Butch Gilbert, who campaigns the "1959 Hagemann-Sutton Special-Chevrolet" in historic racing: announced the formation of the "Nifty Fifties" group:

From Butch:   "Hi Friends,

After speaking with many of you over the past year or so, I find that we share many of the same thoughts and fears.  We are losing ground on keeping the spirit and enthusiasm for a great part of American racing history alive.  We all have Sports Race Cars from the 1950s from Lolas and Lotus 11s to Ferraris, Scarabs and everything in between.   We don't want to put them at risk but we still want to be able to drive them and share them with other enthusiasts.  

As the race promoters move the focus to newer time periods and the rules get less time specific the identity of the greatest period of sports car road racing gets forgotten.  Let’s turn that around by banding together and use one rule book nationwide to keep the 1950s perspective intact.  We can ask race promoters to allow us as a group to run at their race weekend in our own grid and under our rules.  If we can do this, we can enjoy their event and have a safe haven to exercise our cars.  

I feel so strongly about this idea that I have asked The SOVERN board if we could have a grid at their 24th Annual NW Historics Race June 31-July 2, 2012 and also a dedicated grid at the HMSA Portland Historic race the following weekend.  Both clubs were very enthusiastic and agreed to the proposal only with the condition that we supply enough competitors to make a full grid.   To warrant our use of the time that a grid of 6 sessions takes from their already busy weekend schedule they ask that we have at least 25 cars. Here is our chance to keep the spirit going. If you have had day dreams ( like me) of what it must have been like to race at some of the great tracks around the states in the 50s, we have a chance to make it happen.  I feel if we do a good job of supporting these two great events,  we could have other clubs invite us as a group to bring our cars to their events in the future.
 
Here is how to make that happen -- go to the SOVERN web site and the  Portland NW Historic Race  web site to enter their July events and join others with like cars for two fun filled weekends.  All we ask is that the cars are prepared PERIOD CORRECT and run on DUNLOP VINTAGE TIRES.  If you have questions on correct preparation for your car you  can e-mail or phone me.  When you enter,  please write "Nifty Fifties" next to your car on the entry form so they know what group you want to race in.
 
I am sure that you all have friends with cars that would like to join our group.  I collected a lot of contact information over this year at Laguna Seca, Lime Rock, and Elkhart Lake but need more to make this effort successful.  Please share this with your friends with Sports Race Cars from the 50s that would enjoy running with only similar cars and like-minded drivers and have them send me their contact information to add to our distribution list.   A simple web-site is planned for the future as the means to pass on information to interested parties."
  
Yours truly,   Butch Gilbert
209-894-3950
niftyfifties@hughes.net