Results are up on MyLaps - congrats to Kip and Dan Jones. I'm going out to the shop to drink beer, install my new splitter and ponder why I didn't go. Shoulda coulda woulda
Results are up on MyLaps - congrats to Kip and Dan Jones. I'm going out to the shop to drink beer, install my new splitter and ponder why I didn't go. Shoulda coulda woulda
BenSpeed
#33 ITR Porsche 968
BigSpeed Racing
2013 ITR Pro IT Champion
2014 NE Division ITR Champion
Sharon and I took the track tours on Saturday. Never so happy with a decision! Going under the bridge at 11 for the first time is much more dramatic than the downhill at Lime Rock, or Turn One at Bridgehampton! Would not have wanted to do that in a race car without having seen it in a street car first!
Newest track on my list of tracks I have to drive!
Bill Stevens - Mbr # 103106
BnS Racing www.bnsracing.net
92 ITA Saturn
83 ITB Shelby Dodge Charger
Sponsors - Race-Keeper Data/Video Aquisition Systems www.race-keeper.com
Simpson Performance Products - simpsonraceproducts.com
Really? To me the downhill is more ballsy and when I ran it kept wondering what all the fuss was about. Now turn 1 is quite a challenge at RA.much more dramatic than the downhill at Lime Rock
Dave Gran
Real Roads, Real Car Guys – Real World Road Tests
Go Ahead - Take the Wheel's Free Guide to Racing
Y'all should have run it when there was no 10 a&b but there was the DIP. The old guy know what I am taking about.
Dave- got to agree the downhill at Lime Rock is way more than the current RA... I didn't get the fuss either when we went down. Great track though all around one of my favorite. Better than Mid Ohio and almost as fun ad Lime Rock IMO.
Raymond
RST Performance Racing
www.rstperformance.com
You two chain-smoking the funny cigs? Except for the home boys who have this weird obsession with LRP, you'll find very few drivers with experience around this country that would choose that track - or any of its components - over Road Atlanta. Yup, it was a better track before Panoz changed it - he'll have to answer to the Good Lord someday for that - but LRP will always be this little rinky-dink track that would never be accepted as more than an HPDE track were it built today, surviving simply because it's close to NYC and has been around a long time...
Get out to more tracks, kids. Take some time to get away from home more often. Try something new once in a while.
I never said I like LRP more than RA. I simply said that turn is NOT scarey to me in my B car. Heck, if one's doing it right they're not fully at the left going down the hill to save real estate.
Hey Greg, I did make it down to Summit this year and LOVED the Labor Day event as well as the track. I'd be happy to add a "Sponsor Now" button if you'd like to help me get to more tracks.
Dave Gran
Real Roads, Real Car Guys – Real World Road Tests
Go Ahead - Take the Wheel's Free Guide to Racing
Well, maybe it's the fact that I first went over the downhill at LRP back in '67 or '68 and I've slept a few since then........
But I will never forget coming thru West Bend at 90 in a 427 Cobra with Mark Donohue and wondering how the car was going to fit under the bridge!!!!!!!!!!!!
Bill Stevens - Mbr # 103106
BnS Racing www.bnsracing.net
92 ITA Saturn
83 ITB Shelby Dodge Charger
Sponsors - Race-Keeper Data/Video Aquisition Systems www.race-keeper.com
Simpson Performance Products - simpsonraceproducts.com
Chris Rallo "the kid"
-- "wrenching and racing" -- "will race for food!" -- "Onward and Upward"
Actually, Chris, I gave LRP a *LOT* of credit. I grew up in Texas simply dreaming of the "mystique" of Lime Rock Park, relishing the Memorial Day race on TV after watching the Indy 500 and the Coca Cola 600 (?) the weekend before. When I came to CT for the first time my visit to LRP was the *first* thing I did, even before going to the hotel. And, yep, I ducked the first time I drove under The Bridge.
But since then, the mystique has quickly worn off. I've driven nearly two decades at that place, most of it on worn, buckled, and cracking pavement (on places where it wasn't a concrete patch). Most of it has been paddocking on dirt (when it wasn't mud or out-and-out standing water). Bathrooms are minimal - non-existent in the B Paddock - and it's only recently I haven't had to pay someone extra to clean them. Showers? Yeah, right.
And then there's the track. It was world-class course -- in 1959, when there were few other choices. Only 1.5 miles, visually attractive mostly because it has "park" in the name. Only recently has it been redesigned such that it won't ALWAYS kill you when you make a simple mistake, and that was only due to coming *this* close to losing one of its very few profitable weekends. And, recently the costs involved in playing there as a club has nearly tripled, and it's rare that I get out of there as a spectator for two bills when all is said and done.
And, of course, each time I decide to race (or sometimes spectate) there, it usually requires an additional day off work because there's no racing on Sunday. Oh, but that adds to the mystique, right...?
Bottom line, the dogs bark but the caravan moves on. Lime Rock Park was nice in its day, but that day is long past; there are so many better, world-class facilities, some of them historical but highly revised, most of them built within the last couple decades. Hell, even crappy-ass Nelson Ledges and Hallett are better tracks as driver's courses! If someone built Lime Rock Park exactly as it sits now, it would be heralded as a great "country club" facility for those with tons of money to drive their Ferraris around, but it would be unlikely to garner a lot of attention from the racers. And it would NEVER get a major date like ALMS. Not in a million years.
I do like the breakfast sandwiches and tots, though. Could live on those for a long time.
Hey, you always remember your first time: I still hold a soft spot for Texas World Speedway with its crappy roval configuration and a long sense of history with Indy and NASCAR. But in the light of day, when you look back at the high school yearbook photo of the girl you got your first kiss from, you soon recognize she was as dumpy as the rest of them...
Bookmarks