Any vintage car enthusiast with half a brain migrates to Lime Rock Park in Connecticut to spend Labor Day weekend, and with good reason. Its Annual Vintage Festival, in its 18th edition this year, has grown to the point where it is starting to rival Pebble Beach in prestige.

The quality and quantity of the turnout made this year’s festival simply the best yet, as both Historic Sportscar Racing (HSR) and longtime participant Vintage Sports Car Club of America (VSCCA) paired up to provide a broad-ranging program of vintage racing.

Following practice heats on Friday and qualifying on Saturday, Monday’s race program saw nine race groups fighting for honors in 12 features, featuring machinery from the past eight decades. The weekend highlights had to go to the spirited duals between Brian Redman and Duncan Dayton, taking it to each other in HSR’s groups 6 and 8.

Redman’s pesky green 1971 Chevron B-19 dogged Dayton throughout the Group 6 sprint, but the latter ultimately prevailed in his 1970 Lola T-70. Redman, the godfather of vintage racing, got his revenge in the Group 8 Historic Production and Sports Racers competition, his ’67 Lola T-70 nipping Dayton’s ’63 Lotus 23B by 1.151 seconds.

HSR didn’t have all the bragging rights to great competition, however. VSCCA’s sprint race for production cars was a real barn-burner, with Kim Eastman’s ’53 Kurtis 500S, Tivvy Shenton’s ’55 Jaguar XK140 coupe and Bob Kilpatrick’s ’62 MGB 1920 all dicing for the lead throughout. Kilpatrick just got by Shenton with two laps left to claim the win.

Fine competition was also found in HSR’s class for IMSA GT and Trans-Am iron. Connecticut drivers Chris Liebenberg, in an ’85 Roush Mustang, and Steve Cohen, in a Dekon Monza, swapped the point before Liebenberg hit the checkers first for the Group 7 win. Some local chap named Paul Newman, apparently an actor, took a class win in the race, by the way.

Certain patterns established over the weekend were fully manifest on race day. Chip Vance, winner of the Klub Sport Porsche Challenge race on Friday and Saturday’s Group 3 qualifier, beat out Joe Nastassi’s lovely ’69 Alfa Romeo GTV. Vance also placed second in the Group1/3 enduro behind the Lotus 7 of Ken Walker and Walt Bohren.

The truly hot iron at the meet was HSR’s IMSA GTP sports prototypes, and the class of the field by far was Jim Adams in his ’89 Spice GTP, who fairly stomped the competition by a minute in the Rolex Historic Enduro. He also ran away with the ThunderSports Cup and Group 6 qualifying contests on Saturday.

VSCCA’s Pre-War and Sports proved to be the playground of Peter Giddings and Bob Akin. Every time Giddings took to the track in his 1932 Alfa Romeo Monza, spectators and paddock residents alike dropped everything to watch him muscle and power-slide all over the circuit. He proved untouchable in Pre-War competition, as did Akin, in the ’59 Cooper Monaco he’s campaigned in the vintage wars for two decades, in Sports Racing.

Lime Rock’s community noise regulations meant that Sunday was devoted to the eClassics.com Councours in the Park, which attracted nearly 200 historic, pre-1985 automobiles and motorcycles competing in 40 classes. Fourteen Circle of Excellence awards were passed out, with Robert Duquette’s 1974 DeTomaso Pantera taking best in show honors.

Other awards went to Jerry Robinson, 1951 Jaguar Mark V, for best interior; Stu Silverman, 1967 Pontiac GTO, best domestic; David Minkon, 1930 Ford Model A, oldest car; Paul Angelico, 1980 MGB, best unrestored; Marshall LaBou, 1940 Ford, best rod and custom; Richard Bunce Jr., 1949 Willy’s, people’s choice; Gary Frangi, 1966 Austin Healey, best engine; Russell Ewing, 1985 Jaguar, furthest driven;

Robert Snodgrass, 1952 Ariel, best motorcycle; Robert Kelly Seymour, 1947 MGT, best restored; Michael Piera, 1973 Porsche 911, best raced; Andrew Benenson, 1967 Ferrari 330 GT, best import; and Tony Massetti, 1962 MG, best exterior.