Airport authority votes down Pittsburgh Vintage Grand Prix’s hangar party
The Pittsburgh-Butler Regional Airport Authority board of directors recently voted against hosting the Pittsburgh Vintage Grand Prix’s hangar party this summer, but the event’s organizers are still holding out hope to return to the venue.
Stephanie Saracco, interim manager of the Pittsburgh-Butler Regional Airport, said the board heard a presentation from Dan DelBianco, executive director of the Pittsburgh Vintage Grand Prix, earlier this month after the board voted in December against the event’s return.
“We’re hoping to find a solution,” DelBianco said Thursday, Feb. 1, about the Passport to Elegance Hangar Party, which has been held two consecutive years at the airport in Penn Township.
The Pittsburgh Vintage Grand Prix is the nation’s largest vintage street race and the largest vintage race event, spanning 10 days with two race weekends, car shows, parties, parades and motor sport events. The event features races around courses throughout the Pittsburgh area.
The hangar party became a part of the annual festivities in July 2022. The event debuted at the Pittsburgh-Butler Regional Airport on the evening of July 21, 2022, inviting participants in the Grand Prix festivities to hunker down for a night of fun in an airport hangar, where many show off their vehicles made for the land and the air.
The party had been held in a hangar at the airport.
The organizers brought the event back to the same location in 2023.
Saracco said the board voted against hosting the hangar party because of the amount of traffic it brings to the airport.
“It was too much of a disruption for our tenants, our folks who utilize the airport and rent hangars,” Saracco said.
