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Yet another Mid-Ohio recap, long

To: fot@autox.team.net
Subject: Yet another Mid-Ohio recap, long
From: Tony Drews <tony@tonydrews.com>
Date: Tue, 18 Jun 2002 23:30:30 -0500
For those of you who werent able to make the 50th Anniversary Triumph 
Reunion at Mid-Ohio, heres a quick synopsis of what you missed.  Ok, in 
re-reading this, maybe its not so quick  Anyway:

There were over 50 competition Triumphs entered in the event although only 
32 made the All-Triumph race.  Friday was the day of carnage and 
perseverance.  Two TR-4s ended up upside down (George Wright and H. Tide 
Ebding), one of which got the car back together for the race 
(Ebding).  Several cars hit the tire wall or an unprotected wall, all 
getting back in action.  Snook hit the tire that Wright shed in his 
incident.  Dents were popped back out, head gaskets changed, transmissions 
changed, waterpump changed (Greg), etc.  No whining was heard from 
anyone!  The TR-5 from England had its front end removed by the concrete 
wall.  They took it to a frame shop and worked all night to get it back 
together.  With a donor TR-250 front valance and grille, and a can of red 
Krylon, it was back in the race, and WON the all-triumph race, besting 
several TR-7 V-8s, one of which was said to have hit 165 mph in 
testing.  The British cars were certainly well prepared!  A TR-6 had 
electronic fuel injection, and most had monster brakes and much 
fiberglass.  All of the racing was gentlemanly but still fierce.

Saturday started out rainy (its Mid-Ohio after all), but ended up 
beautiful.  There were a couple hundred street TRs in attendance.  I 
suspect there would have been more with better weather.  The carnage 
stopped, thankfully.

On Sunday, the weather generally cooperated (one or two small 
showers).  The Grassroots MG / Triumph challenge seemed to dissolve  the 
Quattlebaum MGA didnt make it through the weekend, and George took his 
newly beveled roll bar home.  MGBs dominated in the Group 3 race (Munoz 
and Gonda) since the fastest remaining TRs (Jackson, Snook) were moved to 
Group 1 due to an oversize Group 3.  With Mordy dropping out and the black 
flag being mistakenly given to uncle jack, any hope of catching those pesky 
MGs disappeared.  I hope Tim got the article he was hoping for anyway.  I 
chased the British TR-3 during the All Triumph race.  I could catch him in 
the twisty stuff but couldnt manage to get by.  After the race, he said it 
was the best race hed had in a while.  He said he was hitting 130 on his 
calibrated speedometer at the end of the back straight with the uncle jack 
and tony TR-4 right on his tail.  Needless to say, I thoroughly enjoyed 
that race.

Thats by far the most Triumphs Ive seen at any race event, all were great 
people.  It was great to be able to put the faces with the names from the 
FOT list.  Meeting Kas was an honor.  At the party Thursday night I 
marveled at how Joes simple idea of having a FOT list separate from the 
big triumph list led up to a party with 150 members present.  Many thanks 
to Mark B and all who helped develop the FOT and who helped put the event 
together.

There were FOT temporary tattoos, reproductions of the Jabekke run TR logo, 
posters signed by all participants (including Kas), patches, dash plaques, 
T-shirts, Golf Shirts from England, flags and a Panoramic Picture.  The 
event shirt and poster featured Triumph.  All in all great company and 
great swag which should make it even harder to forget this unforgettable event.

- Tony Drews

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