1984 Lancia LC2

Twenty years ago, when Group C sports car racing was in its heyday, the focus of attention was on the moment. As a result there weren’t many people thinking about Group C machines becoming “historic.” When Group C faded, many of us thought we would never see those cars again, that they would be far too technical and expensive to be revived. How glad we are that we were wrong! Thanks to a relatively small number of racers with enough enthusiasm and finance, Group C has been on the way back, and now there are sufficient races and technical support to make the future look very promising for these special cars.

Phil Stott, who runs Phil Stott Racing in the U.K., has a background for motorsport and prepared essentially road-going racecars in historic events, things like E-Type Jaguars and TVRs. Not long ago, Phil and some like-minded racers got a bit bored with this, and when the opportunity to pick up cars from the Group C and GTP days came along, Phil embarked on a new venture, and now prepares nearly 15 of these cars for racing from his Marchington base near Derby, England. It was Phil who introduced VRJ to Richard Bryan. Richard and his son, Benton, Americans who live and work in Knoxville, Tennessee, own a handful of very interesting cars, including two of the rare and rarely ever seen Martini Lancia LC2s.