with a 2.1-litre turbo engine before this was replaced by a 6-litre Ford. Gary Pearson will race the car for its owner Bryan Wingfield.

Porsche Cars North America and Brian Redman’s Intercontinental Events Inc. hosted the Porsche Rennsport Reunion at Connecticut’s Lime Rock Park over the last weekend of July. The three-day Reunion featured a significant number of historic racing Porsches, former Porsche factory drivers and 10 of the most significant Porsche race cars from the Porsche Museum in Stuttgart.

Sir Jackie Stewart will lead the circuit-opening ceremony on the last day of the Silverstone Historic Festival, Monday August 27. The ceremony will take place between 1.00 and 1.15pm and will include an air display from the Great War Display Team. Later in the day, the 2001 Bentley EXP Speed 8 which finished third at Le Mans this year, will complete some demonstration laps.

A major new endurance rally for classic cars will start from London in September 2003. The Great Silk Road Historic Reliability Trial will be the first event to travel from London to Sydney by the ‘most overland route possible’. Around 100 vehicles are expected to take part, half of them vintage and classic cars of 25 to 80 years of age. This three-month, 20,000-mile event will be run by the HERO organisation of 1961 RAC Rally winner John Brown and will cross the Roof of the World via the old Silk Road into China.