FORMULA 5000 50 YEARS YOUNG

In a time when racing is seemingly overrun with laptops on wheels and ‘eco’ is now commonplace on race car livery, one class of racing is making a welcome and very noisy comeback. Formula 5000 (F5000) might be half a century old, but it harks back to an era when race cars were loud, fast but loose, and truly sexy. The cars embody everything a motorsport class should be: brassy, exciting, and making your hair stand on end every time the cars thunder down the front straight.

HISTORY

The class was born out of a need to provide a lowcost option to open-wheelers that didn’t fit into a specific formula category in the US in 1968. That year, the Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) brought a new concept to single-seaters, banging a five-litre stock block engine allowance into the regulations. Small and sprightly small blocks from Ford; Dodge; Plymouth; and, particularly, Chevrolet that were already in the no-holds-barred Trans-Am Series became the engine of choice. These engines — relatively inexpensive, easily maintained, and already tinkered with by a generation of car nuts —