Yahoo Autos Meet The Short-Lived Racing Series That Destroyed Millions Of Dollars Of Jaguar XJ220s
Imagine a racing series that pitted your favorite retired drivers against one another on a tiny circuit behind the wheel of expensive, identically-prepared $1.3 million Jaguar XJ220 supercars. Imagine that you could tune in for a few weeks in the summer to watch those icons of sport beat, bang and destroy millions of dollars in equipment for a grand prize of $100,000. In 1993, that series actually existed, and it was called Fast Masters.
Fast Masters was essentially a made-for-TV racing product that lasted for six weeks in the summer of 1993. All six events took place at the same venue, the 0.686-mile Indianapolis Raceway Park roval, and all of the cars involved were Havoline-sponsored Tom Walkinshaw Racing-prepared Jaguar XJ220s that raced on high-performance Bridgestone Tires. To make things even wilder, the series was limited to drivers who were 50 or older, and the field on any given Saturday night could feature icons from IndyCar, Formula 1, NASCAR, or endurance racing — men like Paul Newman, Derek Bell, Henri Pescarolo, Rodger Ward, Parnelli Jones, and Bobby Unser.
Terry Lingner, one of the show’s producers, told Marshall Pruett that the primary goal for Fast Masters was to create compelling television over at ESPN.
“I was struck by the idea that the Bobby Allisons and the Pettys and the Pearsons of the world could still haul the mail,” he said. “And the idea that maybe [with] a stock car, you could do like seniors’ golf. Why not have a Saturday race for guys over 45?”
But you can’t just have a single race. Lingner initially considered a 10-race package but narrowed the number to something that could more easily captivate viewers and bring some locals out to the track. Next, all they needed were some cars.
I’ll let Tony Dowe, former Tom Walkinshaw Racing USA boss, explain that one:
Jaguar were pulling out of racing in North America, and there was still one year of a contract to go, and Tom [Walkinshaw] had gone to New York to meet with [Jaguar executives] Mike Dale and Bob Burton and so on, and he came onto me. He said, “Well, they’ll go another year. However, what they want is they want to be in the series with more relevancy to the product, and they also, it needs to have international appeal with drivers, and it needs to be on TV. Live TV. What can you do?”
Lingner, at the time, was considering a midget car racing series, but he couldn’t convince those senior drivers to get behind the wheel of something that was essentially a bare chassis with some wings tacked on. Dowe recalled telling Lingner, “Look, you know, mate. If you’ve got XJ220s, a supercar with all these drivers in, and Jaguar is helping and we put up a big prize fund, that’s got to be better than what you’re looking at with this midget car thing.”
