fter a week on the beach in Chatham, I was eager to get back to the second half of the SCCA's Historic Series. I left early Friday morning for a new track north of Pittsburgh called BeaveRun Motorsports Complex. Built on the site of a defunct strip-mining site, they've carved out a very nice 1.5-mile sports car circuit. There are plans for another circuit, with the possibility of a combined track of over three miles in length. I really enjoyed the track, which has a very fast flat-out (okay, I lifted a little) kink on the back straight, second-gear hairpin, and a great off-camber third-gear right-hander before the back straight.

Saturday and Sunday were both race days, with practice and qualifying sessions and a twenty-lap race in the afternoon. We had a small turnout, but most of the competitors were four-cylinder cars in two classes. One problem with this series is the V8 cars drag-racing from corner to corner, and then parking in the corners. The only V8 car was crashed out on the second lap. With no more room on the pavement, he took to the grass while trying to pass a 356 at the kink. He ended up off the road with some damaged fiberglass and a long drive home. I finished second behind that 356 (see photo below); I've been chasing that car for three seasons now. Ed Diamond and Brian Fallon co-own the car and share the driving. I recently heard that Ed drove in the inaugural 1966 trans-am race, qualifying second alongside some guy named A.J. Foyt. (A.J. is in the lead car, while Ed is in the black Mustang second from the right if you follow this link.)

The very next weekend, Celeste, Reid and I headed off for camping and racing at Lime Rock Park. Upon arrival Thursday night, Reid did a few laps around LRP on his new-found freedom—a bicycle without training wheels. Mom had to make sure that the downhill wasn't attempted flat-out just yet.

I found LRP harder than usual. The contrast from BeaveRun (with its new grippy pavement and lots of runoff) to polished pavement (with very little runoff) was hard to adapt to. Consequently, I qualified two seconds slower than last year. It was a frustrating race, running with cars I'd easily beaten the year before. A fourth-place finish was the best I could manage. Mike Lawton had a good race in his yellow Spider, finishing third.

August brought us back to NHIS. I enjoy NHIS, since it's close to home and I like the track layout. After lots of tinkering with the Alfa, it was disappointing to be a second off my last year’s time. I'm still at a point with my driving that's it's hard to blame the car just yet, but this was enough for me to buy a leak-down tester and find out if I could blame it. The leak-down tester statically pressurizes the cylinder, with the piston at the top and the valves closed. It then measures how fast the air leaks out—2-4% is good and up to 10-15% is acceptable for a street engine. I measured 15% on two of the cylinders, with hissing sounds coming out of the intake. I don't know how much power I was losing, but this made me feel better about my driving! I'd committed to a winter teardown to investigate, but there was a double race weekend at Watkins Glen and, after a win at NHIS, I was first in class and first overall of the five classes in the Historic Series. I was enjoying having more points than my friend Rocky, who laps me in his '73 911S.

September at the Glen is a great time. Saturday night is the pig roast, where you don't leave without learning the origin of the term "pulled pork". Qualifying on Saturday morning was in the rain (see photo below). I got out on the track early and, once I backed off from the spray of the car ahead, got some pretty good laps. It turned out that the small-bore cars led the way—I gridded eleventh out of forty cars, first in class with not a V8 in front of me!

We prepared for Saturday’s afternoon race with a cell phone hooked up to a laptop with real-time Doppler weather radar running. I learned a lesson, though: go to the grid with the tires for the current track condition—not what some damned computer tells you. The radar looked like imminent rain that never materialized. I dropped back three places for a third-place finish. 

Sunday's race was wild. A TR3 broke and threw oil in the Bus Stop chicane shortly before I arrived at the scene. A few lock-to-lock tank slappers later, I was through. I had qualified first again, but got passed when I "showed" the MG behind where the oil was.  He thanked me afterward—nice guy! A few laps later, a 240Z broke his engine at Turn 11 before the front straight. Now we had to tip-toe through two oiled-down corners at 5:30 pm before a seven-hour-long drive home on a Sunday night. Not a good time for bravado, so I erred on the cautious side, and dropped to fourth place in my class before they cut the race short due to time constraints and a dangerous track. 

The long drive home is a lot more fun with a race car in one piece and a season class win. I dropped to second place overall in the points. In December, I pulled the head for Charlie at Monty’s Machine to look over. One burnt exhaust valve and a valve job later, I hope to be back up to power for 2004. The season should start at Summit Point in April, with a race each month until going back to the Glen in September.

[Eliot is far too modest. He took first place in Class 2 of the 2003 SCCA Historic Championship (formally the Volvo Historic) Series. He also finished second overall in points this season! And this while going up against dozens of newer, better-funded cars! Great going, Eliot—you do us Alfisti proud!  —Ed.]