Say yes, this one was a lot of fun. Having invited the British car enthusiasts from the British Car Festival, we had several visitors. We apparently scared off a couple of Triumphs who came early but split before the serious driving started. Excuses abound, but apparently they had more important things to attend to. We had a new Mini, a Catheram (Lotus_7 clone) with more power than it knew what to do with, and a spanking new 2005 Lotus Elise combining the spirit of an MG Midget with mid engine, more power, independent suspension, and modern technology.

Barney Gaylord was allowed behind the wheel of the Catheram for a fun run lap to see what could be done with too much power, a grabby clutch, and front end push that wanted to take the turns into the next county. Perhaps less front sway bar would help. The Lotus Elise was a delightful site to behold sneaking easily between the staggered obstacles, even when the owner was being shy about pushing hard with the hardly run in new machine. Barney was drooling over that one too, but no luck for anyone getting a hand on it.

Bil Menell’s nephew Kyle managed to eek out a better time than WIlbur in Wilbur’s car, finally upholding the tratition of the kids trouncing the elders. I can’t wait to see how the run off goes when we’re back to have another go at it on October 17th. I don’t have the lap times handy, but in the end I believe David Lieb took top honors for Fast Time of Day, showing what some good driving and a set of sticky race tires can do for an unassuming MG Midget. Man, I miss my race tires.

This was the second outing for the club’s new electronic timing equipment (see cover photo). This allows one finger timing operation while simply writing the lap times on a clipboard. That’s a HUGE improvement over our prior timing system where two people manually operated stop watches and averaged the results while a third person staged cars and recorded lap times.