VIR - October 1957 President's Cup Announcement
Virginia International Raceway - October 26-27, 1957
Grand Prix Speed Show
President's Cup Race Slated Oct. 27 At VIR
DANVILLE, Va., Sept. 21 (AP) - The President's Cup, inaugurated in 1954 by President Dwight D. Eisenhower and emblematic of the highest challenge in the Sports Car Club of America, will be returned to Competition in National Championship Grand Prix racing at Virginia International Raceway Oct. 27.
This featured award, it was announced by David Allen of SCCA, will be contested in the 2-1/2 hour endurance race which climaxes the six hours of sports car competition over the 3.2-mile road course near here. It will be the first time that the President's Cub has been in competition on a road circuit especially constructed for sports car racing.
This top award was inaugurated by President Eisenhower at the SCCA races at Andrews Air Force Base in Washington, and the 1954 winner was Bill Spear of Southport, Conn., driving a 4.5 Ferrari. President Eisenhower made the presentation at the White House. In 1955 Sherwood Johnston of Greenwich, Conn., drove a D-type Jaguar to victory, but the SCCA withheld the cup from competition in 1956.
Ed Kemm of Greensboro, president of VIR, obtained the year's major SCCA event for the rolling road course which opened during the summer. At the August races Carroll Shelby of Dallas, Tex., driving a new 4.5 Maserati, captured the main event with an average of 78.2 miles per hour, considered by SCCA experts as an amazing time around the 12-curve course on rolling terrain. Shelby will be the favored entry for the President's Cup but all of the nations top drivers are expected to enter.
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