Historic Festival 44

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post covering the Sunday Concours show, we arrived in town late on Friday and headed to the track bright and early on Saturday morning. A while back, I had purchased my Saturday tickets: a general admission ticket to watch the racing, and an optional “Car Corral” ticket, providing specially designated Alfa Romeo parking and the chance to drive “parade laps” around Lime Rock’s 1.6 mile track. As an AROC member, I was given a generous 30% discount off the tickets’ face value.

Three of us left our Air B&B by 7:15 a.m., and followed each other to the entrance, where we were through the gates in a matter of minutes. The area known as The Skidpad was set aside for Car Corral parking, and we parked perpendicular to the circle’s edge, facing outward. With folding chairs and bottled water in our hands, we walked to the grassy hill overlooking the S turns just beyond the straightaway. This is one of the more popular spots to take in the action.

Racing started at 9 a.m. sharp and except for an hour lunch break, continued until 5 p.m. Alfa Romeo race cars populated many of the heats. In some cases the Alfas were competing with similar-sized cars (MGs, Datsuns, Fiats, Triumphs, etc.), but there were also races which consisted solely of Alfa Romeos. Historic Trans-Am cars also raced, and it was fun to watch the pony cars of my teenage years on the track. Mustangs, Camaros, Javelins, Cougars, and Challengers did their best to outperform each other. When they were new, the adage “race on Sunday, sell on Monday” was thought to motivate car sales for stock versions of the winning models.

There was a driver’s meeting at 11:30 for the parade laps. Cars were broken into groups based on make and model. All the Alfas went out at the same time, led by an Aston Martin DBX pace car. We were strictly told not to do any passing, and a little to my surprise, everyone behaved. We did three laps, and I, who has never driven on a race track before, managed to keep the shiny side up!

After the parade lap, it was back to race-watching. Around 4:30 p.m. we decided to head to our cars for the ride home, and after brilliant sunshine all day, that’s when a black cloud stalled over the track. A heavy rain shower quickly soaked us, and on top of that, my car windows were open. I got to my car only to see that the windows were up! A young woman came over, practically crying. “I’m so sorry I touched your car, but I saw the windows down and I didn’t want the inside to get wet so I rolled them up. I’m so sorry!” I profusely thanked her and said that I greatly appreciated her concern. Once inside the car, I waited five minutes and of course the rain stopped.

The photos below are broken out by event type.

CAR CORRAL

Some Porsches got mixed in with our Alfas

RACING

PARADE LAPS

Thanks to Paul Mitchell, who snapped these shots from the passenger seat while I drove!

“Overwhelmed” was the word that came to my mind all weekend as I participated in the 44th annual Labor Day Historic Festival at Lime Rock Park in Salisbury, CT. This year, the featured marque was Alfa Romeo, and the turnout of cars and Alfisti (their enthusiastic owners) was indeed overwhelming.

Some brief background: as a member of the New Jersey chapter of AROC (the Alfa Romeo Owners Club), I was one of many fellow AROC members invited to participate in several Zoom calls with Lime Rock officials. They requested our assistance in promoting this event to our chapter members, and we obliged, to the point where several Concours classes and weekend events were sold out, disappointing a number of AROC members.

Thanks to the resourcefulness of fellow NJ chapter members Denise and Tony Patullo, ten of us shared an Air B&B for three nights. With the minor exception of a steep gravel driveway, this worked out very well for all of us. The house had four bedrooms, a well-equipped kitchen, and was a five-minute drive from Lime Rock Park’s front gate. We arrived late on Friday afternoon, but did not attend any events that day. Saturday was one of the race days, and the weather mostly cooperated, allowing us time to relax and watch the cars, including many Alfas, fly around the track. During the lunch break, several of us drove parade laps around the 1.6 mile track. The “Sunday in the Park” car show included six Alfa-specific Concours classes, special collector displays, and the Gathering of the Marques. By my count, there were 45 Alfas in the Concours classes, 40 racing Alfas, 25 special display Alfas, and close to 100 in the Gathering of the Marques, totaling 210 Alfa Romeo vehicles! The weekend was so overwhelming (there’s that word again) that I will break things out into separate blog entries, starting with Sunday’s Concours.

The six Alfa Romeo classes were Class 2, Spiders (convertibles); Class 7, Modified; Class 8, Fuoriserie (customs or limited production); Class 9, Berline (sedans); Class 10, Sport and Competition; and Class 11, Berlinette (coupes). My 1967 GT 1300 Junior was in Class 11, as was the 1967 Giulia Sprint GT belonging to Vic and Gail Cerami, who were sharing the Air B&B with us. All the display cars were gorgeous, and each had a unique history behind it. Judging started early, and a team of two were at my car before 9 a.m. After inquiring about the history of my car, they performed a brief mechanical evaluation, asking me to start the engine and demonstrate the exterior lighting.

I was relieved that the judging was completed early, as that freed me to wander the track and see the rest of the field. About two hours later, fellow NJ AROC member Bob Cooley saw me and said, “there’s a ribbon on your windshield!” I hurried back to find both a red ribbon and a small box on the driver’s seat. The red ribbon meant that I was one of two cars awarded the “Star of the Rock” trophy, roughly equivalent to Honorable Mention. The box contained a small plexiglass trophy. (A blue ribbon indicates “Best in Class” which I believe went to a Giulietta Sprint.) Frankly I was shocked, because as I told the judges, my car usually does not do well against restored cars; my car is unrestored and the paint shows it, so I was especially pleased that they recognized it nevertheless. Vic and Gail Cerami’s car, parked next to mine, won a more prestigious award: Best Restored Car. It was fun to have two award winners within the NJ-AROC, and we celebrated with drinks and food at a local Mexican restaurant.

I’ve been attending the Sunday in the Park show long enough to know that the various classes are extensive and varied. I did my best to cover much of the Concours field, but one downside to having my own car in the show is that it limited the amount of time I had to take in everything else. I think that next year, I’ll return to being “just” a spectator.