SEBRING, Fla. (February 21, 2021) – The SpeedTour returned to Sebring International Raceway for a thrilling weekend of racing with the Sportscar Vintage Racing Association (SVRA), Trans Am Series presented by Pirelli and International GT at the Sebring SpeedTour. With sunny skies and picture-perfect weather, the SpeedTour welcomed hundreds of entries from across the three series, along with an event record-setting car show with 450 cars and a host of spectators around the 3.74-mile circuit.
SVRA’s competition was split into five separate races, with each group getting two features during the course of the weekend.
Groups 6 and 12A were paired together and took the track first. After winning nine races en route to the 2020 Group 6A championship, Scott Borchetta took home the overall win in both feature races, racking up his first victories of 2021 while driving his No. 98 1969 Chevrolet Corvette.
With production years ranging from 1957 to 1989, the Groups 1/2/3/4/5b races featured everything from Austin Healey Bugeye Sprites to a Royale RP4. Travis Engen, familiar to SVRA’s victory lane and the owner of many SVRA red hats, once again ruled the competition and drove to victory not once but twice in the Groups 1/2/3/4/5b features. Engen was defending his titles from 2020 where he also drove to victory in both of the group’s feature races driving his No. 1 1962 Lotus 23B.
Always a force to be reckoned with, Engen was also a front-runner in the Groups 5a/7/11 races. After leading the majority of the first feature, Engen was passed by Chris Ronson Jr. in the last corner of the last lap for Ronson to take the victory in his No. 54 2010 Oreca FLM-09 in one of the most exciting finishes of the weekend. However, when the group returned to the track on Sunday for their second feature race, the two swapped positions on the podium with Engen taking the top step in his famous No. 2 2005 Audi R8 LMP and Ronson Jr. finishing in the runner-up position.
Two-time Trans Am Champion Wally Dallenbach Jr. ruled the field in Group 10, taking the win in both feature races one and two. Driving the same 2000 Ford Mustang Cobra that John Cloud drove to victory at Sebring last spring, Dallenbach recorded his first wins of 2021 in SVRA competition.
In 2020, John Deford did not make it past the second step on the podium in the Groups 8 and 12B races. However, this year, driving his prized 1973 Porsche 914/6, he drove to victory not once, but twice, taking the top prize in both feature races for Groups 8 and 12B.
For a full list of SVRA’s podium finishers at the Sebring SpeedTour, visit SVRA.com.
SVRA will return to competition at Charlotte Motor Speedway, March 18-21. It will be the series’ inaugural trip to the “Roval,” which is a road course/oval circuit that made its debut for NASCAR competition in 2018. With the event taking place in the heart of “NASCAR Country,” SVRA is planning for a stock car-only feature race in addition to a Corvette featured marque.
The following weekend, SVRA will travel just three hours south to Road Atlanta for another SpeedTour event, March 25-28. SVRA will be joined once again by the Trans Am Series presented by Pirelli and International GT, as well as FR Americas, F4 U.S. Championship and the Miata Heritage Cup. The Atlanta SpeedTour will be broadcast to SpeedTour Plus+ Pass subscribers on the SVRA App, which is available for download, here: https://nagrasports.app.link/YHkRxfOxq7.
About SVRA:
Sportscar Vintage Racing Association (SVRA) is the premier vintage racing organization in the United States. Founded in 1978, SVRA has grown steadily to 2,500 active members with a database of over 11,000 race cars. Race weekends take place at some of the finest racing venues in the United States, including Charlotte Motor Speedway, WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca, Sebring International Raceway, Road America, Watkins Glen International, Michelin Road Atlanta Raceway, the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, Portland International Raceway, Auto Club Speedway, Lime Rock Park, Sonoma Raceway and Virginia International Raceway (VIR). In 2013, SVRA hosted the first U.S. Vintage National Championships at the Circuit of The Americas (COTA) in Austin, Texas—a tradition it continues today. Find additional information on SVRA, a complete annual schedule, and entry lists on the SVRA website Be sure to check our Facebook page and YouTube channel, which currently boast a library of over 300 action-packed event videos, or follow us on Twitter and Instagram. Most SVRA races will be live-streamed on the SVRA app.