If any one man personifies historic and vintage racing these days it’s Brian Redman.

Between 1968-’81 ‘Our Brian’ won seventeen World Championship sports car races driving for Porsche and Ferrari, among others. He was also a three-time American Formula 5000 champion in the mid-’70s and this charming, down-to-earth Lancastrian has long enjoyed a second career as one of the most sought-after historic racers. America’s historic racing season reaches its height this weekend with the Monterey Historics at Laguna Seca and Redman will be there driving a Ford GT40, a BMW M1 and a Chevron B16.

Of course, if you’re into vintage and historic cars California’s Monterey Peninsula is the place to be this week. There’s not only a superb range of vintage racing at Laguna Seca but also more than a dozen concours or auctions around the peninsula, including Pebble Beach and Quail Hollow. If you’ve never been, you’ve missed a rare weekend that matches and even exceeds Lord March’s superb Goodwood garden parties.

“The vintage and historic scene is very healthy,” Redman remarked. “There’s a lot of activity almost every weekend across the United States and in Europe too and the bigger events are oversubscribed. And there are so many preparation shops for vintage and historic cars. That’s a pretty healthy and thriving business too.

“Under all the general economic difficulties of recent years the historic scene has done extremely well.  Even in previous recessionary times it’s carried on fairly well. There was a drop in the number of competitors and spectators, but it wasn’t drastic.

“It’s good to see that it’s not only the big events at Laguna Seca, Road America and Watkins Glen that are healthy,” Brian added. “At Laguna Seca they take about 450 cars and they had over 900 applications for entries this year. At the Le Mans Classic last month they had 1100 requests for entries and room for about 450 cars. So it’s very healthy.”

In recent years Redman has been the grand marshal for Elkhart Lake’s well-established July historic weekend. For the first time this year the weekend was sponsored by Hawk brake pads and is known as ‘The Hawk International Challenge at Road America with Brian Redman’.

“Elkhart was very good,” Brian said. “There were twenty-odd Lola T70s, which was the featured car, and a total of 450 entries, which is extremely good, and about 20,000 spectators, which is also very good. It’s about Road America’s most successful event as far as income to the track and it’s a lot of fun as well.”

Redman drove an Alfa-Romeo T33 at this year’s Le Mans Classic. “It wasn’t easy at all,” he remarked, “because quite apart from the fact that it kept raining the track is so different since I last raced there in ‘89. It’s hard to believe how different it is. The Dunlop Curves that we used to take pretty well flat-out at 180 mph under the Dunlop bridge and down into the esses is now a second gear corner left and second gear right.

“Then you’ve got those two miserable chicanes on the Mulsanne which are really difficut to judge. The Mulsanne itself is different and the approach to Indianapolis is different and the end of the Porsche Curves is different. There are now two chicanes before the pits instead of one. So it’s all different and we got only three laps of practice on Saturday. But so be it. That’s racing….”

Also last month, Brian drove Dan Gurney’s 1967 Belgian GP-winning Eagle-Weslake V12 up the hill in the rain at Goodwood. The classic Eagle is owned by the Collier Museum in Florida and at Laguna Seca this weekend Redman will drive the Collier Collection’s Ford GT40 as well as a BMW M1 and the Chevron B16 coupe (chassis #1) with which he won the Nürburgring 500Kms in 1969. And at the Goodwood Revival next month Brian will drive an Aston-Martin DBR1 and an AC Cobra.

‘Our Brian’ and his wife Marion and family have lived in Florida for many years. Redman will celebrate his 75th birthday next month but he remains as much a racer as ever. Motor Sport salutes his indefatigable enthusiasm.