Grattan race track, just north of Grand Rapids MI, is a jewel of a
track. Two miles long, nine (?)corners, three of them blind,
elevation changes, beautiful northern Michigan surroundings. Hoo boy.
We had one Spit, one GT6, seven TR3-4-Tornado, for a total of nine
Triumphs and we had fun. I'll mention only once that in the feature
race we were headed by one Lotus Super Seven and three MGB's. there
oughta be a law against that.
The VSCDA organization did another world-class job putting on a top
notch event. Even the drivers behaved, and by Sunday morning there
had not been one drivers' committee investigation.
Some highlights:
Ed Ceiley in his Spit were in another group -- sorry about the little
coverage in this report but we were pretty busy with other things
during his sessions.
John Reed, in his rocketship GT6, headed the TR's across the line in
every session. Great drive, great driver, great car.
Jeff Snook in his white TR3 had the target painted on his back
because he was so good and fast that the Drewses were gunning for
him. Tony Drews was delighted to be able to stay in front of him
through a whole practice session but it took the skulduggery of
boxing Snook in behind a slower car near the end of the session to do it.
Dad (aka uncle jack) saw a target on the backs of both those guys. In
the preliminary race, it was Reed, Snook, Jack, and Tony at the end.
'Ol Dad gave Tony a bit of his own medicine, boxing him in behind a
slower car on the last lap and coming across the line first. Age and
treachery and all that stuff. (giggle giggle chortle chortle hee hee yuk yuk).
For the feature race, Tony had run out of tires so he had two spare
(previously worn-out) tires switched to his car. Then Snook decided
he didn't care for the cord showing on his own tires, so he took one
of Tony's cast-off tires and put it on his TR3. All this came back to
haunt Tony in the feature race, when a wheel weight came off on the
first lap, ending his drive. The finish was Reid, Snook, Drews,
Dentinger, Brick, Wismer.
The Dentinger-Wismer-Brick express train ran together, diced, had
fun, kept the respect of everybody because of their driving skill and
a level of conduct unbecoming old farts like those guys, and again
hosted the post-race wine and cheese bash that has become the social
highlight of the VSCDA weekends. We stayed so long that we got to the
official track party about when they ran out of food. Don provides
the world class cheese, Wismer raids his wine cellar, and Dentinger
provides new laughs at every race. Many thanks, guys.
Please pardon me while I try to climb down off of this racing high.
On second thought, maybe with some luck it will last until the next race.
.
uncle jack
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