>during the parade and the unruly crowd insisted that I "light it up". Ha,
>ha....picture a 1296 cc "lighting up" the asphalt.
**********************************
Fear not, I just got back from the San Bernardino Route 66 car "event"
defending the British marques, well sort of anyway:-) Mostly American iron
there of course, many gorgeous street rods etc. (almost twenty five HUNDRED
cars and trucks over several downtown city blocks blocked off just for this
event). I only saw four British cars, an Austin Healey 100, Gary and
Isabell's Red TR2, and what was originally a Jag E type that looked more
like a batmobile than anything Jag like with wild flares, monster tires,
scoops, scallops, some kind of stud thingys sticking out here and there,
and a monster Boss 429 replacing that lovely six. . . plus my Spitfire. I
was told that there was a TR6 with a large V8 in it but I never saw it. I
did however light those 205 60's up on the unofficial "burn out" section of
the cruise lane. It's fenced off on both sides of the this section of
street, and grandstands are placed on one side for people to sit on.
Everybody lines up to view the cars on parade there. Many cheers and
accolades as I smoked em, and I do mean smoked. . .both of them since I
have a Quaife installed. Silly me as I probably used up a more than a
couple of thousand miles of rubber, but it was FUN. This is one of the
only times you can "sort of" legally burn the tires and not get a ticket.
Probably surprised more than a few individuals (including myself actually)
that wanted to see what the "little car" could do, as they yelled from the
crowd! This was really the first time I intentionally tried to do that
sort of thing with the V6 installed. You don't need 4.3 liters, the 2.8
did just fine! Rev it up to about 4500 RPM, let out the clutch till it
loads the drive train and let it go. I had to back off the gas as I was
running out of space but still spinning the tires. I normally drive the
car much more responsibly than that. But it was GREAT fun, kinda like
sneaking that cookie from the cookie jar and getting away with it! Anyway,
other than the oppressive heat (110) it was quite a show. More than a
couple of times I thought that there was something wrong with the car
because as I cruised down the "parade" route with all those hot rods,
someone would call out for me to stop. But they just wanted to take a
picture and of course it didn't occur to me that any one would want a
picture of this funny little furr'in car with all those expensive
customized street rods in the lineup! I still get a chuckle when I think
about it. Next week it's off to the more appropriate (and properly
behaving :-}) British car events (Woodly park), but with the more sedate
GT6 this time
Barry Schwartz (San Diego) bschwart@pacbell.net
72 PI, V6 Spitfire (daily driver)
70 GT6+ (when I don't drive the Spit)
70 Spitfire (long term project)
|