Vintage racing festival at Lime rock park in CT this weekend. No racing on Sunday, just a car show thought i would share a few pics that might interest some people..... not sure what a couple of these are. but heres a Lasalle tow truck, the car behind the ropes is called the "old grey Mare" , one guy had 5 OLD Harleys LOTS of super nice and $$$ cars, Astons, Ferraris, porsches etc etc etc
You know, you reminded me that i was gonna start a thread about this be i'll post it here....I went up yesterday for the last time....Been going up on Labor Day saturday for years now, but as of yesterday, that was my last one....Although it was a spectacular day and that part of Connecticut is the stuff you make postcards from, why is it cost me $70.00 for my wife and i to see a few qualifying races?...{$30.00 each admiss. ticket and $10.00 to park inside}?... 2 years ago, Saturday was $15.00 and parking free... Okay, we'll move on....... What happened to the swap meet?....Granted, it's mostly British stuff but years ago, the whole one side of the paddock was loaded with vendors, and you could always count on picking up something, maybe a coupla Smith's gauges, a pair of friction shocks, maybe a coupla Weber velocity stacks but now, there' an awful lot of empty space down there and yeah, you could find something as long as it was a bottle of wax, a car model or an old magazine one more thing.....wtf happened to the car count? Sure there is some neat stuff but what happened to all the thundering v-8 cars? As the former owner of a coupla early Shelby GT-350's and a tube frame gt-1 ex-Trans Am Mustang which i used to run there, i was very disappointed by this cl***....No Camaro's or Firebirds, no Mopar Trans Am cars, no Boss 302's or A/Sedan Mustangs from the sixties, and only a handful of GT-350's _{maybe 6} 2 Corvettes, 1 Cobra and 2 GT-40's.....Even Vic Edelbrock has been there the past few years with his fleet, but not this year...... Sorry to rant in yer thread...Maybe next year i'll just go to the beach
Eddie, I can't find fault with anything you mentioned, sad to see this great event taking this turn. Sure, sports cars have been a rung up the social ladder from where I am, but they sure are making it tought for Joe Adverage with a love for the history of them to see and hear them run. As in years past I was invited to judge the concours on Sunday and get two free p***es. They had a DRESS CODE for judges this year! Screw that, I can rebody your Bugatti but I'm not going to walk around playing yuppie for a day for anybody. The car owners are some of the nicest people anyone would like to meet. It is the Meet Management people that are turning this event around. I miss the post war open wheel cars and the Trans-Am cars that used to fill the place. The flea market can't last much longer with the $300.00 fee the vendors have to pay.
wow, i had no idea what it "used to" be like.... this is only my 2nd time up there, and both times i went to just the car show. the price did seem a little outrageous, spending $25 just to look at some cars. i have some mixed feelings about this.... On one hand , The smell of money and arrogance of some of these people up there make me want to puke, but on the other hand, there is some really cool and different stuff that i would probabaly never see at any other local event. Its not everyday that you would see a gathering of 50+ shelby Mustangs, 1930's Bugatti race cars , or a million dollar McLaren F1
Sounds to me like they put the admission prices high to keep the average working guy enthusiast from being part of the festivities. I don't know what there is about the vintage sports car racing crowd, they have that Closed Club Mentality. I attended a vintage event at Moroso Raceway in FL several years ago and that "what are you doing here atmosphere" was everywhere. The sad part of the entire thing is that most of these "wantabe road race car drivers" couldn't drive a 6 penny nail in a pine board with a 10 lb sledgehammer. They don't have a clue about driving a race car. Some of the worst drivers I've ever seen. It'd probably blow their mind if I showed up with my 3n'1 Kurtis-Kraft Offy midget. In the early 60s this car WON an ARDC midget only event at Lime Rock with Andretti behind the wheel. Can ya' picture it, pullin' in the pits with it on an open trailer behind my '47 Ford sedan delivery that doubles as my sleeping quarters. What the *#^@ is that?, parked in a sea of "who has the biggest and most expensive motorhome contest". Great mind blower .
37, I can just picture you getting thrown out of there when you drive up in the van with your Bush poster in the window.
Just to clear up what I was venting about, the entry fee is set by the Lime Rock Park owners, I don't have anything negative to say about the Vintage car owners. There are far more decent owners/drivers than snooty jerks. Heck, I even got the restorer/driver of "The Old Gray Mare" to join the HAMB. We need more Diamond block B motor builders here to share speed secrets. This was the first year that Gordon White didn't run his OFFY Kurtis Kraft midget, and it runs REAL well on a road course. This car was restored, won A first place award at Hershey, then went out to Bonneville and set a record. Real neat way to enjoy a restored race car.
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