Hi,
Vintage content _low_ delete now if you object to mindless self-promotion.
Five members of New England Triumphs headed over to a Jaguars of New
England (aka JANE) "slalom" this Sunday past (14-Sep-03). The weather was
just about _purrfect_ with temps in the low to mid 70's. The day started
damp/humid but dried out for about 4 hours. Then there was a rain shower.
It wasn't a deluge, but it put a stop to the event.
The turnout was fair with about 25 drivers. A couple of the favourtites
were no-shows. Of note: organizer John Loring's Dodge Viper was absent.
Rumor has it that John learned first-hand that driving race-rubber on wet
roads is a bad combo. Suffice to say - scratch one Viper. The Hagopian
E-type was on hand with Dad Gary (who happens to be President of the
Jaguar Club of North America (aka JCNA)) and Daughter Margo Otay taking
turns at the wheel. Gary made a bid at FTD and wound up with a new
personal best (we think) 38.5. That E-type is an extremely nice car! It's
been in the "One Lap of America" at least twice and new mods are being
made to the car in preparation for the 2004 edition of the One Lap.
Now for the Triumph news.
The always popular LeMans Spitfire replica of Bob Totten showed excellent
form despite having a slight misfire and one run featured not one, but TWO
episodes of two-wheeling. WOW. Totten finished second in class "Other,
four cylinder" with a 40.xx.
JANE President Carl Hansen was there with his TR6. I guess that's probably
like the President of New England Triumphs showing up in his Honda, but we
won't go there. At any rate, on Carl's second and later runs, he tried
using second gear a bit and this really improved his times indeed!
British compatriot Colin Davis was looking really good with his Kumho-shod
GT6 Mk II. Good enough to finish second in the "Other, six cylinder"
class.
Of note, the third place finisher in that class was a novice autocrosser
in an E46 M3. In this author's opinion - waaay too much car for the driver
as evidenced by the 100-foot-plus power slide in the parking lot _after_
a bad run. Adreneline, testosterone and bad attitude are a bad combo.
Fortunately, nobody got hurt and there was no property damage.
Ned Sparrow in the John Kelly replica Spitfire was showing some superb
car-control on the turnarounds with a couple of opposite-lock corner
exits... Yeee-ha!
Bob Lang took top-honours in the Other, six cylinder class with a 37.53.
This qualifies as a new national record for the class, possibly an overall
course record - besting the 38.5x that Bob posted in May at a JANE event.
We can't mention dirty runs, because they don't count - but it's safe to
say that the GT Classics TR6 (aka Khartu) is capable of clean mid-thirty
six second runs on the Jaguar standard course. The 37.53 was also fastest
time of this day for all competitors at this particular event.
There was some discussion of JANE hosting another slalom later in the
year, possible late October. We'll try to get the word out if we hear
anything about the event. New England Triumphs will be welcome
participants should JANE hold the event. Lang is also invited so long as
he pulls off a spark plug wire or two if he shows up with Khartu.
Respectfully,
rml
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