I went to Lime Rock only once. It was 1990 for the Team Healey
Challenge. I enjoyed the weekend immensly. I enjoyed the people, the
concours, the swap meet/flea market, etc.. For a left coaster it had an
ambiance that you won't find out here. It sounds like many things have
changed for the spectator and the entrant with a pre 70's racer.
I had a similar experience when I went to the Monterey Historics this
past August for the first time in many years. A lot of what Rick and others
have observed/shared about Lime Rock is happening on the left coast;
although I'm sure there are those who will disagree.
I've felt for a long time that the Monterey Historics has gotten better
media coverage than it deserved. It doesn't have the ambiance of a Lime Rork
or the Glen; it never will. Monterey (the town), a few miles away, is a
different story.
The race paddock looked prety slim this time. I didn't see any of the
usual120/140 Jag crowd. The MG count was down, etc.. The atmosphere was
totally different from times past, and a different cross-section of
spectator was very evident from previous years.
Mr. Earle seems to have embraced the F1 concept in toto and it is now
the tail that wags the dog at the Montery biggie. One section, the full
width of the main paddock, was F1 tent and second level drivers lounge (F1).
You can no longer see the main straight from the paddock. It wasn't always
that way.
There weren't that many of the featured marque (Maserati) on site/or
they didn't run. The vendors were on campus, but in an area where
spectators used to park and have their car corrals. Consequently, potential
traffic for them was nothing to count on. If you were a vendor you paid big
bucks for your site and got little in return.
The September 4th issue of Autoweek had some gorgeous photos of the
cars, but if you count the number of photos in the article, multiply by
four, you just about have the total number of cars in the paddock!. That's
an exaggeration, of course, but not by much.
For the money at the front door (four times what they used to be), I was
underwhelmed.
Just an observation.
Ron Yates
Dipstick Digest
P.S. The Healeys at Monterey can be seen at our website:
www.ctaz.com/~dipstickdigest/index.html
----- Original Message -----
From: <HealeyRic2@aol.com>
To: <JAshburne@aol.com>; <geodav-lou@worldnet.att.net>;
<vintage-race@autox.team.net>
Sent: Saturday, September 09, 2000 4:29 AM
Subject: Re: Lime Rock
> As a spectator for more than 15 years at the festival I note the
following:
> 1. Crowd size has been diminishing steadily for the last 2-3 years. The
> past 2 years
> have had some really nasty weather that could be blamed for that, but
> this
> year's weather was good overall.
> 2. Concours participation was down about 2/3 from previous years. No
> Shelbys
> and no Vipers. Participation could be upped considerably by
removing
> the $50
> entry fee. On Sunday, the car show and flea market are pretty much
> the whole show. It seems to me that spectating on Sunday
is
> going to be reduced
> if the car show shrinks so dramatically.
> 3. For me, the scale is starting to tip towards newer cars than I'm
> interested in.
> I like the production cars from 50s -70s. Maybe I'm getting older,
> but it
> bothers me to see IMSA cars racing as "vintage". Doesn't seem that
> long
> ago that I was watching these cars race at Sebring. And who thinks
> anyone is interested in watching NASCAR vehicles during this event?
> 4. Again, the "little guy" appears to be getting the short straw.
Flea
> market
> spaces went up from $100 to $200. A lot of vendors were
complaining
> and
> there was a notable absence of the guy who was cleaning out his
> garage/basement of parts in favor of the
commercial
> vendors. Plenty of
> spectators come primarily for the flea market and are going to
be
> turned off if the parts they find are already available by
catalog.
> 5. Same thing with the "little guy" racers. Seems to me
participation in
> the 50's -70's production car races were down. I noticed some of
> the "regulars" absent and heard some talk that increasing entry
fees
> was one of the reasons.
> 6. No featured marque this year accompanied by a "name" associated
with
> the marque.
> 7. Addition of auction on Sunday was great idea. I don't know how it
> compared
> to other auctions, but it seemed that a bunch of cars didn't
make
> their
> reserve. There did seem to be some genuine bargains for
> bottom-feeders
> though.
> 8. Event T-shirt stunk. (Talk about nitpicking). Again, focus on
the
> newer cars made the shirt look like one I could pick up for the
> Memorial Day event.
> Sounds like I had a miserable weekend, but I didn't. As usual, I had a
great
> time. It's just that I love this event and hate to see it's essence
> diminished by a change in focus.
>
> Rick
>
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