On April 27 & 28, the Connecticut AROC chapter hosted their annual Lime Rock drivers’ school and time trials. As usual, AONE was well-represented. Jonathan Kirshtein was poised to take the Fastest Alfa award for the umpteenth time in his GTV6, Nick Fonte was anxious to embarrass many of us in his lowly Alfetta Sedan (sorry Nick, I forgot—it’s a Sport Sedan), new member Bruce Fernie was there to shake out his ’67 Duetto E Production race car, Gene Durso was there to try out his new Glynn Motorsports hotrod motor, Bill LeClair was there to double his track experience in his 164, Tom Freiberger was there with his Montreal (school only), and I was there in my GTV6 to try to relieve some work pressure and not break anything (in that order).

There were a lot of other Alfas attending: Giuseppe LoRe challenging Jonathan for the umpteenth time, this time with some impressive bodywork on his 3.0 GTV6; many other GTV6s, some quite modified; a TZ1(!), a TI Super, a couple of Verdes, and probably some more that I missed. There was also a bunch of lesser cars—Ferraris, BMWs, Corvettes, and one race-prepped Dodge truck.

For me, the highlight of the weekend was getting my butt kicked by Nick Fonte. Or, better yet, watching Nick embarrass a whole bunch of cars that, well, just should have been so much faster than an Alfetta (Sport) Sedan, regardless of how well modified or set-up the Alfetta was. And Nick was having fun with it too. It wasn’t enough to simply pass his target (in some cases it was impossible for Nick to pass a slower car without some help, as a four cylinder Alfetta doesn’t quite have as much grunt as an eight cylinder Ferrari in a straight line, and passing is restricted to the straights). No, Nick had a way of planting himself on your rear bumper and moving back and forth while on your tail. Now I was fully aware of Nick’s capabilities whenever he planted himself on my bumper; however, I think that the average Ferrari driver was pretty surprised (and embarrassed). Nick also succeeded in getting past the TZ1—I can just imagine what was going through his head (hmm—$170,000 TZ1 vs. $1500 Alfetta Sedan— I think I’ll get out of his way)—although, in all fairness, the TZ1 was able to eventually catch up and repass.

Overall, the weekend was superb—perfect weather (a little nippy on Saturday—tough on the spectators but easy on the drivers), and relatively incident-free. There was only a single off-track incident that resulted in any damage: a Team Shoestring member went off in the downhill and fishtailed in the grass a fair distance down the straight before finally losing it and kissing the guard rail.

And the fastest Alfa? Well, Giuseppe finally pulled it off, topping Jonathan by .04 (four one hundredths!) of a second. Pretty damn close, but not without controversy, as Jonathan’s timed runs were interrupted by a flagging error—he did one or two laps, was waved into the pits in error, and then had to go out and finish his remaining laps. That kind of thing can mentally affect you, and it can also affect the car (only one lap to warm up the tires, etc.). Of course, we’ll have to wait until next year to see who is king.