The SVRA national championships, held at Circuit of The Americas since 2013, have been as much a nice year-end celebration of the organization’s impressive accomplishments during the season as they are about crowning America’s top vintage drivers with sponsor Bell Helmet’s gold-colored helmet trophy. One of the advances that makes Tony Parella, the SVRA’s ebullient CEO, beam his brightest smile is the growing list of cars on his Gold Medallion certification program – an elite designation reserved for the most authentic and historic cars in SVRA events.

“The Gold Medallion program is another opportunity for our car owners to excel,” Parella explains. “We want to recognize people who achieve excellence. There is a difference between vintage cars and historic cars. The Gold Medallion cars are authentically restored and that is part of telling the story of their historic significance.”

SVRA Gold Medallion classes are wholly different than the standard SVRA groups of vintage machines. This is one of the distinctions between cars that are of a certain vintage versus truly historic machines with records of accomplishment and faithful restoration. The SVRA has extensive regulations and application forms for the certification on their Web site and, for starters, the process requires membership as the first and most basic step for consideration.

Thor Johnson of Kirkland, Washington, has an exquisite Gold Medallion example entered this weekend – his rare 1959 Lotus 17 with a sleek fiberglass body in classic British racing green and yellow trim. Johnson’s gem is a Group 4 entry as was another Gold Medallion racer, the 1962 Devin MG TD of Suzy Patterson, which was forced to retire with engine damage on Thursday.

Best estimates set the worldwide number of Lotus 17s still in existence at about a dozen, of which, according to Johnson, there might be only three in America. The car was the result of a reportedly testy collaboration between designer Len Terry and Lotus boss Colin Chapman as the two debated the apparent Achilles’ heel of the machine, a front suspension that flexed under high loads. The issue was not addressed in a meaningful way until the close of the 1959 season – the only one where it served as a works entry.

The Lotus 17 was a response to the introduction of designer Eric Broadley’s Lola Mk1 that had displaced the Lotus Eleven as the most successful customer sports racer in its class for 1958. A Coventry-Climax engine powered the car, and one is in Johnson’s Lotus today. Team Lotus’ struggles with their new sports racer compelled them to take a fundamental engineering departure in direction for 1960. They introduced their first rear-engine design, the Lotus 19. That gave its predecessor further additional historical significance as Lotus’ last front-engine sports racer.

Thor Johnson reports that his Lotus 17 can be a handful to drive, but, again, that’s not really the point in Gold Medallion. The car needs to be everything it was. Still, Johnson is understandably a man of competitive spirit. Interestingly, the battles between his car and Lola Mk1 racers still rage on today. As a point of interest, Dale Bloomquist in a 1960 Lola Mk1 is another entry in this weekend’s 14-car Group 4 field.

“From my experience, the Lotus and Lola are pretty evenly matched so it can make for some spirited dicing,” Johnson says. “I really think the difference on the track boils down to driver experience and skill, which makes it fun. You win some, you lose some.”

Johnson underscores that his Lotus 17 is authentic right down to period-spec tires, and that’s another element of the driving challenge. The rubber is hard and has nothing in common with current tire technology.

“The tires have no grip. They’re durable, and that has its advantages with expense, but make no mistake, you work the wheel,” Johnson says. “And it can be fun to drive because you’re really sliding around. Keep in mind, too, we’re talking about narrow tires. The width in the front is four and a half inches. The back is five inches.”

Johnson estimates his 975-pound, 125hp sports racer can hit 140mph. While he adheres to the “nine-tenths” ethic of vintage racing, he still likes to win. He still likes to go fast, despite putting such a rare and valuable machine in harm’s way. It’s all part of being an SVRA racer.