Here it is Memorial Day weekend, this year's VTR meet will likely happen
way too soon in terms of me actually being prepared for it. Some of you
folks already have your travel details cast in stone, some of you may still
be planning the trip. As you know, your list janitor lives in Salt Lake
City, about 400 miles west of the VTR site. And I am involved with the
Intermountain Vintage Racing club. We put on a half dozen or so sports car
races during the year at Wendover, Utah.
And it just so happens that one of our events is scheduled for the weekend of
August 18 & 19. So for folks along the Pacific coast who are thinking of
driving to Breckenridge, one possibility is to plan the trip such that you
manage to be in Wendover, on I-80 at the Utah and Nevada border, that weekend.
Now, I can't promise you acres of shining race cars lined up and ready to go
wheel to wheel. Last weekend we had a one hour enduro, and the starting
field was a whopping five cars - four early Mazda RX-7s and one Triumph
Spitfire. Keeping road racing alive in Utah is tough when you don't have a
real race track, but we are hanging in there. You'll be happy to know the
Spitfire did take the checker at the end of the hour and managed to beat one
of the Mazdas. More on that some other time, perhaps. For now I'll just say
that I probably spent more time in the pits than on course.
Besides the wheel to wheel racing, done on a short but entertaining 0.8 mile
course marked out on the concrete by orange cones, we also offer what we call
the Touring class. This is basically where drivers with properly prepared
cars go out on track with one or two other cars, spaced at safe intervals and
get to flog their cars at full chat for ten minutes at a time. So while the
cones on concrete may look like an autocross, one can get going quite a bit
faster than your typical parking lot event. I have yet to figure out what
gears I have in the red Spit I've been running the last two events, but when
I've run Killer out there I head into the east sweeper a couple hundred revs
shy of redline in top gear, doing about 90 mph. Definitely quicker than the
typical Solo II the SCCA puts on, and WAY quicker than that silly little
'autocross' course we had at Portland last year. All that ashpalt wasted,
sigh.
I'm rambling on about IVR activity on the chance there might be some western
Triumph drivers heading to VTR who might like to stop by Wendover and take some
laps around the course. If interested, let me know, I can fill you in on some
of the requirements, and feel free to check out www.team.net/ivr as well.
That weekend of August 18/19 also happens to be the tail end of Speed Week
out on the Salt Flats. So there may be a chance to get a room at one of the
casinos, yet still see some *neat* iron cruising through town. If you are
interested in Triumph performance, keep this IVR weekend in Wendover in mind.
mjb.
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