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NJMP-Thunderbolt Historics-Lots of Brit-cars

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Oh Man...too bad about the rain. Our 3-day event had perfect weather.

The cars were awesome and planes even more so.

There was a flock of "L-birds" that flew for a while with L-4 Cubs, a Stinson and even an L-3 Aeronca (like mine).
The guys in the P-40 and the P-51 were amazing. That PBY Catalina was gorgeous.

This race track has two circuits. One is called "Thunderbolt" in honor of the WW II P-47 T-bolt pilots that were trained on this site (they accidentally dug up a WW II napalm bomb while building the track). There are nine P-47 "Jugs" still flying in the world and they had four of them here, flying in close formation. Glorious!

At one point, I was barreling into a turn with two MGAs when I was suddenly covered by a giant shadow. Weird?!? For a moment, I got confused and started to brake....then I looked up and saw the Catalina doing a low flyover above me.

~Click Here For Pictures and Videos~

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Great pictures!

I even saw some Healeys in there........nice. Looked like a very well attended event with a range of cars. The fly overs must have provided a wonderful show as well.

Dougie
 
Nial,

Bummer to hear about your transmission.

What kind of lap times were the fast B's turning? It looks like Craig Chima was there as well (silver Super 7), perfect car for that track. I bet he was in the 1.16-17 range.
 
No big deal about the trans.
Since it's "dropping into" reverse sort of randomly (while still engaged in the indirect gears), I'm just gonna just pull the reverse gearset out for the rest of the year. :laugh:

It only has to make it through The Glen VRG event this year and then, for 2009, the 1500 comes out and my 1275 (with ribcage trans) goes in.

Not sure what fast laps most guys were turning since I was just hoping to make it through the day. Someone said I turned a 1:28 which is pretty pathetic....but then, chugging uphill out of the left hander at under 3000 doesn't make for speedy laps. :thumbsup:

I know that a really good Spec Miata can run 1:18.
Most SMs and ITB / ITC cars seem to be running in the low 1:20s.
The better formula cars can make it in 1:05.
My guess is a decent vintage-spec MGB would make close to a Spec Miata.

By the way, here's a list of the planes we saw (some had "names"):

P-47 Thunderbolts (4)
"No Guts, No Glory", "Wicked Wabbit", "Hun Hunter XVI", "Jacky's Revenge"
B-25 Mitchell (3)
"Take-Off Time", "Briefing Time", "Panchito"
TBM-3 Avenger (George H. W. Bush flew one of these in WW II).
FG-1D Corsair
"Marine’s Dream"
P-51D Mustang
"Bald Eagle"
P-40M Warhawk
"The Jacky C II"
SNJ-6 Texan
PBY-5A Catalina
Supermarine Spitfire Mk.IX
U.S. Coast Guard Grumman J4F Widgeon Amphibian
 
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