This past Friday, I attended the 2013 Walter Mitty at Road Atlanta.  The weather was just perfect (although Saturday and Sunday is another story) and the cars were just amazing.  As usual, the first thing to do after arriving is to go through the paddock and see all the awesome cars.

The picture above shows a very hot Mini owned by John Finger.  John comes by the shop from time to time, and last summer he brought the mini to show it to us.  He offered to take me out for a short spin in it and I can say this car is seriously fast.  Matter of fact, it is scary fast.    All the power comes from a front mounted, twin-rotor Mazda rotary engine.  This is a seriously fast car and it is for sale.

I took a huge number of photos.  The following gallery (for those of you on the mailing list, it might not show up so you might want to fire up the browser and see them the old-fashioned way) shows some of the more significant machines in the paddock.  I wish I had more, but the camera operator (that would be me) was shooting in full RAW format and I had the wrong memory chip in.  I’ll have more pictures of the action, but I need to sift through them and pick the best.  I promise I’ll have another photo gallery soon.  In the meantime, enjoy…

If you have never been to the Mitty, you need to go.  Friday is the best day – the crowd is small and you can walk up to the cars in the paddock and take your time looking at them.  There is plenty of action on the track too, and there are some excellent vantage points throughout Road Atlanta.  It is very much worth the trip.

The British Car Club Midlands Centre (Columbia, SC) hosts the Carolina British Car Classics show.  This year, the Carolina British Car Classics show was held at the Columbia Speedway in Cayce, SC.  I thought it would be nice to register for the show and see what might turn out.

There were two really nice TR8’s.  One in particular was a late production version with port fuel injection.  Several nice TR3’s too.

There was a very unusual Jaguar XJ6 coupé at the show.  Having owned an 84 XJ6 or many years gave me a good appreciation for these cars and I have always thought the coupé is special.  It is basically the four door car with much larger doors and the distinctive vinyl roof.  My XJ6 had an LT1 from an Impala SS in it; imagine one of these with an LSx!

This car show had a gaggle of Sunbeam Alpine cars on display.  Here is a sample of the nicer ones: some with hard tops, some with Ford V6’s, some with the stock engine but all with nice paint jobs.

This pair is of interest.  No, these Sunbeams did not have removable hardtops; these were coupés:

And finally, the Austin Healey…  There were some very nice ones, particularly a 100M.  There were several 3000’s that were also very impressive.

In summary the show was fun.  Having bowtie6 on the open road, doing 75-80 mph is just a delight.  In fifth gear, at 80 mph the revs were just a tad under 3,000 – no worries!  Yes, we had the usual “thumb’s up” from several motorists as well as the “I got you on my cell phone camera” as one goes down the road.  On the way home, a group of 8 leather-clad Harley riders passed me and several gave me the prized “nod” of approval.

The show was pretty cool.  It was a nice gathering of folks, some with really nice cars while others had, some questionable work done.  There were your usual wiring harness nightmares as well as “taking the cheap and easy way out” solutions to problems.  Then there was a poor Sunbeam whose owner hadn’t figured out the secret of using washers between a nut, a bracket and a bolt head.  In that case, the poor bracket holding the alternator tight ended up with gauge marks all over it.  I suppose the owner of the car can’t figure out why the belt tension won’t stay constant…

In closing, I find it very interesting to take my folding chair and park myself a car or two away from mine so I can do some “people watching”.  It is amazing to see how many experts show up, out of the woodwork.  Equally fun is to take one’s “owner badge” off, take a leisurely walk and pretend to go full-retard when it comes to classic cars.  You just never know what kind of answers and/or inaccuracies you will hear from certain owners.  Some will be very informative (i.e.: the owner of the AH 100M knew his stuff), some others will be pricks (oh yes, ran into one of these at the Amelia Island Concours) and then you will have those who just make shit up right there on the spot and act like they have a copy of Google and Wikipeadia in their heads (they are my favorite, especially when you trip them up!).

But it’s all good – that is part of the fun when going to car shows!