By Ed Higginbotham
Is he going to wear those same glasses so we can recognize him?
Both the Nissan and Datsun marques will be featured at this spring’s Speedfest at the Classic Motorsports Mitty. The world-class historic race weekend returns to Road Atlanta April 27-29 with an event grand marshal who is closely tied to both brands: John Morton.
Although Morton’s career as a race car driver spanned more than four decades, he is best remembered for the 1970-’72 seasons, when he drove a Datsun 510 to a pair of small-bore SCCA Trans-Am titles while also claiming two C Production championships in the brand’s 240Z. Both cars were campaigned by Brock Racing Enterprises and wore the BRE team’s iconic red, white and blue colors–including those now legendary diagonal door stripes. Some 15 years later, Morton was a key team member of Nissan’s IMSA-dominating GTP ZX-Turbo program.
Nissan North America will celebrate their featured marque status by having several cars from their heritage collection in attendance. Among them: Morton’s winning Datsun 510.
Morton also drove for Shelby American before he joined the Datsun squad. He recently authored a book about those days, and will be signing copies throughout the Mitty weekend in the Classic Motorsports tent.
Now a member of multiple motorsports halls of fame, Morton is a regular on the vintage race circuit today. In addition to numerous appearances at the Monterey Motorsports Reunion, he has competed many times with HSR, the Mitty weekend’s sanctioning body.
Speedfest at the Classic Motorsports Mitty Presented by Hagerty is a gathering for anyone who likes sports cars. In addition to the HSR racing, the weekend features club corrals, the Grassroots Motorsports Skidpad Challenge Presented by Lucas Oil and Powered by Gridlife, and the world-famous Concours d’Lemons, a celebration of the unloved and ignored.
This event could not happen without the support of our partners: Hagerty, BFGoodrich, Nissan, Covercraft, G-Force, Koni, Lucas Oil, BBS, Elan Motorsports Technologies and Flyin’ Miata.
Is he going to wear those same glasses so we can recognize him?
That picture... is that Bryar? 1971? My pictures from '72 show a couple minor differences, the outer wall on the last turn was white rather than the darker look in your picture. And in '72 there was a little driver air vent on the 510
Stu
spitfirebill said:Is he going to wear those same glasses so we can recognize him?
Sadly he wears different glasses now.
stu67tiger said:That picture... is that Bryar? 1971? My pictures from '72 show a couple minor differences, the outer wall on the last turn was white rather than the darker look in your picture. And in '72 there was a little driver air vent on the 510
Stu
That's a photo that we got from the PR department at Nissan, and judging by the file name, yeah, it could be from 1971.
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