November 1, 2024: Hey folks, please hop on over to this page about Arnold’s Bugeye racer that we are working to restore. Chip in if you can!
Welcome to the web site for this 1959 Austin Healey Sprite race car, and its current driver, Loren.
About:
This 1959 Austin Healey Mark 1 “Bugeye” Sprite was completed as an SCCA H Production race car by Jason Len, in California in the early 1970s. I’m very happy to add that Jason finished the car in 1976 and he sent me this photo, which was taken right before he took it for a first test drive.
In 1979 Jason sold it to my future father-in-law, Sam Hamilton. Sam campaigned the car primarily in the upper Midwest from 1980 to 1985, at which point it was parked (after hitting a wall at Mid Ohio) in his shop in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Sam Hamilton racing to 2nd place at Lime Rock in 1981.
In 2017, after years of attending the Pacific Northwest Historics as a spectator and participant in the fun lunchtime “parade laps”, and many races in the go karts at the Pacific GP track adjacent to Pacific Raceways, I asked Sam about getting his old race car race-ready again.
February 6, 2018: Sam’s long-time buddy and my Sprite mentor John Alexander unburies the car from its place of long rest in Sam’s shop in Ann Arbor.
That started a long, multi-year odyssey that was much harder, more painful, and more expensive than I ever imagined. But on Thursday, June 28, 2022, I drove the car onto the track for its first race in 37 years. At some point I’ll write a full-form version of the saga.
We currently race with SOVREN, the Society of Vintage Racing Enthusiasts, mostly in the Pacific Northwest, and at least one a year, somewhere a bit further away. 2023 saw the car at SCCA’s Thunderhill track in Willows, CA. In 2024 we’ll race we raced in Mission, British Columbia, and at Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin. In 2025 we plan to travel to Monterey, California and race at the famed Laguna-Seca track with CSRG and the Sprite-Midget Challenge.
2025 Race Tentative Race Schedule (not sure we’ll do all of these)
May 2-4: SOVREN Spring Sprints, Kent, WA
June 6-8: Spokane Festival of Speed, Spokane, WA
June 20-22: Laps for Laguna and Sprite-Midget Challenge event with CSRG
July 4-6: SOVREN Northwest Historics, Kent, WA
August 9-10: British Columbia Historics, Mission, BC
September 6-7: SOVREN Columbia River Classic, Portland, OR
September 27-28: SOVREN Fall Finale, Kent, WA
2024 Race Schedule:
April 26-28: Spring Sprints, Pacific Raceways, Kent, WA
June 28-30: Pacific Northwest Historics, Pacific Raceways, Kent, WA
August 10-11: British Columbia Historic Motor Races, Mission, BC
August 31-Sept 1: Columbia River Classic, PIR, Portland, OR
Sept 13-15: VSCDA Historics, Road America, Elkhart Lake, WI (WE WENT!)
September 28-29: Fall Finale, Pacific Raceways, Kent, WA
I enjoy meeting people in the paddock and most of our races include paddock access in the spectator entry fee. Come say ‘hello’, sit in the car (ask first, please), and get a free trading card.
Video:
When possible, we live-stream races from an in-car camera, currently on Twitch, here:
Some fun racing from Group 1, Race 2 of SOVREN Spring Sprints 2024:
Here is the start of the fun “Faux Le Mans” start of the 2023 Thunderhill one-hour enduro race:
And here is some fun racing in the rain from the 2023 SOVREN Fall Finale:
Edited in-car race videos are posted on this YouTube channel. I’ll start live-streaming direct to YouTube as soon as I get the required 50 followers.
We support and race with the West Coast Sprite-Midget Challenge series. More info here.
