Hey, all you Race Car Driver Wannabees! Tom Marantz and I headed out to the wilds of West Central Massachusetts (not far from Podunk, actually), to the Palmer Motorsports Park for a day of racing with the Ledoux family. Bruce Ledoux is the guy with the 550 Spyder hung on his basement wall, was the founder of Spyderclub.com and was the guy my son and I went to Daytona to support in a Rolex race, only to bail on him and work for someone else (but THAT car won!)
Anyway, the weather was absolutely cloudless, albeit a bit on the cold side. Four layers for me just about cut it if we were in the sun, but Tom looked more than a little like a piece of flash-frozen beef. We actually met right on time at the front gate, me in Pearl and Tom in his JPS coupe. I'll tell yah, when we stopped at the track check-in for parking directions we certainly made a lot of heads turn.
Bruce was not racing this time, but his 14 year old son, Ryan was, in his 1991 Spec Miata along with Ryan's mom, Linda in her Lotus Exige. Here's a shot of our primo parking spots with the Ledoux car hauler in the background. That thing is furnished and equipped better than my shop and is like hauling a NAPA store around with you. I especially liked the Keurig machine in the galley. Those 5 square dots at the top of the trailer are bazillion-lumen LED lights for the "work area" outside.
The track at Palmer has only been around for 15 years or less, is VERY technical and probably the best track I've ever seen to learn how to race on. Here's a 3-D showing the turns and elevations. I have not driven this track at speed, only parade laps (60mph), but it's a VERY difficult track to memorize because there's a lot going on. We overheard that lap times in Ryan's class were around 1:50 for a 2.3 miles long distance.
Here's more detail from the PMP website:
https://www.palmermotorsportsp...TrackMaps.aspx?Map=2
We were parked in the loop near turn 1. Everything from low-bucks car haulers and tents to the LED lit "le Chateau de LeDoux" up there on the hill.
The trailer can fit 3 or 4 cars on the upper deck, plus another 1 - 2 on the lower deck, depending on configuration. The lower deck also has the shop, galley, more shop, spare part storage (huge), half-flight up to the conference room (converts to sleeping overnight) and shower, plus a full sleeper behind the tractor and a utility pod behind that (air compressor, generator big enough for the town of Palmer, heat/AC for the sleeper Cab and so forth. I just wanted to drive that 18-speed Volvo tractor.
So here's Bruce and his wrench, Mike, prepping Linda's Lotus (Ryan's Miata in the background). Tom and I did our best to (a.) not get in the way, (b.) help out where we could and (c.) hand them stuff as needed. I'm actually surprised that they didn't have a portable lift - They had just about everything else!.
As we were wandering around the upper level paddock, I spotted this license plate (the car was friggin awesome, too) and had to share. My buddy could have used this on his twin-turbo DeTomaso Pantera.
So Ryan got out on the track in his class and placed 10'th out of 28. Not bad for a 14-year-old at a season opener. He was getting more confident and faster on every lap. He's in the yellow car in the middle and you can see some of the turns and track elevations in the background (find the red Miata just right of center). I don't know why, but my next-door-neighbor races motorcycles out there and the bikes go clockwise 'round the track, while the sports cars got anti-clockwise. Don't ask me....
So, all in all it was a stellar day. Weather was cold but perfect, Pearl's heater was cranking on Impulse power only, I only had one nut case in a Chevy Suburban trying to run me off of I-90 while three people were trying to take pictures of Pearl, and both Tom and I got back home with no incidents.
This officially kicks off the 2021 New England Replicar summer season. Others in our small-but-growing group (Susie Myette and her husband, along with Darrell "Widebody Boy" hit the Audrain Classic Car Museum Cars and Coffee in Newport, RI on Sunday. I may have photos of that, too (if anybody took some!)
No beaches to cruise by here, so we have to make do........
