VSCCA member Bill Binnie held an open house at his shop in Portsmouth, NH, Feb. 23rd.   Bill currently races competitively in the Le Mans Prototype class in Europe. He is the 2004 and 2007 champion in The 24 hour Le Mans LMP2 class and a strong supporter of vintage racing. Some of you may have noted the VSCCA stickers on his car.

On display in his 30,000 sq. ft. shop are both the 2004 and 2007 class winning cars with their associated support equipment (transporters, pit equipment etc.) as well as a collection of vintage Ferraris, Bentleys and other neat stuff.  Bill gave an informal, but highly informative talk on the challenges of modern sports car racing and his experiences.

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Guest impressions:

The invitation to VSCCA members from Bill Binnie to tour the facility of Binnie Motorsports was an attractive offer to a fair number of members.  Housing both a race team that is active in LMP-2 (with quite a record-check out the website www.Binniemotorsports.com) as well as Bill's collection of vintage racers, the facility is any car guy's dream. As Bill said of the facility, he had built a lot of buildings over the years so he knew what he wanted in this one.  From the radiant heat in the spotless blue floors to the "dirty room" with negative pressure, this is one thought out space.  In the middle bay there were four mid-engine racers dating from the sixties up to the 2005 LMP-2 car.
Clearly this is the business end of the facility.
In the next bay was Bill's vintage racing stable. From memory (and likely to be corrected after I see Ed's photos), my mind pictures something like 15 cars including two (non racing) Mercedes and a flock of racers including Shelby GT, Aston-Martin, BMW 328, Ferrari Testa Rossa (prototype), Maserati 300, C Jag, GT-40, Cobra 427, Bugatti Type 35, Alvis (special), 2 Bentleys and a 1930's Alfa.   Other than the two MB's, all have seen and I dare say will continue to see lots of racing activity. All-in-all there were a lot of folks walking around on Saturday, February 23 with large perm-a-grins.   Thanks again Bill. THOMAS COUGHLIN

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©AutoPhotos 2008 Ed Hyman, Gullwingsearch.com