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Forget the 24 hours of LeMans or the sizzling speed at Watkins Glen, N.Y. Road racing is taking on an urban look this weekend.

"There is nothing equal to the fun and excitement of Schenley Park," says Scott Hughes, a driver from South Carolina. "It is just such a wonderful event."

He is talking about the Pittsburgh Vintage Grand Prix, a collection of races in categories and engine sizes that sends classic cars speeding around a tree-lined course through the city park in Oakland.

The event, moving into its 28th year, also is the home for a show of about 2,000 classic vehicles and a fundraiser for two Pittsburgh charities.

While the days at the races are free, the grand prix has grown to include other motorsports and social events to benefit the Autism Society of Pittsburgh and the Allegheny Valley School in Robinson, a site that helps the developmentally challenged.

"There is just no event like Pittsburgh," says Hughes, who first raced here in 1998 and has developed a fondness and respect for the event. "Most times, we are on courses like Watkins Glen. To have something like this with the crowds and the city of Pittsburgh behind it ... well, that's just great."

Every year, the Vintage Grand Prix becomes the big weekend for area auto addicts. From the big-nosed Bugatti to the macho Maserati to the fiery Ferrari, the show provides cars for all sorts of fans.

The event is sanctioned by the Vintage Sports Car Club of America and, this year, will have racing in seven categories plus an exhibition race for the featured car of the year, the BMW.

"If you like cars, there is something you will like at the Vintage Grand Prix," says Eric Zagrocki, event coordinator.

This year, area BMW dealers have joined the Allegheny chapter of the BMW Car Club of America to land the position of marque, or featured car, for the event.

Zagrocki says that creates the opportunity to examine "all things BMW" at the marque hospitality tent, which will feature luncheons and speakers both days.

There will be about 275 Beemers present at the show and on the course. They will range from 1937 models to the present, Zagrocki says, with seven of them from pre-World War II. One of them will be a vintage '38 roadster that has earned a special place in the event.

"That car is a work of art," says Burton Morris, the Pittsburgh native artist who featured the car on the grand prix poster he created.

Morris, who splits his time between living here and in Los Angeles, has developed a pop-art style, which he has given to the Vintage Grand Prix poster. Racing below Morris' image of the city skyline is his version of the '38 roadster.

"It is a great car," he says. "It is one of the perfect cars."

Morris is more than a little familiar with the Vintage Grand Prix. He started at Carnegie Mellon University, with its campus butting the racecourse in Schenley Park, in 1986, just three years after the event began. He has seen it grow along with its overall popularity, and even has been caught up in the car game himself.

He has become a BMW fan, has three of them right now and admits "I haven't driven anything but a BMW in the past 10 years."

That makes him happy to do BMW-related art as well as being a part of the whole BMW-busy weekend.

Hughes is a BMW man, too. He owns 17 of them, becoming hooked on the machine when he bought his first in 1970. That is also when he became a member of the BMW Car Club of America and led to his founding the BMW Driving Club and BMW Racing Program.

He will be driving a '74 BMW CSL, a car that won in its class at LeMans and is one of only 16 remaining on the circuit, he says.

Hughes talks with great enthusiasm about driving through the verdant nature of the park on a course lined with fans. It is a distinct style of driving far removed from track racing.

He likes racing on tracks, though, and says planners of the Vintage Grand Prix lifted the event a notch by including days of racing and driving earlier in the week at the Motorsports Complex in Beaver County.

He has been racing for 25 years, being led into the sport by the desire a fast car breeds.

"I started looking for a legal way you could have some fun with it," he says.

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