Lister from Quebec at Watkins Glen

[Louis-Alain Richard]

>>-----Message d'origine-----
>>I saw a coupe quattro from QC at Watkins Glen this weekend with a Q-List
>>sticker in the window. Nice car. Who are you? Sorry I missed you.
>>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>>Mr. Greville H. Bowles
>>


>Hi Greville,
>
>Here is a message I posted to the urQ list yesterday.
>Thinking of it, it might be of some interest to you all on the mother list
>too...
>
>Louis-Alain



Hi all,

We (Brady and I) are just back from the Historic races at the Glen. 
It is nothing short of amazing; we saw (and heard and smelled...) all kind
of older race cars:
nearly 200 MGs (no kidding!),
2 Ford GT40,
1 GT40 Mk IV,
30 Trans-Am cars (including the famous “Lightweight” Sunoco Camaro),
almost all racing Porsches (908, 910, 914, 911, 956 but no 917),
Lister-Jags,
Lister-Chevy,
Allard-Hemi,
even a Saab Sonnet 2-stroke!

We spent the bigger part of the week-end walking the paddocks, since the
races are, well, not really races... Too much gap between the big boys (read
rich boys) and the true amateur vintage racers.
Nonetheless, a great week-end.

MAC: we took my red 1983 Quattro to get there. The car was perfect except
when we I had to brake hard because we missed our motel entrance; I think
one of the upper strut mounts disintegrated under the braking load, I don’t
know yet. Will look into this tomorrow.

At the track, we parked the car right beside the information center in the
middle of the infield. During the day, I saw people taking picture of the
car, I’ve heard others saying "it’s a kind of an expensive VW...", another
said “these were fast cars in their time”.

But the most satisfying comment went from a nice young woman, who stopped
her PT Cruiser to tell me :

"I must tell you something; you’ve almost got the coolest car in the
paddock!"
Well, that kind of comment is always more than welcome...

But it makes me wonder: What was her coolest car then?
The pristine Maserati Mistral? 
The genuine Renault-Alpine? 
The rare 3.8 liter OHC 6-cylinder Pontiac Firebird? 
The concours-winner Ferrari 275 GTB/4?
The modded Volvo Amazon wagon?
The mint silver 1980 VW Scirocco?

Interesting fact: we saw newer cars like Touring 5-series BMWs, CTS-V
Cadillacs, XJS Jaguars, and all of them were equipped with a manual
transmission. Very rare cars indeed.

But then, as Brady said, wisely: "You can expect to see the cream of the
crop here, so there is no surprise to find a genuine lightweight 2.7 RS or a
real Shelby Mustang". There is no "posers" here.

There were just so many gorgeous cars everywhere; you can imagine now why we
spent so much time in the paddock.


Louis-Alain,
Who now dreams of entering an IMSA 90 or a Trans-Am 200 or a tarmac-prepared
rally Quattro...