After lunch, we descended through the Delaware Valley into Binghamton, NY and headed west on Route 17 through even heavier rain. The worst of it came right after the two Spiders split up, Gene and Judy heading north to their motel in Ithaca and me still due west heading for the Glen. Those rivers in western New York were running brown and swollen and awfully close to the bottoms of the bridges. I wasted no time in crossing. You have to have a sense of humor in these conditions, because the final indignity (or wonderful nature experience, depending on your humor factor) was whilst driving into the southern part of the Glen, where Route 14 passes right along a series of cliffs on your left, off of which rolls a waterfall, of varying sizes, every fifty feet or so. One was so big that the boil at the bottom of the cliff obscured the entire road, and when you came out the other side you had a lovely coating of light mud! Gotta hand it to my spider though. Other than keeping a towel rolled up along my left leg to catch drips, no water entered the car (it would have had to match speed, heh-heh).

The next morning dawned bright, partly sunny. Gene, Judy and I met at Savard’s restaurant in the downtown of the Glen for breakfast. Afterward, we drove the few blocks over to the International Motor Racing Research Center (IMMRC) to meet up with the rest of the tour and wow—we were not disappointed. There must have already been 60 other cars there and more arriving as we did. Alfas, Triumphs, dozens of MGTC’s, TD’s, TF’s and B’s (this was the year of the MG—more later), Corvettes, Jags, TVRs, Healeys, and not one, but two Allard sports racers of the early 50’s were in our group. All roadsters of course, as this is the Roadster Tour. I met up with Cal Crouch, who volunteered (never volunteer, remember?) to be my navigator this year. Cal’s Fiat X1/9 was parked nearby. We registered, listened to Jim Lehman at the drivers meeting, and headed out through the streets of the Glen. We beeped and honked at Smalley’s Garage as we went by (this is where all grand prix racers were "teched" up until 1960) and then headed up the east shore of Lake Seneca.

In the interest of brevity, I will just say that eventually we found our mid-morning stop, the Knapp Vineyard, at about 11am, where we were treated to a wine-tasting. After just a few minutes, we were on the road for a quick cross-country jaunt from Knapp (near Cayuga Lake) west to Lake Seneca, where we turned north and hugged the shoreline into Geneva, NY, then turned south along the west shore and drove about 30 miles down to the Glenora Winery (more great driving that tested our passing skills) where we were to have lunch and yet another wine tasting. This is tough work, but somebody’s gotta do it…

Afterward, Jim gave me a route and I took off in the lead with Gene and Judy right behind me, in front of about 75 more roadsters with our eventual destination the "Pool Entrance" at Watkins Glen State Park. Very interesting back roads on that run, including an honest-to-goodness fast uphill hairpin leading into yet another switchback. Finally, after some waiting and organizing at the pool entrance, Cal and I took off as the lead car in our three laps around the old circuit. It was amazing, scary, fun and wonderful all at the same time. On-course traffic was an intermittent pain once again, but Cal did a yeoman’s job of waving them out of the way. I guess there are just too many memorable driving experiences along this circuit to just describe one, and to tell them all would take a few more installments. Even so, it was over too soon. After we pulled up at the State Park on Franklin Street, Gene, Judy and I walked up Old Corning Hill to the Seneca Lodge, where we had a couple of celebratory cold ones and went out back to watch the Vintage racers assault the hill when that race started around 6pm. Cal headed off to meet some pals up by Cornetts’ stone bridge (one of the really exciting spots on the circuit).

The next day, I was due to be in the old car show and do parade laps around Watkins Glen International Raceway, but, as I said at the beginning, my trip this year had to be cut short and I instead headed back home. Damn! Gene and Judy were in the same boat and had even beat me home by a few hours.

But next year, the Featured Marque is Alfa Romeo!!!! This means that I will:

1) Be spending a full weekend at the Glen, and