My Hemmings daily newsletter had an article about this years La Carrera Americana race that is starting today or tomorrow. I went to the official website, clicked on Participants, and noticed 2 teams were racing Datsuns, one a 510, and another what appears to be a 240Z. Pretty cool. Here is the link to the website:

http://www.lacarrerapanamericana.com.mx/index2.asp

Benton Performance, a Porsche shop across from mine, is supporting a customer team running a 356 (last year's class champion). They are posting lots of pictures on Facebook and here's a shot of one of the 510s running:

Wow- All classic or antique cars. It's good to see that this historic race (rally?) is still going on. Are they required to wear body armor or bullet-proof glass?

Edited October 22, 201014 yr by TomoHawk

The teams are well escorted and the locals are 100% behind this event. Its rumored that some of the supposed drug kingpins are owners/drivers.

240zDAVE, that was a great link. The car on the bottom #123 was the one my Grandfather raced in!

I have never seen that Lincol Capri, always heard of it though. I want to have a print made up from the owner of the negative - great surprise for him. If I remember right he told me that was a 53 Lincoln that they drove down from Manhatan,N.Y.C.

They wrecked on the first of eight laps. Based on the maps, it looks like it was couple of hundred miles to a lap. That had to be a crazy dangerous race to run. My Grandfather is 85 now, and also raced Triumphs in Colombia, S.A.

I found 3 cars in a Museum in Indiana from the LCP. I wonder if 123, still exists? I hope that Z tears it up at the LCP, thanks again. Love this place and the people!

Well, not hard to see where the majority of the remaining mid 50s Studebakers went. Man, those were great looking bodies.

Agreed - if you had never seen one before - it would look totally modern today.

Carl B.

I don't know if I would agree on the good looking part, but certainly more aerodynamic than most cars of that period. Did anyone count how many of the Studebakers are entered?

My friend, John Benton (mentioned above) performing a midnight service on his customer's 356 in Puebla. This is typical of the race - up at 5:00am getting the car ready for grid, follow the race car in the transporter all day, work on the car in the paddock until mid-night, repeat for 11 days.

He's also learned a new phrase: No me mates, yo sólo soy el mecánico!

There's a photo of the 240Z coming into Morelia on day 3 or 4 (?) on this blog site:

http://lacarrera2007.blogspot.com/

Before anyone comments, the blog is called lacarrera2007, but the coverage and photos are from this years event going on right now.

Maybe, but he's got some pics from the 2009 race mixed in.