Greetings, and safety faster (first),
Had a fun autocross today with the Chicagoland MG Club at Bennet Raceway,
Utica IL. It's about 90 miles west of Chicago on I-80. For those who may
not know, it's a go kart track about 1/3 mile long, about 8 turns, where 2
laps takes a little over a minute (if you're in a hurry). I was a little
surprised to place third this time, not first.
OH! As it turned out, they had me listed in Modified class rather than
Stock class. So, uh, what was it that put my car in Mod class? "It's that
gold paint on the wheels, fella! Anything painted gold puts you in Mod
class". Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! Well, that's okay. After a few years of
putting up with me they thought the other Stock class cars should thrash it
out without me.
Actually I'm rather honored to be considered for such prestigious company
as Mod class. And as I occasionally do, I actually beat someone. The
unsuspecting victim this time was a fully prepared vintage race MGB that
came in on a trailer. The car that beat me by a few tenths of a second
(with two drivers) appeared to be a nicely done Street Prepared MGB 1800,
except that it had, shall we say, a "somewhat sweetened" long block
sandwiched between the valve cover and the oil pan. I think these guys
were just out for a little revenge. Anyway, it's not bad company for a
stock MGA 1500. We had loads of fun and copious amounts of sunshine for
everyone as well.
And we somehow managed to "displace" a Porsche club that supposedly had the
track booked on the same date. It didn't look like too many drivers for
one day, and we were willing to share the track for plenty of runs for
everyone. Then it seems like we outnumbered them nearly 3 to 1, and when
they decided that they didn't want the MGs running in their event, they all
packed up and left. They didn't talk to us much, and it seemed a little
anti-social to me, be each to his own. We had a good time in spite of it.
Yeeeehaaaa!!! Drive 'em 'till they drop.
We also had a little "social hour" for drinks and munchies afterward at
Duffy's Tavern in downtown (don't blink you'll miss it) Utica. The best
follow-up game thereafter is who can find the nicest side roads going home,
and we did find some nice ones. On some friendly advice I chose a couple
of roads I hadn't been on before. Nice country highways, nothing special,
but good to be different occasionally.
Y'all come out and play next time,
Barney Gaylord
1958 MGA with an attitude
http://www.ntsource.com/~barneymg
|