Hi Folks,
Well, after fixing my broken differential, I journeyed up to the Manchester,
VT area this weekend past. I caravaned (sp?) up with my friend and differntial
repair help person Jeff Creel (and our SO's.)
Friday was a _perfect_ top-down day, with temps in the mid 70's F, and no
clouds to speak of. The forcast was for possible showers late Friday and during
the weekend, but we proceeded none the less.
Rt. 119 in MA/NH, is a great road for lbc's, and we used that as the primary
route on the way up. It was really beautiful driving along the windy roads
with the lighting from the setting sun. There was no traffic to speak of,
save for a NUT in a Lincoln that sped up every time we tried to pass him.
What a jerk! Once we got to VT, we turned to VT 9, the Molly Stark Trail.
I can't say much about VT 9, it was pretty dark by the time we got there. I
can say that it is a twisty road, and despite the curves and elevation changes,
you can reach some pretty significant if illegal speeds. From there it was on
to VT 100 and to our eventual destination of South Londonderry, VT.
If you ever get to VT, you must take VT100. It follows one or more river
valleys that lay between the north-south mountain ridges of the Green
Moutains. As such, the road undulates and curves in a pleasurable fashion.
It is very fun to drive if there is no traffic. The route is interrupted
every few miles by a quaint NE village or a ski area, so you can't get too
carried away with the driving. But, you can have some fun driving this route.
By the way, VT100 goes from just west of Bennington in a northerly route
to just north of Stowe. So, in essence the road bisects the state of VT.
Saturday morning dawned bright and sunny, much to our gleeful surprise. As
I mentioned, the forcast was for showers. We headed over to Hildene, the
estate of Robert Todd Lincoln, son of the 16th US president. The auto show
takes place on part of the 500+ acres of the Hildene Estate. I'm told that
there were close to 800 cars expected there. As for lbc's there were two or
three applicable classes, and there were some interesting british cars. The
British entries covered Jaguar, Bently, MG, and Triumph marques, with nice
examples of each. The rest of the field covered all sorts of "classic" cars
from all periods: brass era, 20's, 30's, 40's 50's and 60's. No matter what,
all
entries had to be produced prior to 1975. As you can guess, the majority of
the vehicles were US domestic types, and all marques were well represented.
I looked around for George Hayes and Ray Gibbons of SOL fame, and we actually
connected (albeit briefly) in the early afternoon. I was off to the Mt Equinox
hillclimb at that point but I did get to meet them and photograph their cars.
(Ray's Kermit is quite a nice looking Frogeye Sprite, and I might add that
George's MGA is quite nice too.) I'll try to post the pictures on the SOL
archive in the next day or two.
The Hillclimb was sort of cool. There was a really neat looking Lotus 11, an
MGA, MG TC, a couple of Lotus 7's and an Elva and a Cooper formula car of
some sort (early 50's vintage I think.) I took a bunch of video there.
The Saturday reception was kind of interesting, as participants had free range
access to the Hildene grounds. It was nice to check out the flowers and views
and all. The wild flox was in full bloom, and the smell was quite over powering.
Sunday, we headed back to the field on last time. There had been some showers in
the area early Sunday morning, and that seemed to effect the turnout at the
field. I would say that only 75% of the vehicles that were there saturday
were back on Sunday. Then we toured the mansion itself. Quite a nice place.
Drove back to the Boston area on Sunday afternoon at a rather liesurely pace.
Totalled about 500 miles and had no problems. The "new" differential worked
without flaw.
I would recommend this event to anyone in the northeast area as a "should-go"
event. It was a nice departure from the all British events that I usually go
to, and it was quite well done. I had fun.
Bye,
rml
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