Espíritu de Montjuïc – Peter Auto and the “original version”

For fifteen years now, the Peter Auto series have been delighting historic car enthusiasts with their array of races. Let's take advantage of the opening of the year in Catalonia to remind ourselves how these events work. Each of the six meetings of the year is divided into ten grids, themselves subdivided into several categories. These grids correspond to disciplines – Endurance or Tourism – and to old regulations (2,0-litre Sport, Group A, LM P1, etc.). Finally, each grid has its own weekend format with one or two races on the program, lasting from 40 to 120 minutes each.

This complexity is not the result of chance, but responds to multiple constraints. The Gentlemen Challenge offers less track time than the other grids, for the simple reason that its participants claim to be as much "collectors" as "competitors." At ten million euros for the Ferrari 250 GT SWB, we can understand! It was also the soaring prices of this type of model that encouraged their owners to desert the grids of the Shell Historic Ferrari Maserati Challenge in the 2000s, to the point of causing the loss of this championship. But then, how did the French organizer succeed where even the manufacturer of Maranello had failed?

« Having myself overseen the Ferrari Maserati Challenge from 1999 to 2001, I had a good understanding of the drivers' concerns., Patrick Peter told us last December. When the championship ended in 2009, I thought we might have a chance of convincing the owners, provided we offered them a setting they wouldn't find anywhere else. So we created a code of conduct, based on the old English saying: "You bend it, you mend it." (you break, you repair). The driver who causes a collision pays half of the repair costs of the other car »

The message is still clear from the mouth of the new guardian of the temple, Marc Ouayoun, in office since last summer. We have some very nice new cars on the track and I really want their owners to want to come back to the next meeting, so I'm counting on everyone's wisdom. " he hammered home at every driver briefing. And it works!

© Julien Hergault

The Gentlemen Challenge – which replaced the Trofeo Nastro Rosso by opening up to nationalities other than Italy – is today the only series in the world to bring together real legends from the 1960s. "Real," because in this universe, reproductions are legion. Owners of high-value cars sometimes keep the original in their garage and continue racing it., a technical commissioner explained to us. These reproductions are so well imitated that it is difficult, even for a connoisseur, to tell the difference. »

It is therefore not superfluous to point out, for example, that Andreas Halusa was driving this weekend in Barcelona in the authentic Jaguar Type D (chassis XKC 402) with which Duncan Hamilton and Tony Rolt had placed second in the 24 Hours of Le Mans 1954, or that Guillermo Fierro drove the Maserati Birdcage (chassis 2466) entered in the 1961 Targa Florio by Count Volpi's Scuderia Serenissima and which later belonged to Nick Mason, the drummer of Pink Floyd. Thank you, gentlemen, for keeping this rolling heritage alive!

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