Fifty years ago Jocko Maggiacomo won Trans Am in an AMC Javelin that had already been Mark Donohue's Penske car. Labor Day weekend he was back at Lime Rock waving the green for Saturday's feature, then back in the paddock talking about how.
He wanted a Camaro, and found one through a friend at Hertz. He paid just $400 for it in 1972. What came after was a decade of beating people who had money, acid-dipping bodies, building his own brakes. It was the same backyard habit that followed him into NASCAR and made the inspectors nervous. "We needed to win to get the money to get to the next race," he said. Ask him about the downhill here and he lights up. "If I'm kicking up dust, I'm doing it right."
Historic Trans Am headlined the 44th festival. Additionally, Alfa Romeo was the featured marque, so the paddock ran red for four days. Prewar machinery, Formula Junior, a Lotus, a clutch of Chevrons, a big-bore group loud enough to loosen a filling. Thursday they sent the parade out, 17 miles of old race cars clattering through Lakeville and Salisbury until a street fair in Falls Village swallowed the line.
Sunday the Lime Rock Concours and the Gathering of the Marques put close to a thousand cars around the 1.5-mile course. Renault 5 Turbo 2, a Fiat in Alitalia colors, a Griffith with a Ford V8 under a TVR body. "British body, American power," the owner said. Paul Newman and Bruce MacInnes got named Legends of Lime Rock sometime in the middle of it all.
Revs Institute brought the 1964 Alfa Romeo Giulia TZ, chassis 750052, the Zagato coupe Chuck Stoddard and Jim Kaser drove to the 1600cc GT class win at Sebring in '64. Miles Collier was the honored guest and he has never restored it. They freshened the car a few years ago and found all three of the team's red cars had run Sebring with mismatched, repainted noses. Instead of fixing that they masked the original rock chips and left them. Collier talks about the TZ as an individual, a "repository of stories" he has no interest in erasing.
Monday it rained. The fast group was still out there feeling for the hill after the concours people folded the chairs and went home. As it should be...
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