While some events for the 40th annual Pittsburgh Vintage Grand Prix start today the main event Race Weekend is July 23-24. Both days feature car shows. Race heats are held Saturday and races Sunday.

Main Link -> https://pvgp.org/

Race Weekend Link -> https://pvgp.org/events/schenley-park-race-weekend/

British Car Day Link -> https://pvgp.org/schenley/british-car-day/


While only vintage cars are eligible to race all cars are welcome at the car shows. F-Types will be present at the car shows both Saturday and Sunday, but especially on Saturday for British Car Day.

 

Well, I tried to go to the Vintage Grand Prix today. After spending 45 minutes to go three blocks and having about another hour to go given the traffic I gave up and headed home. Thunderstorms were expected to hit later in the afternoon. I would have ended up with maybe 90 minutes there before getting soaked.

On the plus side I saw more Ferraris, Porsches and Maserattis then I see in a year parked near the event and trying to get to it. I have never encountered anywhere near that much traffic trying to attend other years.

For race weekend they were expecting 3,000 cars in the car shows and 50K people in attendance. I will be curious as to what the crowd estimates are after the event. From what I encountered attendance was way up this year. Either that or everyone left late to get there.

 

An F-Type was the official pace car for the vintage races this year.

 

You know, that's happening everywhere, events so crowded that it sucks all the fun you'd have had right out of your system. Out here in SoCal, heavy everyday traffic got to the point that I no longer enjoyed my custom car (in sig) and am selling it. One reason for getting the F-type was asking myself "what car wouldn't I mind sitting in traffic in."

 

I went to the PVGP British Car Day yesterday. According to the organizers of the event there were a record number of British cars there. Because it is an International car show, there were hundreds of Porsches (the marque of the year), Mercedes, BMW's, Japanese cars, etc. There were only 3 or 4 F-Types there but Jaguar as a whole was well represented. Traffic was horrible in the morning. I left my house at around 8:30 and it took 50 minutes to get to the venue 12 miles away. My friends who left my area a half hour later spent at least an hour and a half in traffic. I brought two Morgans, a 4/4 and a 3W to the show and around 3:15 put on the tonneau covers and sought shelter in the golf clubhouse. Many of the cars at the show left at that time, creating another huge traffic jam. We stuck around until the storm was over and drove home with little traffic. We got to see some qualifying and had a good time. I have been going to this event since the inception, 40 years ago, and we always have a great time. I recommend it to everyone who is into cars. See you there next year.

John

 

There is a live stream from the event today that is live now.

 

I went Saturday and traffic was backed up, I should have been there earlier. I ended up parking along the road and walking into the paddock area to look around. I am interested in getting into open wheel racing and wanted to speak with the drivers. I did speak with a few drivers of the Formula Fords and Formula V, then walked to the car show area. The Pittsburgh Vintage Gran Prix has always been a friendly car lovers event. If you are into cars or motorcycles it should be on your bucket list. You will see a good mix of cars and motorcycles. I have seen cars and motorcycles that I had never seen in person before, fun time.
For some reason I thought Viper was this years Mark.

 

I left at 12:15 on Saturday and traffic was just gridlock. I am 9 miles away and gave up after 75 minutes on the road. From the look of it I had another hour to go.

The Viper was a spotlight car this year.

https://pvgp.org/viper-spotlight/