Hi,
Well, the intent this year was for the GT Classics TR6 number 40 to make
the trip to the Solo II Nationals in Topeka. I suppose the car could have
made the trip and even be competitive, but the driver was not. THat fact
plus the lack of a suitable tow-vehicle to make the 3000+ mile round trip
more or less sealed the fate of that road trip. Sigh.
I'm sure there are FOT that'll read this later this week or early next
that will be able to share the adventures/fun and comeraderie from that
event, although I do notice a certain lack of entrants with Triumph autos.
But there are likely good reasons for this - there are new, younger FOT
potentials (the Green's) and there are likely other valid reasons. For
example, my house is recieving attention now owing to 4 years of neglect
while I built my race car. I'm starting to think that "checkbook
engineering" has certain advantages. Too bad my checkbook is so "empty",
relatively speaking.
At any rate, this past weekend a couple of FOT's sauntered over to
Springfield, MA for a Jaguar Club "slalom" - by invitation! Bob Totten and
"yours truely" were there with our respective Spitfire/TR6 autoxers.
The Jag-you-are national club has a "standard course" that all local
chapters run. The clubs then submit the results to the national office and
the participants are rank ordered according to class specs. So, a National
championship is awarded based on some competitors never having driven head
to head. This is an intersting concept, and probably appropriate for a
low-key competition.
I had a pretty good day. I wound up with FTD and very nearly broke the
all-time course record for the course... a 38.8xx dirty. I had to settle
with a 39.01x to hold FTD, but I backed it up with two other runs within
.2 secs. I was a bit concerend that the tightness of the course would
present a problem, but it did not. It wound up being a first gear
autocross, but I only saw the other side of the "$$$" tach reading once
or twice when I exited a corner "perfect" and got a run on the next
corner. It was satisfying.
Bob Totten, on the other hand suffered a tranny failure on his second run.
He managed to make 4 runs, but the last two featured high RPM's and
intermittent grinding sounds. I guess it's safe to say that Bob will be
busy in the garage in the next few weeks. I'll follow up that comment with
another message to the FOT list regarding tranny replacements.
Regarding my Solo II season, I was once again NER FP class champion.
Running in a class where you have the only car has some advantages. :-)
I actually started off the season pretty well with two top 10 factored
events, but after the mid-point of the season, I lost the "edge" and moved
back to my customary top-25 PAX finishes. This is still a pretty good
achievement, as the competition in New England Region is very high - there
are number of current and future National Class Champions at every event.
At any rate, I lost the Rome National Tour to a Porsche by about 2
seconds, but I won the NE Divisionals by about the same amount (creating a
balance of sorts, I guess.) The Nat. Tour loss was okay, though because I
made a new friend (Dave Newmann of Digital Race Photography) who is a
class act and a pretty good photographer to boot. And I'm not saying that
because he gave me a free picture of my car at the Divisionals... the
Divisional event was great because I got to play with my FOT friend
(and fellow TR6 nut) Dean van de Carr and his brother Mark. Those guys
know how to have fun with cars! No pun intended, of course.
For the season, nothing broke on my car - that's good!
So - New England Regions had TWO Triumphs with seasonal championships. EP
and FP. ALRIGHT!
Next year - who knows. But I'd really like to go to Topeka and beat at
least one Porsche! If you want to "frame" that question, look at the FP
field this year... I think there are 4 914-6's and of course RX7's and
240Z's. There should be at least _one_ Triumph in there. But with only 17
drivers, a top 10 should be possible!
Enough rambling for now...
respectfully,
rml
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