Florida Anglo – French Car Meet at Classic24 Report

by Chad Rogers…..

Our meet at the Classic24 at Daytona International Speedway on November 4 – 8, 2020 turned-out very well.  Fortunately it is a wide-open, very-large venue, so we could practice plenty of social distancing but still enjoy our cars! It was attended by 4 -2CV’s, 10 Citroën owners and -almost- by one SM, except for last-minute technical issues. 

The weather was excellent.  My family were there all 4 days, the Citroën Folks came-in just for Saturday, November 7.  I suspect there were more photos of the 4 2CV’s parked together than any other group of cars, including several multi-million-dollar race cars and gaggles of Porches. 

Patty Schwarze (longtime Citroënvie Member) came over in her well-traveled 425 and had a friend drive her 2CV6.  She was the life of the party with pictures and stories from her many Citroën travels as well as stories about Andre & Yvette Garnier, our Citroën mentor.

Over 150 Historic race-cars ran over the weekend and garages were fully-open for tour, examination, photos and talk with the race car owners & drivers.  The race cars included several Ligier, Oreca and Peugeot.  Our Citroën Group took a walking tour of the garage on arrival.  

At 11:30, we gathered for 3 Parade Laps of the famous Daytona road course.  4 2CV’s swiftly lapping (and severely leaning) behind the Pace Car gathered instant attention from the crowd gathered around the track with waves & cheering.  The jokes about being slow were silenced.  The Pace Driver was very surprised by our ability to stay close to his pace. 

One special surprise: we were joined by Mr. Jim Downing, known in racing circles as “Mr. Mazda” who owns 2- 2CV’s.  Jim is a very famous Mazda Rotary race-car driver and builder.  He is best known as the co-inventor of the Hans Device, (the original racing head restraint), which has saved may race-driver lives.  He was scheduled to drive less than 1 hour later in the 24-Hour race and still took time to ride shot-gun (passenger seat) with John Dishman in his recently acquired Charleston with houndstooth seats.  

That was followed by a group lunch of traditional Beef Bourguignon and French wine at our track-side campsite.