HRC Restored This Sebring Winner and Will Help You Get It on Track
tags:- Honda Racing Corporation (HRC) announced a new program that restores and sells championship-winning cars from Honda and Acura’s racing history.
- The program’s first car for sale is the Andretti Green Racing No. 26 AGR Acura ARX-01a, which won its debut race at the 12 Hours of Sebring in 2007.
- The ARX-01a is currently for sale and will be displayed this Friday, August 14, at the Quail during Monterey Car Week.
Seeing a race car take the checkered flag through a television is exciting; watching it in person is way more fun. Objectively better than either one, however, would be taking the winning car home and getting behind the wheel.
While most of us will have to stick to watching our favorite race cars cross the finish line from our couches, Honda Racing Corporation’s new Heritage Racing Program gives enthusiasts the chance to buy track-ready historic champion race cars and put them back in the paddock.
The first to get this celebrity pampering under the heritage program is a Sebring winner. The Andretti Green Racing No. 26 AGR Acura ARX-01a won the LMP2 class during its debut race at the 12 Hours of Sebring in 2007. Racing legends Dario Franchitti, Bryan Herta, and Tony Kanaan piloted the endurance car to victory.
Franchitti says the car “made you feel like a hero, it made you feel like the best driver in the world,” in a video released by HRC. Now, people won’t have to be a legendary driver to experience the thrill of the champion endurance car—they’ll just need to have enough money to buy it.
HRC wants these historic cars to race again. Rather than selling the car with the original, worn parts, the restoration team completely rebuilds the engine and modernizes electronics. The cars end up as close to brand new as they can get, and the team uses original documents, notes, and photos to get them nearly identical to how they worked when they first crossed the finish line. The only deviation from the original formula lies in the electronics and safety features, which are updated to meet modern track and safety requirements.
While the official Heritage Racing Program is new, HRC is well-versed in restoring race cars and putting them back on track. It recently restored several endurance cars that will drive this weekend at the Monterey Motorsports Reunion at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca, including the 2019 Acura Team Penske ARX-05 IMSA champion and the 2010 ARX-01c Le Mans LMP2 class winner. These restorations are what originally inspired the Heritage Racing Program.
Each car that’s restored through the program, including the ARX-01a, gets thoroughly track tested by HRC’s engineers. Once a car is sold, the engineers remain available for track support and competition assistance when the new owners get behind the wheel and hunt for a checkered flag of their own.
The ARX-01a is currently for sale and will be displayed at the Quail on August 14 during Monterey Car Week. It’s riding into the weekend with more than 20 Honda and Acura champion cars from Formula 1, IndyCar, IMSA, SCCA, Baja, MotoGP, Dakar, and the Isle of Man, among others, which will be displayed at various places throughout the weekend. A price for the ARX-01a hasn’t been released, but this kind of exclusivity and historic value will surely pick up quite a tab.
Alayna Wilkening grew up reading motorsport magazines and following her grandpa around his Chevrolet dealership's showroom floor. In true Hoosier fashion, her first car was a hot pink custom cardboard "Fiero-vette" for her kindergarten Kindy 500 race. She now autocrosses a 1994 Miata with her dad, which she learned to drive the night before her first event. Alayna went to Indiana University and graduated with a degree in journalism and a minor in graphic design. As a testament to her great taste in cars, her first real one was a metallic orange 2007 Chevy HHR, which she lovingly called "The Dumptruck."