Gosh, a chance to knock over two cones with one tire, oh boy. Spitfires
are small, light, responsive and fun to drive. Down on power, and the swing
axle rear suspension needs some taming, but it can be done. I'm an avid
Spitfire fan, as one could tell by looking at http://www.team.net/mjb
As you might suspect, there are other lists on the autox.team.net server
aimed directly at the Spitfire, as well as Triumphs. But in my opinion,
both triumphs@autox.team.net and spitfires@autox.team.net have gotten to
to the point where the incessently yammering airheads have rendered them
hardly worth the trouble. You may wish to subscribe to the digest version
of the Spit list, see if it suits your needs.
And the Spitfire is a good case in point about the period authenticity issue.
Some clubs allow the later squaretails, a lot don't. The earlier Mark 1 - 3
cars are usually accepted, the Spitfire Mark 4 was introduced as a '71. It
may or may not be acceptable to your area clubs. As an autocross car, the
Spit is a hoot when done to SCCA Street Prepared or Prepared class specs.
I've got one of each. Trouble is, our first autocross is Sunday, and I've
not touched either one all winter, they both need work.
I know VARA allows the later Spits, and the 1500 squaretails run with the
bigger TRs in that group. Now, if you showed up at one of the Intermountain
Vintage Racing events with a Spitfire of any year, with whatever mods it had,
we'd let it run, assuming we were convinced it wasn't going to fall apart or
burst into flames in the opening laps.
IVR (next event April 28/29 at Wendover, Utah, http://www.team.net/ivr ) was
formed as a vintage club, but most likely the most vintage part of our group
is the way we run events. For example, at our last event on St. Patricks day
weekend, our race group had several first generation Mazda RX-7s, a seventies
Camaro, an eighties Mustang and a recently finished Cobra replica running
together. We only had one open wheel car attend, he didn't want to run with
the big sedans. Not exactly a field of vintage cars. But they all had a
great time, and we saw some of the best racing we've had for some time, with
a few close contests in the field. Last season we had things like a three
rotor third generation RX7 hillclimb car, Monte Smith's twin turbo Porsche
racer and an occasional batch of Legends cars.
IVR runs on the old Wendover air force base concrete, with a one mile course
marked out with cones. Its a casual, relaxed, "run what ya brung" affair that
for $125 gives more tracktime than most drivers can use. Sure, we do on
occasion get some real nice vintage cars, like Roger Davis' Sunbeam Alpine,
but then we also get cars like my rather ratty red Spitfire. Chances are if
you made the tow to Wendover, you'd have one of two reactions. You'd love the
chance to play all weekend with a low-key bunch of guys that like to drive
fast, or you'd vacate the premises as soon as possible to get away from such
an unorganised, flaky bunch of misfits. Your call.
There's certainly room in the sport for groups like IVR, and there's room for
events like Monteray. There's no need for them to be more like us, or us to
be more like them. Well, at the April event we likely will have porta potties,
which we didn't have last time. I bet the Monteray Historics has them on hand!
mjb.
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