Historic Festival 44 Honored Guest recalls the day a state trooper brought a race to a halt at The Park

LAKEVILLE, CONN. (7 September 2026) – Historic Festival 44 roared to life Friday at Lime Rock Park, with nearly 300 vintage race cars filling the paddocks and taking to the track for practice on opening day.

However, some of the best stories Friday weren’t happening on track. They were being told by the people who helped make Lime Rock Park history.

Among the dozen special guests roaming The Park this weekend was one of the most accomplished road racers and Historic Festival 44 Honored Guest Tommy Kendall, who has spent plenty of time racing around Lime Rock over the course of his career.

His first visit, though, remains one of the strangest, but most memorable for the four-time Trans Am champion.

Kendall came to Lime Rock in 1985 to compete in the Playboy Endurance Series, piloting a Nissan 300ZX. When it started to rain mid-race, Kendall’s team made an early call to switch to wets.

“Back then, you needed a floor jack and everything to change tires, and we lost a couple of laps doing tires,” Kendall recalled during a Tableside Talk with Tommy he hosted for the HF44 competitors. “But we figured we’d make that up by being the first team on rains.”

The strategy might have worked, if not for an unexpected intervention

Kendall came around the track to find the race being red flagged and a Connecticut state trooper standing on the front straightaway stopping the cars.

According to Kendall, the trooper had learned the cars were competing on shaved DOT tires, essentially street tires with very little tread, and determined racing on them in the rain wasn’t safe.

“The trooper said, ‘You’ve got to stop the race. It’s raining,'” Kendall laughed. “He was told by the flagger, ‘No, it’s part of the deal. They stop when they want. They take the chances.’ But he didn’t take that for an answer and said, ‘Nope. That’s not safe. This is DOT control.’ So he went out there, hand on his gun and stopped everyone.”

It made for a great story 41 years later, but at the time, Kendall wasn’t nearly as amused.

Since his team had already stopped for rain tires, Kendall was two laps down when the red flag came out. Typically, teams wouldn’t have been permitted to change tires during the stoppage, but officials allowed the rest of the field to make the switch before racing resumed.

“It sounds funny, but it screwed us,” Kendall said. “We made up one of the laps, but that was the end of the story.”

Kendall went on to become one of the most successful drivers in Trans Am history, but in all the races and all the years that followed, he never experienced anything quite like his first trip to Lime Rock Park.

“I never had a race since then that was stopped by a police officer with his hand on his gun overriding the flagman,” he chuckled.

Four decades later, Kendall is back at Lime Rock Park as an Honored Guest for the largest Historic Festival in modern history.

In addition to attending Thursday’s Parade and hosting the Tableside Talk, Kendall spent the day getting reunited with some machines with fond memories, like his all-conquering All-Sport Mustang that is on display in the Coca-Cola Fan Zone with 3 Dog Garage.

Kendall also managed to take over Lime Rock Park’s social media ahead of participating in Friday night’s panel along with Trans Am champions Dorsey Schroeder and David Hobbs, moderated by Mike Joy as part of the Competitors Dinner presented by HUB International.

Historic Festival 44 continues through Monday with three days of racing, Sunday in The Park presented by HUB International, special displays from Revs Institute, Alfa Romeo, ARCA and Formula Junior, book signings and autograph sessions, guest appearances and hundreds of significant cars spanning generations of motorsport history.

Tickets are still available at the gate or online at www.limerock.com.