The TRF Summer Party was a great event. I'd guess that there
was an additional 20% increase in turnout over last year. I did
meet up with one other SOL individual, Gregg Nagy, who was in the
area, but not at the event itself. He stopped by the drag strip
to say hello as a result of my post last Thursday.
The turnout this year was still heavily tilted with Triuphs, but
by my estimate, I think there was a greater turnout of non-Triumphs
this year than last. Charles wants the event to be for all British
marques, not just the marques which he provides parts for.
The weather was very threatening up through Friday. Apparently most
of the northeast was experiencing heavy rain on Friday, but the
Armagh area dried up about 11:00am that day and the drag racing
was dry all afternoon. Saturday and Sunday were both beaultiful,
moderate days, sunny and low humidity.
The drag racing was a blast as usual. Essentially, you could run as
often as you like. We each turned in our best Elapsed Times for
the trophy presentation. One suggestion here is that the turnout
at the drags is increasing, probably 50 to 60 different cars ran.
With that in mind, TRF should consider keeping STOCK cars in
classes of their own and then having perhaps 2 or 3
modified classes for all the modified cars. Anyway, my best
time was a 16.89 sec for the 1/4 mile in my 81 TR-8. Best time
in the TR-8 class was a 15.?? which was a modified car (4 barrel,
headers, free flow exhaust minus catalytic converters.)
Friday night was a "reception" with beer and munchies at the
"Coventry Inn" in Indiana, PA. The Inn is still under
construction and it should be a beautiful place to stop
for sustenance and libation in the future.
Saturday was the chance to rally, autocross, road tour, flea
market etc. I drove on the road tour which had a large amount
of participants, (maybe up to 100). I know we got lots of
interesting looks and sure made lots of kids happy as the
parade of british roadsters and GT cars wound its way through
the rolling hills of western PA. There was a brief downpour
at the TRF site while we were on the tour, but except for a
few drops, the tour participants escaped having to rush to
a stop to erect their tops.
Saturday night, the big fest, a sumptuous repast of fried chicken,
corn, etc. etc. followed by music until after midnight.
Sunday, off to downtown Indiana for the car show (participants
choice balloting). The show this year included non-british,
BUT happily the british-cars being the "main event" were all
staged on the main street with the other non-british cars
being on the side streets. I did enjoy the way it was set
up and happily showed my 18 year old son some of the cars
I drove in the past (50 Ford Convertible, 64 Impala Conv., etc.)
He wanted to know how the hell we used to parallel part those
hugh beasts?
The car show wrapped up at 4pm with the trophy presentation after
which the street became quickly empty as folks headed for home.
It was a great and very enjoyable affair. I camped again this
year and it was nice to see so many additional campers. I'd
guess that there was from 40 to 60 cars (and occupants) camping
for the 2 (or 3) nights.
The only thing that marred the weekend for us (nothing to do with
the event itself) was that my son's gearbox (TR-7) has apparently
self distructed a bearing and now is very noisy in 2nd and 4th.
We are pulling the gearbox and I have another used one. We found
that the fluid level in the gearbox was almost dry. The car was
put on
the road last year and we never had any dripping of fluids. We
can only surmise that the gearbox level hadn't been checked by the
prior owner for a long time and it was almost dry for the past
year. He only drives the car locally and, as such, never subjected
the gearbox to long term driving as was done this weekend. Moral
of the story - DO check the gearbox (TR-7) fluid level and don't
trust to the fact that it should be good because there isn't anything
dripping. This really hurts because we know that we should have done
a check ourselves and if we had, we probably would not
have had the failure.
Dates for next year's TRF Party are August 7,8,9, 1992. Plan to
attend AND plan to join in on the camping fun.
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Bill Sohl (K2UNK) || email
Bellcore, Morristown, NJ || UUCP bcr!taichi!whs70
(Bell Communications Research) || or
201-829-2879 Weekdays || Internet whs70@taichi.cc.bellcore.com
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