Hi,
Well, I've been sorting through _hundreds_ of e-mail messages and trying to get
back up to speed after the trip to Ashville. I just thought that I'd fire off a
brief write-up of the time that I had there.
First of all, all Y'all shoulda been there (did I get it right Don Mathis?)
Despite my largest fears, the weather was quite comfortable and not hot. That
factor made a big difference in the enjoyment factor. We did get a good share
of rain, but it didn't detract from my enjoyment. I suppose the hard-core
autocross folks might think otherwise, as it rained rather copiously on Friday
morning, the day of the Autox. However, we also got our share of sunshine.
The group that I went down with left the Boston, MA area on Sat. morning
30-Jul-94. We tried to take secondary roads as much as possible. Because of
that factor, we took almost 4 days to get to Ashville, NC, but the results were
certainly worth it. As an example, in the Winchester, VA area we visited both
the White Post Restoration shop (got a "personal tour" from the owner Billy
Thompson) and Group 44's shop. WOW. I'll write about those later, but there was
a major coolness factor for those two spots.
We also drove Skyline Drive _and_ the Blue Ridge Parkway all the way from
Winchester, VA to Ashville, NC. You can't make very good time on that road, but
is sure was pretty. And it was very _fun_ to drive.
The group that I drove down with had 4 TR3's, 3 TR4's, 3 TR6's, a TR7, and a
Spitfire. I clocked aroud 2500 miles total for the trip.
Of 12 cars that went, we only had two mechanical problems on the way down. In
both cases, the owners of these cars probably should have anticipated these
problems and fixed them prior to departure, but in both cases they were able to
sort things out in the parking lot of the Ashville, NC Raddisson hotel. One
problem was a bad clutch, the other was a _very_ leaky TR4 timing chain cover.
Unfortunately, on the way back one of the TR3's in the group threw a connecting
rod, and had to get towed from the Winchester, VA area back to Putney, VT. That
was too bad.
Awards-wise, NET did quite well. There were 2 firsts for participants choice,
TR3b and Early TR3, a second for TR7, a third for TR4. Also, NET folks got good
scores in Concours with a 3rd in early TR3 and a special mention in the masters
class for a TR3 that is all original. Also, these folks drove in almost all of
the events.
I managed to briefly met a bunch of SOLers while in Ashville. Bob Bownes, Mark
Bradakis, Rick Shlierer, Chris Kantarjiev and others. I was so busy running
around, that I didn't get much time to really talk to these folks. Maybe next
time.
That's it for now...more later.
regards,
rml
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