The All British Field Meet (ABFM) has been a part of the Portland/Vancouver
Pacific Northwest British car scene for 33 years! For many, many years it has
been held over the Labor Day weekend at the Portland International Raceway
(PIR) and for the last 6 years it has been held in conjunction with The
Columbia River classic Historic Races (CRC). And this year the CRC hosted the
Kas Kastner Cup Challenge for Racing Triumphs! This perpetual trophy was
established by Kas Kastner to honor Triumph race drivers and and to promote
Triumph race cars. It has proven to do just that in its 6 years of existence,
for details see: http://www.kaskastner.com/kastnercup.html
My wife Alice and I have often visited my brother and sister-in-law in
Vancouver over Labor Day and several times we have gone to the ABFM car show
and really enjoyed seeing all of that British iron, especially the large
showing of TRs, on the big grassy field at PIR.
On Sept. 4th the Friday before ABFM Randy and I spent about half a day
cleaning, waxing, and detailing his Spitfire and my TR250 to prepare for the
participant's choice car show on Sat. Unfortunately, it was mostly in vain, as
Fri.. night it started to rain and it rained hard most of the night, The next
morning when we arrived at the car show, the nice grassy field was pretty
muddy but all of the die-hards that did decide to make it, showed their cars
as best we could. However the judging, which all of the car show participants
were asked to do, was really difficult as the score sheets got very wet by the
time we worked through all of the various classes. As the judging wound down,
the rain began to slack off a bit and some of the participants were able to
comfortably stand around their cars in order to talk to the folks that came
out to see the cars. Just like a normal car show, but with mud here and there!
I did get to meet a bunch of people that came to the ABFM because of its
status in the area. Several people from the TR List some from halfway across
the country, a couple of folks that live in the Portland area now but used to
live in the SF bay area and were members of the Triumph Travelers Sports Car
Club and knew several people that I knew when I was living in Palo Alto. It
was great! After lunch (in the rain again), we watched some of the practice
for the various CRC classes and also walked around the pits and looked at a
lot of really nicely prepared sports cars set up to race! At 4:00 the awards
for the car show were handed out by the various marque clubs, Randy took a 1st
in his Spitfire and I took home a 3rd for the TR250.
At some point in the afternoon we spent quite a bit of time in the pits and
talked with several of the Triumph drivers that were there from around the
country and were slated drive in the Kastner Cup race on Sunday. We talked
quite a long time with Tony Drews, Uncle Jack Drews son, about his car and
his racing, and Uncle Jack and of course JonMac's Stag Tour around the
country, who's Stag his named Uncle Jack in honor of Tony's dad. Tony is a
capitol guy, very open and friendly. We also met Tony Garmey, the owner I
believe, and driver of the Peter Brock designed TR250K sports racer. We got to
spend some time checking out the car, as it is of course a one-off design, I
had seen it once before at either the Portland VTR or a Triumphest, I can't
remember exactly when. But that time, it was hard to get close enough to the
car to really see it, this time though we could really check it out! There was
a lot of discussion by many of the drivers whether they were going to need to
run practice and/or race with their rain tires or their racing 'slicks'. The
weather couldn't seem to make up its mind and of course Sunday was a real
unknown! In one of the TR pits we found Kas Kastner sort of holding court and
introduced ourselves, We mentioned that we had enjoyed hearing him speak at
Triumphest a couple of times. We also told him we had both enjoyed his recent
books. He said his next book was going to be a real treat, but was going to be
expensive! He wouldn't say any more about that at that point... We also saw
Joe Alexander in the pits and actually we had seen him earlier at the car show
venue, he brought his TR powered, special fiberglass bodied, Ambro from his
home in the mid-west, Iowa? Anyway I forget but Joe is the inventor of several
popular accessories for our TRs, built by his company ARE, and sold through
several suppliers. In 2007 Joe and Uncle jack attended Triumphest in Laughlin,
NV and a bunch of us that are on the TR List sat around with the two of them
and listened to them talk about their racing experience, it was a gas!
On Sunday we ran the rally along with 33 other cars. It was advertised as a
TSD Rally, but it was actually a 'gimmick' rally, or at least that is what I
would call it. It was fun though and it took us over many roads I had never
seen, although Randy had been n most all of them. We finished in the alloted
time, answered all of the questions, stayed on course, and didn't place! Like
I sad it was fun though...
We spent the rest of the afternoon watching the historic races including the
Kastner Cup Race. What a race that was! There were perhaps 20 cars in the race
with Tony Garmey in the 250K starting late for some reason. But when he
started to race and he definitely started to race for by the 2nd or 3rd lap,
he was in 2nd place behind Tom Kreager in his immaculate #7, TR6. Tony Garmey
and Tom Kreager spent the whole race so close together you could almost throw
a blanket over the two of them. Sometimes the 250K was in 1st, sometimes the
TR6, it was really a great race. There was also a great race going on for 3rd
and 4th and 5th! It was really fun to watch. On the last lap, as they exited
turn 11, we thought Tony Garmey was going to pass Tom Kreager by the checkered
flag, but the TR6 was able to hold off the 250K and win!
Tuesday night we went to the Portland Triumph Owners Assoc. (PTOA) meeting. It
is held at the Stark St. Pizza where PTOA has held their meeting for some 40
years! PTOA is a big club, 130 some members 230 some cars, they are obviously
a successful club. They are also happy to see new people and they welcome
guests, even from AZ with open arms!
Next weekend, John Macartney arrives. More later, in Part 9!
Regards,
Jim
Jim Bauder
TR 250, CD47L
Scottsdale, AZ
(currently visiting in Vancouver, WA)
Cell: 480-309-9525
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