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Marshall Pruett | December 25, 2018 7:00 AM Bring some of racing’s biggest names out of retirement from Indy car, sports cars, NASCAR, and even the NHRA, wedge them into 12 of Jaguar’s brand-new, ultra-rare $1.3 million road racing XJ220C supercars, then drop the aging heroes onto the claustrophobic 0.686-mile Indianapolis Raceway Park oval and eventually its ‘roval’ as part of the first made-for-TV racing series for 50-and-older icons.What could go wrong?
Image courtesy Tony Dowe
Back in the summer of 1993, the gorgeous XJ220Cs, built in England by Tom Walkinshaw Racing, were bashed and battered for our amusement like demolition derby cars at the county fair. The six-week special airing on ESPN, modeled off the cable channel’s Thursday Night Thunder concept, delivered five weeks of heat races to whittle down the grid for Fast Masters’ grand finale. Quickly dubbed the ‘Crash Masters,’ it received the most accurate nickname in the sport.The open-wheelers and a few of the sports car legends feasted on their fellow luminaries with the 550hp twin-turbo V6-powered beasts. Moments into the very first broadcast (
and moments after the shot below), beloved Indy 500 driver Jim McElreath and stock car great Dick Trickle tangled coming off Turn 4, rocketing the two onto pit lane. Trickle then hit and obliterated victory lane, prompting Fast Masters’ first caution period. It would be the first of many.
Across the numerous practice sessions and knockout-style heat races, all of the Jags were introduced to IRP’s walls. If the drivers weren’t crashing on their own, multi-car pileups were almost guaranteed when the green flag waved. An adjustment was soon made for the practices; fearing a shortage of functional cars to put in front of the cameras, two spare cars were rolled out as sacrificial lambs for the masters to learn the circuit and, inevitably, return dangling various bits and pieces from the cars’ extremities.TWR’s mechanics, based out of the same Valparaiso, Indiana shop where its fearsome IMSA GTP Jaguars were prepped, grew so tired of trailering the second-hand XJ220Cs to the crosstown auto body shop for repairs, they took to strapping in and driving the mangled race cars to and from the facility on public roads.The same TWR crew, coming off a magic year of running the all-time great 1992 Jaguar XJR-14 GTP machine, attempted mutiny after the first Fast Masters event. Little did they know their pains were nearly avoided when the series’ creator came close to striking a deal with budget supercar manufacturer Consulier before it went sideways and Jaguar entered the frame.
Image courtesy Terry Lingner