Lola 50 Years celebrations continued in the somewhat unlikely location of Italy’s Castell’Arquato, the start and headquarters of the Vernasca Silver Flag Historic Hillclimb, from June 27-29.
Castell’Arquato is a small town to the southeast of Piacenza, itself an hour or so east of Milan. Thousands of visitors from the region turned out to welcome a contingent of a dozen Lolas, the guests of honor for the 13th revival of the historic Silver Flag. The course covers eight kilometers of public roads, starting in Castell’Arquato and running on a high speed straight section for four kilometers to the village of Lugagnano, where it turns left in the town center, goes downhill and then runs for another four kilometers up the very twisty mountain section to finish in the center of mountain-top Vernasca.
The event attracts beautiful and rare historic machinery from Italy, France, Germany, and the UK. Alfas, Abarths, ACs, Bentleys, Bugattis, Ferraris, and Maseratis were there in abundance. The organizers had managed to set up a special display area for the Lolas and for a pair of rare cars from the Alfa Romeo Museaum at Arese, the P2 and P3, both of which made impressive runs over the weekend.
The Lola group was made up of the Lola Heritage T92 Indy car, Fulvio Ferri in Pietro Silvas T298-BMW, Pietro Silva’s T292, Stefano Rosina’s T70 Mk3B, Lorenzo Prandina’s T290-Tecno, Rosina’s T380, Franco Breschi in a T292-Cosworth, Piero Lottini’s T496, Paola Borghi’s T492 and Bertoni’s Larrousse Lola.
Breschi was awarded the Lola Trophy for his amazing performance in his orange T292, while Lola Heritage’s own Glyn Jones was re-united with Pietro Silva’s T292 for which Glyn was the mechanic when the car won the European Sports Car Championship in 1973 in the hands of Chris Craft. This car ran under the Crowne Racing banner and was owned by Martin Birrane, current Principal of Lola Cars. Glyn received the award for Best Performance in the Sport Prototype Class.
For the spectators, Lola laid on some special treats, with Lorenzo Prandina’s T290 with a Formula 1 Tecno engine heard over the entire 8-kilometer hill. The biggest applause was reserved for the spectacle of a genuine Indy 500 car attacking an Italian hill. Journalist Ed McDonough drove Lola’s T92, the car with which Jackie Stewart led the 500 in 1967. The crowd appreciated the fact that the car was towed to get it started by the local Carabinieri…only in Italy! The car was flagged off the startline by former lady Grand Prix driver Maria Teresa de Filippis, and was acknowledged as the fastest car of the weekend. Spectators were eager to report that this was the first time they had ever seen an Indy car…and were stunned to see the T92 handle the twisty hill so well.
A good weekend for Lola.
