This past weekend VDCA held it's inaugural event at Carolina Motorsports
Park. It was a small entry but the quality of the cars and the racing was
excellent. Tom Mittler brought a mouth watering selection of cars including
a D-Type Jag, a Birdcage Maserati and a Porsche RSK. All of the cars entered
were nicely prepared in authentic "period correct" configuration.
VDCA provided us with a tremendous amount of track time. How much? -- I
missed most of Friday chasing carburetor problems and skipped a half-hour
Sunday morning session and still put 220 miles on my race car's odometer
(yes, it still has one). The track is brand new and designed to be user
friendly for club and vintage racing events. The facilities are very nice
with clean bathrooms and plenty of paddock space. The track has a variety of
slow and medium speed corners with one fast "kink" and is well designed with
no obviously dangerous features and plenty of run-off.
The racing started with a one hour enduro on Saturday that was won by Larr
y Wilson in a Porsche 911R. Larry was closely pursued by David Whiteside and
Peter Krause in David's Lotus 17, finishing on the same lap. Tom Cotter has
to get some sort of honorable mention or maybe a boy scout award for being
prepared. Tom did not have full confidence that his mount (1071cc Mini)
would last the race so Tom packed a bottle of water and a copy of Hemmings
Motor News in the car! Sure enough, Tom's car quit, and he could be seen on
the grass near turn 8, thumbing through Hemmings and sipping his water!
Probably the most entertaining race of the weekend was the Sunday
half-hour Handicap race. The slowest cars were sent out first and the
fastest cars were held until the proper time to see if they could make up the
deficit within the time limit. Ceasar Cone won easily in his Devin Ermini
since he had been breaking in a new engine and set his handicap time with a
lower rev-limit (Sandbagger!). Coming 2nd was Richard Thomas in a Wolsely
Hornet (neat car - basically a Mini with different Hood and rear bodywork)
just a few car lengths ahead of my Honda S800. Alex Quattlebaum was one of
the faster cars in his 1956 Elva Mk III and I could see him in my mirrors at
the finish, but he ran out of laps to make up more positions.
The feature races on Sunday were also closely contested. In the Small
Displacement group, Rob Stewart ran away for a 24 second victory in his
1296cc Spitfire but the racing was intense behind him. I found myself in the
middle of a tremendous pass-and-repass 3-way battle for 2nd place with Toby
Bergin's Lotus Elite and Richard Thomas' Wolesley. In the end, Toby edged me
out by about two seconds after Richard lost ground after having trouble
finding a gear.
The PC group was tremendous fun to watch as Gary Plichta kept the tail of
his thundering1962 Corvette dancing all over the track. John Harkness (TR3)
and Ceasar Cone (Alfa Duetto) never let Gary out of their sight and the three
of them turned laps within a second of each other. Behind them Don Greimel
debuted his '66 Morgan and tussled all weekend with Peter VanRossum's '65
Mercedes 230.
The sports racer vintage class featured David Whiteside's Lotus 17, Alex
Quattlebaum's Elva Mk III, Tom Mittler's D Type Jag and Ceasar Cone's Devin
Ermini all covered by lap times less than seven/tenths of a second apart!
They finished in that order after Tom Mittler held the lead early in the race.
Last but not least, "lonesome" Larry Wilson had the Trans-Am group all to
himself and must have logged about 400 miles running all of his track
sessions solo in addition to winning the enduro and dominating his feature
race.
The amount of close competitive racing was remarkable considering that
many classes had only a handful of cars on the track. Another remarkable
aspect of the weekend is that it was a ZERO incident event. We all hope to
make that something of a tradition for VDCA events.
In addition to the overload of track time and the close racing, the
"atmosphere" of the event was something special. It was very friendly, relaxe
d and just plain fun. Plenty of opportunities to socialize with fellow
racers with a couple of great parties providing food and drink for all. I am
eagerly looking forward to the April 21-23 event at VIR which should have a
bigger turn-out and will be even more fun.
Doug Meis
'67 Honda S800
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