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Carroll Shelby's 85th birthday was celebrated on Friday January 11, 2008 in Las Vega, Nevada. Ford Motor Company and Shelby Automotive sponsored a birthday bash at the Shelby Automotive and Las Vegas Motor Speedway facilities. I was fortunate enough to be invited and with the following pictures and commentary I'll try to convey the atmosphere over the two days that the event was held.

Friday Night at the Shelby facilities....

To enter the facility, you walked right through the Shelby mini museum at the manufacturing and assembly building. For those of you that know me, the yellow Mustang in the foreground will bring back memories of my attempt at a Jerry Titus tribute car. The immediate area was packed with original race cars and race memorabilia both historic and current generation.

  
The Super Snake....

This car's début was at the Shelby convention in Salt Lake City, Utah in 2007. It's easy to get one. First you find and buy a Shelby GT 500. Then you send it off to Shelby Automotive for a while. They turn it into a Super Snake for some large amount of money and then you get back a 700 horsepower non-street legal super car. Piece of cake.

  
A large, make that very large, climate controlled tent ( it was below 30 degrees at night ) was set up in the parking lot behind the assembly building and was furnished for the birthday event complete with multi-media systems and a stage. There were a couple of ice sculptures that I thought were interesting. The first one, with the Ford logo, was a serving bar for drinks. It was set up at the entrance to the tent. The second was the very recognizable cobra snake logo. That sculpture was at the head of the buffet line. Many compliments on the ice work.  
 
Mr. McDreamy, Patrick Dempsey was in attendance. I was able to speak to him briefly. He was besieged by many, many people and I admire his patience. On the other end of the notoriety scale is this group. That's Doug Munday on the far left and Karen Salvaggio on my right and Dave Cook on my left. I'd say we were partners in crime but since Dave is a cop I don't think that would be appropriate.
 
Ah the money shot. With some effort I managed to get through the mayhem and spend ten seconds with Carroll to get this picture. Carroll was the man of the hour and had the entire facility looking for a few minutes of his time. And because he was so busy I never got the chance to pitch that idea I have about the water powered high performance car. Duh....  
 
Above:  If you look closely at the picture you'll notice that not only is the wall section signed by a bazillion people but the room behind the wall is as well. My son Andy, Karen Salvaggio and I managed to find a couple of square inches behind a fire extinguisher in the room behind this wall to sign our names as well.

Above Right:  I'm standing on the red carpet in the assembly building. That's a Ford GT in the immediate background. It was brought in by Ford for the Saturday track event and may be in for some upgrades I think. Behind that is the Shelby GT assembly area. One person, one lift and one work area per car. Definitely a hands on job.
Right:  This was the hit of the evening. Ford Motor Company gave Carroll the first production GT 500 KR as a birthday present. They fired up the car outside the tent and drove it in. Everybody went nuts.

Below:  After the car was presented to Carroll and the appropriate speeches and accolades were dispensed, the car was brought back into the assembly area and put on display. The ghost stripes look really cool.

  
 
Right:  The fender and grille badges are simple and understated.  
Saturday morning at the track.......

The Las Vegas Motor Speedway is an incredible facility. The pictures below were taken in one of the many garages. The place is immaculate. Floors are painted, there are power plugs hanging from the ceiling, the buildings are air conditioned and the garage doors are insulated. A couple of the Cobra prototypes were on hand to inspect. The coupe with the chrome finish never left the garage. The roadster prototype however, spent some time on track including an embarrassing moment when it ran out of fuel without completing one lap.
 
 
There was a track event on Saturday on the road course that's in the infield. It's a 1.2 mile, 10 turn flat course that turned out to be a ball to drive. The left hand picture above is of the driver's meeting and ground school. Jeff Lacina is lead instructor and managed to ride herd on the 20+ people like me in the instructor corps and 70+ students as well. 60 of the 70+ drivers had never driven on track before. There were many instructing challenges but as many rewards when your student got "it" and really started to drive the course the correct way. My compliments to all that attended.
 
 
Above:  There we many Hertz rentals in attendance. Do you think the counter people at Hertz had any idea what was going on?

Right:  The new Shelby GT/SC. That's right, it's super charged. I didn't get a chance to drive this one but I did drive the non-super charged version. The non-super charged model was fast and well balanced, I can only imagine what the performance of the SC version is.

  

Ford and Shelby Automotive graciously provided a corral of high performance Mustangs for the instructors to drive. They left them in the paddock area with the keys in the ignitions and told us to "drive em". Payment for the privilege was simple, just take a passenger for a ride. You might get a Ford executive or a family member of a participant. You might even get one of the Shelby or Tasca family members that were in attendance.

I'm glad I was on the A list of instructors. This, in my humble opinion, was a historic event. To all the organizers, my thanks. To all the participants, great job. To Ford Motor Company and Shelby Automotive I say don't stop doing what you're doing. The dream isn't merely alive anymore, it's immortal.
Happy Birthday Carroll and may there be many more..........
Author:  Joe Quaranto, long time Ford Mustang owner and Shelby enthusiast......