This weekend was a mixed bag for me, a total success for Tony.
The event was Blackhawk Farms "Loong" race, where the idea is to use up
your machine at the end of the season. Most cars are grouped by SCCA
classes and the big bores all get a one hour enduro. The sanctioning body
is Midwest Council, a Chicago area club that is a 1960's breakaway from
SCCA. They run all vintage and historic cars in one class. Really fun, if
you get into the spirit of it. We had everything from Sprites to 427
Corvettes on the track at once. Do you know how satisfying it is to pass a
split window Corvette in a lowly Triumph TR4?
They also scheduled it so that it was a one-day event for us -- morning
practice and qualifying sessions, afternoon two separate half-hour races.
Oodles of track time.
Tony ran flawlessly all weekend and was gridded 10th, I think, behind
Mustangs and Corvettes and such. He ran a great couple of races with
battles against faster cars, turning in laps of 1:27 plus change. Jack was
gridded several places behind Tony and had battles with Ray Friewald in his
Volvo P1800 and then in the second race, battles with four or five
different cars, including Ray, a Porsche 914, an Opel (!) and a Datsun. I
turned a bunch of laps in the 1:28's and beat them all up to the last lap
and then I had a valve train failure. So until the final laps, Tony and Dad
were running 10th and 12th I think. We should have some great video footage
from the two cameras.
Joe Alexander and Sean Alexander were there along with Sean's curtain
climbers, the cutest and nicest kids on the planet, and both Joe and Sean
looked good. Unfortunately they were sidelined before the big races due to
wearing through one tire from locking-up front brakes.
Dennis Delap in just his second season in his very pretty TR3 was looking
good and will be much faster with an injection of horsepower.
Tom Strange again brought the Big Top, one canopy big enough for six cars.
That really adds an extra dose of enjoyment. Tom ran without major
problems, a welcome change from some past events.
Jerry and Scott Barr were there in their GT6 and Spitfire, rounding out the
Triumph contingent.
Although the weather was cold (I was physically shivering on the grid,
freezing my you-know-what) once we were on the track we still managed to
sweat through our driver's suits. That's a real barometer of success.
At 01:53 PM 10/18/2004, you wrote:
>One of Ken's high volume jobs.
>
>How did it go this weekend?
>
>At 08:34 AM 10/18/2004 -0500, you wrote:
>>Henry, do you use a high volume water pump or the stock one?
>>
>>uncle jack
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