I don't go to many vintage events, my season consists mostly of running about
half a dozen
IVR events here in Utah. I've talked about these before, how the 'vintage' in
Intermountain
Vintage Racing refers not to the cars but the manner in which the events are
run. Just a bunch
of guys that go out to the old Wendover airfield, set up some cones to make a
track and have
a hell of a fun weekend.
And these days I've started to worry about the future. The one thing racers
have wanted in Utah
for the last three decades is a real race track. And thanks to Larry Miller,
local car dealer,
owner of the Utah Jazz basketball team, etc. we are getting one. And I've
already gotten IVR on
the schedule for a test and tune at the new facility for September 14th, just 4
short months away.
Events at the new track will most likely be quite different. I wonder if it
will be better or
not. More cars, more people, more fun or more hassle? Hard to say. We just
finished up an IVR
weekend, once again the Killer Spitfire stayed home at the shop. I *will* have
it at the June race!
There was a nice group of Touring folks who just drive around the track 2 or 3
at a time against
the clock, limited passing, minimal safety regs and they just love it.
Wheel to wheel racing was not that great. We had 5 starters for saturday's
first race, 4 for the
afternoon event. Sunday was worse in terms of numbers, but made for great
racing. The second
race on sunday was only two cars and proved to be the highlight of the weekend!
It was a handicap
race of a mere 10 laps around the 1 mile course. Jeff Johnson in a Honda CRX
got a 30 second head
start, then Dave Ujifusa in Doug Rohner's first gen turbo RX7 took off. In the
previous race they
had been about 2.5 seconds apart on lap times, so we figured Dave might catch
up.
The first 8 laps were not that interesting, Dave was still about 5 seconds
back. When the flagger
stepped out with the white flag furled, ready to wave it for the next lap, both
drivers immediately
picked up about half a second a lap - hmmm. We cheated a bit and gave them 11
laps, because at the
end of 10 they were still a couple seconds apart. The end of the 11th lap had
them take the
checker side by side, nose to nose, with the Mazda about two gnat's whiskers (
I was going to use
another term, but there might be children reading ;-) ahead of the Honda. It
was a great show!
I could see a similar sort of situation at Babcock's Columbia River Classic
with a herd of old Brit
cars. I might have to make an attempt to show up for that one, with or without
the Spit.
Stay tuned for news on the new Utah track. The 2008 awarding of the Kastner
Cup should be at a
Western track, I'm going to do what I can to have it happen in Utah, Kas' old
stomping grounds.
mjb.
----
Where ya been is good and gone
All you keep is the gettin' there
- Townes van Zandt
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