A 1960 Saab 93F won the S5 class twice at the 2026 Put-in-Bay Sports Car Races, finishing ahead of two Saab 96 entries in a pair of races held on September 17. For Ken Payne and his green-and-black #60, the result adds another documented chapter to a competition history that already stretches back decades.
According to the official Put-in-Bay results archive, Payne finished fourth overall in Group 3 and first in S5 in both races. He completed 15 laps in Race 1 and 11 in Race 2.
Directly behind him on both occasions was Barry Prosser in the burgundy #30 Saab 96, while Tim Winker completed the first race in his white-and-blue #96 Saab 96 but did not start the second.
It gives the 2026 meeting an unusually clear Saab storyline: three historic Swedish two-strokes competing in the same class, with the oldest of them taking both class victories.
Two Races, the Same Saab at the Front
The first race produced the closest comparison between Payne and Prosser.
Both completed 15 laps, but Payne’s #60 93F was classified fourth overall, one place ahead of Prosser’s #30 Saab 96. Payne therefore won S5 while racing on the same lap as his closest Saab rival rather than simply benefiting from attrition.
The result can be checked directly in the official Race 1 results.
Race 2 widened the gap. Payne completed 11 laps, again finishing fourth overall and first in S5. Prosser completed 10 laps and was once more fifth overall and second in class. Winker did not start.
The corresponding classification is available in the official Race 2 results.
| Driver | Car | Listed displacement | Race 1 | Race 2 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ken Payne #60 | 1960 Saab 93F | 850 cc | 1st S5 / 4th overall / 15 laps | 1st S5 / 4th overall / 11 laps |
| Barry Prosser #30 | Saab 96 | 850 cc | 2nd S5 / 5th overall / 15 laps | 2nd S5 / 5th overall / 10 laps |
| Tim Winker #96 | 1964 Saab 96 | 900 cc | 4th S5 / 7th overall | DNS |
The displacement figures above are those used by the event organizer. They are useful for understanding how the cars were entered and classified, but they should not automatically be interpreted as a complete description of the engines currently installed in the cars.
Vintage competition Saabs can accumulate period modifications, replacement engines, different carburetion and other changes over many seasons. The timing sheets establish the race result; they are not detailed technical inspection records.
Why Prosser’s Model Year Needs a Footnote
There is also a small but important discrepancy in the organizer’s archives concerning Barry Prosser’s #30 Saab 96.
The 2026 Put-in-Bay entry list identifies it as a 1967 Saab 96. Earlier Put-in-Bay entry records have not always been consistent: the same #30 has also appeared in an event entry list as a 1972 Saab 96.
Until the exact identity and history of the car are confirmed with Prosser himself, the safest description is simply Barry Prosser’s #30 Saab 96.
The race result itself is not affected by that discrepancy: Prosser was second in S5 behind Payne in both September 17 races.
Payne’s 93F Already Had a Put-in-Bay Record
The #60 Saab becomes considerably more interesting once the earlier Put-in-Bay records are opened.
When Saab was one of the featured marques at the 2021 Put-in-Bay Road Race Reunion, Tim Winker documented the Saab contingent for the Saab Club of North America’s NINES magazine. His report identifies Payne’s car as a 1960 Saab 93F formerly owned and raced by Randy Cook.
The full period report can still be found in the Saab Club of North America archive.
At that event, Payne’s 93F was reported as running a stock 850 engine borrowed from Bruce Turk together with a Solex two-barrel carburetor from the Saab GT kit. A high-speed misfire affected several sessions, yet Payne still took the S5 first-place trophy.
That makes the 2026 double victory part of an identifiable competition sequence rather than an isolated appearance.
Five years after that documented Put-in-Bay class win, the same driver and 93F combination returned to the island and recorded two more S5 victories on the same day.
The precise 2026 engine specification should not be assumed to be identical to its 2021 configuration without confirmation from Payne. What is firmly established is the continuity of the car, driver and venue.
The Randy Cook Connection Goes Further Back
The car’s association with Randy Cook also connects Payne’s 93F with a much older American Saab racing network.
An archived 1991 issue of NINES covers the activities of the Vintage SAAB Racing Group, whose two-stroke Saabs were being used in Historic Sportscar Racing events at circuits including Sebring and Road Atlanta. Randy Cook and Ken Payne both appear in those contemporary racing reports.
The archive is available through the Vintage Saab Manuals collection.
Cook’s 1960 Saab 93 was among the cars used by the group, while Payne shared driving duties during the period. The later SCNA identification of Payne’s current Put-in-Bay 93F as a former Randy Cook car therefore deserves attention.
Without chassis-number documentation, it would be too aggressive to assign every early race result in the archives directly to today’s #60. But the surviving documentation does establish something more useful: this is a Saab with a genuine connection to the long-running American vintage competition scene, not a road car recently dressed to resemble one.
Barry Prosser Is Another Familiar Put-in-Bay Saab Competitor
Prosser’s #30 is itself a recurring presence at Put-in-Bay.
He competed during the Saab-focused 2021 meeting and has appeared again in later event records. In Winker’s account of the 2021 reunion, Prosser took S5 honors in the Tin Top race and was also responsible for a special “Saabs On The Bay” poster featuring Payne’s green 93F.
That history makes the 2026 order particularly interesting. Payne and Prosser were not two unfamiliar cars unexpectedly placed together by the classification system; they are part of a small group of owners who have repeatedly kept two-stroke Saabs active in American historic racing.
On September 17, the #60 simply had the better result: fourth overall ahead of Prosser’s fifth place in both races.
Tim Winker Returned With a Different Saab
The third Saab in S5 adds another piece to the story because Tim Winker has his own substantial history with early competition Saabs.
Winker previously raced a 1960 Saab 93F whose history stretched back to the 1977 St. Paul Winter Carnival Cup 100-mile race. After restoration, that car appeared at Saab Owners Conventions and at Put-in-Bay.
It was subsequently destroyed in a multi-vehicle highway accident in 2023 while Winker was returning home from the Saab Owners Convention. Winker escaped injury, but the Saab, trailer and tow vehicle were lost. The Saab Club of North America later documented the accident and the racing history of the car in NINES.
The white-and-blue #96 Saab 96 entered at Put-in-Bay in 2026 is therefore another competition car, not the well-known blue 93F lost in that accident.
Winker finished seventh overall and fourth in S5 in Race 1 before not starting Race 2.
Put-in-Bay Gives Small Two-Stroke Saabs Room to Race
Put-in-Bay remains a particularly appropriate venue for cars such as the Saab 93F.
The original sports-car races were held on public roads around South Bass Island during the 1950s, when lightweight European machinery formed an important part of American amateur road racing. The modern Put-in-Bay Sports Car Races preserve that history while moving the competitive sessions to the island’s airport course.
The current event combines actual vintage racing with activities connected to the original road circuit. More importantly, its grids still leave room for smaller-displacement cars that can easily become background decoration at historic meetings dominated by large sports racers and high-powered GT machinery.
That changes the context in which an early Saab is seen.
A 93F at Put-in-Bay is not present merely because it is rare. It still has a class to contest, cars to finish ahead of and a result sheet on which every lap matters.
For enthusiasts interested in the engineering behind Saab’s early competition cars, the result also complements surviving examples such as the Saab 96 Monte Carlo 850 race car, where the two-stroke drivetrain and period competition preparation can be examined in considerably greater detail.
A 66-Year-Old Saab Still Racing for Position
Most discussion of early Saab competition history inevitably returns to factory rallying, Erik Carlsson and victories recorded during the 1950s and 1960s.
The Put-in-Bay result belongs to a different category.
It happened on September 17, 2026.
Payne’s 1960 Saab 93F went through the same contemporary event process as the rest of the field, competed in two races and completed a combined 26 racing laps. It finished fourth overall twice and was the highest-placed Saab in both races.
Prosser’s Saab 96 stayed with it for all 15 laps of the opening race, yet the 93F still crossed the classification one position ahead. Payne then repeated the result in Race 2 and finished one lap ahead of the #30.
That is what makes the result valuable to the Saab archive.
It does not require an anniversary, a recreation or an argument about what a Saab achieved sixty years ago. A surviving 1960 Saab 93F is still being raced, and at Put-in-Bay it was still capable of winning its class.
Two races. Two S5 victories. One day.
Some updates to your story. Barry Prosser’s 96 is a 1967 two-stroke model, definitely not a 1972 V4. My 1964 96 was built for Bill Thew in Oregon and first took to the track.in 2009. Throw retired from racing in 2018, and the car bounced through several owners but only saw one Track Day since then. It came to my garage this past January, so I spent months replacing worn parts, often using pieces salvaged from the wrecked 93F. Unfortunately I only saw one Track session at Put-In-Bay, where the fresh Tom Donney built engine ran poorly. It would not start at all after that session and I missed qualifying and both races. The problem was electrical, but the source wasn’t found until I returned home and we could do further testing. It was the aging MSD Blaster Coil that looks like it got very hot and burned out. A used Bosch Blue Coil from my parts stash was installed and the engine runs again.
There is a very long story about the engine in Ken’s 93F, which was a spare stock short nose 850 that sat on the floor of my garage for over 20 years. Look for it in the next issue of VINTAGE VIEWS.
Nice write up by Tim. It was a pleasure racing with him at PIBRR. While Randy Cook did race this green 93F, it was not the one that Randy and I raced together. That car was a red 93F I helped prepare for randy and co-drove with him many times in the 80’s to early 90’s. As often as not, Randy and I were racing his red 93F against this green one, which at the time was owned by Wendell Francis. Randy’s red 93 now resides in the Lane Motor Museum in Nashville, TN.