Stars of the classic car and racing worlds will convene at the inaugural Chattanooga MotorCar Festival Oct. 11-13. Celebrities seen on TV, on the race track and in written pages will take part in the event.
Englishman Brian Redman is the grand marshal of the festival. The racing legend has claimed nine sports car road racing championships in his 60 years of competition.
Jim Pace is an overall winner at the 24 Hours of Daytona and the 12 Hours of Sebring. He’s serving as the chairman of the Time Trials at the festival.
Formula 1 and endurance racer and TV commentator Alain de Cadenet will announce the Time Trials. He’s built his own racing cars and has hosted television and commentary shows on auto racing and classic cars, including “Victory by Design.”
Bill Rothermel will act as the Rendezvous of the Greats announcer. He’s emceed at the Boca Raton Concours and The Elegance in Hershey, Pennsylvania, and has judged at the Amelia Island Concours and the Classic Sports Sunday at the Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida.
The chief judge for the festival’s Concours will be Mike Tillson, founder and chairman of the Radnor Hunt Concours d’Elegance and chief judge at the Carmel Concours on the Avenue. Tillson is a former race car driver in the World Endurance Championship. He’s owned a sales, service and restoration shop specializing in high-performance European cars for four decades.
Award-winning automotive journalist Ken Gross is serving as the Concours Committee chairman, a role which tasks him with helping to select the exotic and significant cars eligible for the Concours. Gross has written for Playboy, Popular Mechanics, The Robb Report, AutoWeek and Hemmings, authored two dozen books and written an historic car series for TV, “Behind the Headlights.”
Dorsey Schroeder will serve as the competition director for the Time Trials. He’s the 1989 SCCA Trans-Am champion and 1990 IMSA GTO Class Champion. He also won the 1985 Pro Sports Renault championship, raced IROC in the 1990s and is the current Trans-Am Series’ chief steward.
Other dignitaries lending their expertise include automotive consultant, historian and TV commentator Donald Osborne; Wayne Carini of “Chasing Classic Cars” TV fame; Keith Martin, TV commentator and founder of Sports Car Market magazine; American auto racing personality Linda Vaughn; 1988 NASCAR Cup champion and two-time Daytona 500 winner Bill Elliott; Ray Evernham, winner of three NASCAR Cup championships as crew chief; racing TV commentator David Hobbs; Burt Levy, race car driver and author of “The Last Open Road” series of motoring novels; and Corky Coker, former CEO of Coker Tire Company.
Presented by DeFoor Brothers and sponsored by Volkswagen of America, the Chattanooga MotorCar Festival will take place in downtown Chattanooga on the Tennessee Riverfront and benefit Erlanger Neuroscience Institute.
Source: Chattanooga MotorCar Festival