Learning Curves
Finding your way around a new racetrack
One of the fun things about vintage racing old sports cars is that often you get to travel to and drive upon a racetrack that you have never been to before. Sometimes it will be a major racing venue, tracks like Watkins Glen or Mosport Park or Elkhart Lake, tracks with rich histories that extend back to the roots of sports car racing in the early 1950s. Other times you will find yourself at charming, unpretentious places like Blackhawk Farms, Roebling Road or Waterford Hills, surrounded by people who have towed their own racecars to the venue for a weekend of sporting cheer.
The Easy Way
There are some people, a surprising number actually, who never venture beyond their own backyards with their vintage racing cars. Year after year they go to the same two or three tracks and work on the kind of tiny improvements that eventually make them an expert at their chosen tracks. They know where the hotels are, where to buy gas and which auto parts stores are open late on a Saturday night. It is all very comfortable and predictable and easy, but not what some of us want to gain from the whole vintage racing experience. For some vintage participants, the idea of going to a new track combines all of the best elements of a history lesson, a chance to learn the ins and outs of a new racetrack and a college road trip.
Getting There From Here
The United States is a surprisingly big country, especially if you are towing a racecar across it. Often that journey of traveling hundreds of miles across several states can also be an important part of the overall adventure. Planning your route, driving all day and into the night and staying in roadside motels stirs within us a genetic memory of the same wanderlust that first fueled the pioneers and in the 1920s and '30s pushed a whole generation to travel west by automobile. The lure of the open road is a strong one. Most racers today use enclosed trailers, providing a safe and secure place for their racecars, tools and parts. An enclosed trailer makes you anonymous and keeps your stuff safe at roadside diners or when you stop for the night at second-rate hotels.
But you do miss something if you have never stopped at a gas station for a fill-up with an esoteric sports car on your open trailer. It seems like everyone in the place wants to talk about your car. They want to know what kind of car it is, how old it is and where you are going with it. You and your sports car are instant celebrities, at least for the few minutes it takes to buy gas and supplies and use the restroom. Some people shun such attention, but it really is a nice way to connect the people you meet to the era we are all trying to recreate by driving these old cars. At any rate, after driving such a long way, you finally reach the race headquarters hotel and check in to your room. Tomorrow, you will be racing.