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aeronca65t
Great Pumpkin
Offline
Oct 30, Saturday 4:00 AM
I check the weather just before heading out to Lime Rock. Rain is a 70% bet.
Question: What's worse than driving hard for an hour in a British sports car with no top and no windshield wipers?
Answer: Nothing.
There is a minor spritz, but by the time I get to the Tappan Zee Bridge, the misting has stopped. Fortunately, the weather report turns out to be wrong.
At first, the track was super-greasy. Not sure why, but maybe a combo of early-morning dew and some left-over oil spills. One VW pilot put his car back on the trailer and decided to flag instead. Lots of folks slipped and slid (including me), but things dried up and we had decent grip by around 10 AM.
During practice, my throttle is sticking. I bring the car in, fix the throttle, and forget to re-install the hood pins. Just as the hood starts to lift, I nail the brakes and luckily, I save the windshield. The hood is bend up, but I put on the ground and stomp it back into approximate shape. The flaggers have great sport making fun of me over the radios......if you're going to do something dumb, always do it in front of a crowd. Plus, I had the camcorder running and got it on tape.
Our small-bore race was great with 4 Spridgets in the mix. I end up with 4th out of 7 (in class) but I have an excellent run against another Spridget....we are never more than 5 feet apart for 20 laps. The other two Spridgets are 100 feet ahead of us and almost glued together.The winning car in small-bore is the #23 Mk II Sprite that I will be co-driving in a 4-hour at Summit Point WV, in 3 weeks. Cool.
Later on, several other, faster small bore cars enter the one hour enduro with me, but they fade and I end up with a first in class. Through the magic of attrition, The Turtle beats the Hare. A "Craftsman/NASCAR" truck wins overall, running 63 second laps (fast!).
This is Lime Rock, with very strict sound limits (83 dB) and everyone has cobbled up various goofy muffler systems. Some of the formula car mufflers look ridiculous...several falling off during races.
A new MINI snaps an aftermarket wheel during hard cornering...the entire wheel fails as he pulls into the pits (the spokes separate from the rim). Our Cortina fades with electrical gremlins (no surprise there). A FIAT starts blowing oil (again, no surprise). A neat, vintage ALFA sedan rockets around, propelled by a modern 2 liter ALFA engine. A new, race-prepared RX-8 shoots amazing flames from the exhaust during braking. As I follow him, I worry about my grill-mounted transponder being fried. A pretty, gull-winged DSR racer with a bike engine proves that small engines can be fast.
This is a tight, bumpy track and racing is a bit rough at times (especially with Spec-Miatas). At the end, Lime Rock manages to trash a Nissan Z-car, a Honda, a VW Golf and a Spec-Miata (the Miata does a spectacular 3X endo in front of me, causing part of the roll bar to actually fail). No human damage, thank goodness. Lots of other cars have "love taps". I survive untouched, somehow.
It turned out to be an excellent day, with mild weather and spectacular red/yellow Fall leaves. After suds and trophies, most of us eat at the excellent Four Brothers Restaurant for food and more bench-racing. A great day.
Lime Rock crash pix here:
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v170/aeronca65t/Lime_Rock_04/crash_collage.jpg
I check the weather just before heading out to Lime Rock. Rain is a 70% bet.
Question: What's worse than driving hard for an hour in a British sports car with no top and no windshield wipers?
Answer: Nothing.
There is a minor spritz, but by the time I get to the Tappan Zee Bridge, the misting has stopped. Fortunately, the weather report turns out to be wrong.
At first, the track was super-greasy. Not sure why, but maybe a combo of early-morning dew and some left-over oil spills. One VW pilot put his car back on the trailer and decided to flag instead. Lots of folks slipped and slid (including me), but things dried up and we had decent grip by around 10 AM.
During practice, my throttle is sticking. I bring the car in, fix the throttle, and forget to re-install the hood pins. Just as the hood starts to lift, I nail the brakes and luckily, I save the windshield. The hood is bend up, but I put on the ground and stomp it back into approximate shape. The flaggers have great sport making fun of me over the radios......if you're going to do something dumb, always do it in front of a crowd. Plus, I had the camcorder running and got it on tape.
Our small-bore race was great with 4 Spridgets in the mix. I end up with 4th out of 7 (in class) but I have an excellent run against another Spridget....we are never more than 5 feet apart for 20 laps. The other two Spridgets are 100 feet ahead of us and almost glued together.The winning car in small-bore is the #23 Mk II Sprite that I will be co-driving in a 4-hour at Summit Point WV, in 3 weeks. Cool.
Later on, several other, faster small bore cars enter the one hour enduro with me, but they fade and I end up with a first in class. Through the magic of attrition, The Turtle beats the Hare. A "Craftsman/NASCAR" truck wins overall, running 63 second laps (fast!).
This is Lime Rock, with very strict sound limits (83 dB) and everyone has cobbled up various goofy muffler systems. Some of the formula car mufflers look ridiculous...several falling off during races.
A new MINI snaps an aftermarket wheel during hard cornering...the entire wheel fails as he pulls into the pits (the spokes separate from the rim). Our Cortina fades with electrical gremlins (no surprise there). A FIAT starts blowing oil (again, no surprise). A neat, vintage ALFA sedan rockets around, propelled by a modern 2 liter ALFA engine. A new, race-prepared RX-8 shoots amazing flames from the exhaust during braking. As I follow him, I worry about my grill-mounted transponder being fried. A pretty, gull-winged DSR racer with a bike engine proves that small engines can be fast.
This is a tight, bumpy track and racing is a bit rough at times (especially with Spec-Miatas). At the end, Lime Rock manages to trash a Nissan Z-car, a Honda, a VW Golf and a Spec-Miata (the Miata does a spectacular 3X endo in front of me, causing part of the roll bar to actually fail). No human damage, thank goodness. Lots of other cars have "love taps". I survive untouched, somehow.
It turned out to be an excellent day, with mild weather and spectacular red/yellow Fall leaves. After suds and trophies, most of us eat at the excellent Four Brothers Restaurant for food and more bench-racing. A great day.
Lime Rock crash pix here:
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v170/aeronca65t/Lime_Rock_04/crash_collage.jpg
