Southern New England Events for June

There’s lots going on in southern New England this month, starting this weekend.

The first British Car Festival will be held in Bristol RI this coming weekend. It’s a multi-day event, organized by the same folks who do the British Invasion in Stowe, VT. I hope to get down there for the concours on Saturday, but the weather looks a little iffy at the moment. Details are at:

http://www.britishmotorcarfestival.com/

Father’s day weekend will see the second annual Vintage Motorsports Festival at the newly reopened road course at Thompson CT. This year they are having car corrals and parade laps on Saturday and Sunday. You just might see my Tiger there in the British corral on Sunday. Details at:

http://www.thompsonspeedway.com/events/2nd-annual-vintage-motorsports-festival

British Car Day will again be celebrated on Sunday June 28 at the Lars Anderson Auto Museum in Brookline MA. There’ll be over 200 British vehicles of every imaginable description filling their lawn. Get there early if you want a good parking spot. Details at:

http://larzanderson.org/events/lawn-events/2015lawnschedule/british15/

You may have missed British Car Week, but there’s still lots of reasons to hit the road left this month.

Stu

Thank you for posting. Hopefully I can make at least one.

I tried to generate some interest in the Bristol, RI event with a post a few weeks ago but didn't get a single response.

http://classicmotorsports.com/forum/classic-cars/british-motorcar-festival-coming-to-bristol-ri/102039/page1/

(Probably should have posted on the GRM forum because this forum is like Sleepy Hollow).

In any case I plan to be at the Bristol event as a spectator. I'll be at Thompson both Saturday and Sunday and maybe the Larz Anderson Lawn Event too.

The problem with the Bristol RI festival is the fact that its run by the same group that runs Stowe. Its a blatant money grab for the organizer. You want to go and look at British cars? It will cost you $5 for parking and another $15 per person to walk thru the gate. Last time I went to Stowe, it was a miserable rainy day. Field was a mud bog and many people just went home. I was standing with a bunch of guys looking over the TR8s when a Rolls Royce got stuck in the mud in back of us. Most of the guys I was with ran over to give the guy a push. Driver didn't even roll down the window to acknowledge the guys helping him out. Driver guns the throttle and sprays mud all over the guys pushing him, then he drives off without even a wave or thank you. Pretty much sums up feelings about the show. Same weekend, New England Triumphs is doing a drive, get together, cars and coffee thing in Western Mass. Think I'd rather spend my $20 on gas and drive my TR8 on some country roads, than sit in a muddy field and watch new Rolls Royces, Bentleys, Jaguars, and Range Rovers pretend to be british cars.

In reply to tr8todd:

Well, I guess we'll see. It's the first year for this event.

Sounds like you had a bad experience at Stowe on a rainy day. (I should tell you about rainy days at Lime Rock sometime ...). But I've never heard anyone disrespect British Invasion in all these years. I'll let you know if Bristol turns out to be a "money grab," as you say. (C'mon, twenty bucks ... a money grab? The organizers have expenses that need to be covered). So unfortunately I guess we won't see you there.

Oh, and by the way, if you go to a Larz Anderson Lawn Event (which are great), there's an admission fee there too, which includes entrance to the museum. And Thompson has an admission fee too. In fact, talking about admission fees, I paid $60 to get into the Boca Raton Concours d'Elegance back in February. I've been there about five times and thoroughly enjoyed the experience every time. (I even got to talk to Wayne Carini this year about his $100K Volvo P1800 prediction!) About the only free events I know of are the street rod cruise-ins at A&W.

And the AROC (Alfa club) National meet will be in and around Providence late in the month. I will be coming up for that.

In reply to Tim Suddard:

A few years ago I participated in a rally with the local chapter of the AROC held jointly with the local British car club which I belong to. They're a very nice bunch of people. "Ran When Parked" frequent contributor Tom Letourneau, an Alfa club member, was the rally master (a very clever and very devious rally master I might add, a raconteur of the first order, and an all around great guy). It was a lot of fun, and we ended up at Thompson where the new road course was being constructed at the time. Tom had organized a free lunch courtesy of the Hoenig family (Thompson owners) at the club house for all rally participants.

I will be at the Bristol show Saturday. If anyone is there stop by. My car is a 75 Spitfire. RI plate 4050. If is half as good as the Stowe event it will be a good first year.

In reply to Rhodyspit75:

I'll see you there!

This is a very nice event. Maybe not as big as British Invasion, but very well-attended with a lot of interesting British cars. Perfect weather, excellent venue, and a lot of great cars. Well worth the admission fee. I enjoyed it.

Ernie, great looking Spitfire. You've done an excellent job with it!

Thanks Gary for stopping by and for the compliment. I was very impressed with the turnout considering it was the first time this has been held.

You can't beat the venue. The event was very well organized and the people I spoke with that are not from this area loved Bristol.

I look forward to this being a yearly event.

But boy was the ride home hot!

Wife Annie accompanied me, but since she's not a car girl, she chose to sit in the shade with her Kindle rather than roaming the field. That's OK, as long as she's nearby I'm good. But being in Bristol, after leaving the event it was a quick trip over the Mount Hope Bridge and Sakonnet River Bridge to get to The Boat House Tavern in Tiverton for a late lunch. It's one of our favorite restaurants. Annie was happy, so I was happy.

http://www.boathousetiverton.com/photo-gallery/photos-boathouse-restaurant.htm

My wife and I were there on Saturday, for a bit. Pricey to get in, at least we didn't have to pay to park. It was nice to chat with a couple old friends, including Steve (Yellow Tiger from Maine) and hear his stories of dealing with the organizers there.

From the stories I heard of Stowe, I think I was expecting more cars. The field seemed sort of empty, but that was perhaps because it was so large. I took a few pictures, nothing impressive, and I'm not sure I'll post them anywhere.

After, my wife and I wandered around downtown Bristol for a while and tried a dockside restaurant that my son (Roger Williams grad) had suggested.

Now the long term forecast for next Sunday (Thompson Vintage show) says thundershowers...

Stu

I posted a few photos from the Bristol Festival Concours at:

http://www.pbase.com/sb_photos/bristol

Stu

In reply to stu67tiger:

Stu, great pictures. You caught me in one of your shots, picture #2, the head-on Bentley picture. That's me walking past the red XK150 in the background. We should've worn name tags for ID!

And I just noticed my wife in the next picture of the aluminum-bodied Allard. She's sitting in the background talking to a stranger (presumably another person not interested in the cars).

In reply to Gary:

Ha! And I almost cropped you out in post processing.

Assuming the long term forecasts are wrong, I'll be at Thompson on Sunday, with the Tiger, for the British Corral. And the following Sunday I'll be at British Car Day in Brookline, the Tiger under one of the shade trees the Jaguar guys don't grab. I maybe directing parking as I have in past years (explaining my shade tree), though I haven't talked to them about that yet. Say Hi if you see me.

Stu

One of the nice things about being retired (and there are many, trust me) is getting up in the morning and doing anything I damn-well please. So it's 8:00 am, I'm enjoying a cup of coffee, and looks like it's going to be a nice day. Today is practice day for the Thompson Vintage Weekend, and Thompson is about a 50 minute Miata drive from my house through some great country roads. So guess what I'm doing today? I waited nearly 40 years for that road course to re- open so I don't want to miss a minute of the action. My current project of making all new hard brake lines for the Spitfire can wait. Of course, I'll be at Thompson again tomorrow too, and Sunday as well (as long as the rain that's forecast isn't toooo bad). Life is good!

Despite having bought a ticket for the British Corral (and Parade lap) Sunday, I think I'll do Saturday instead. I haven't used the Tiger's wipers for real rain for several years, and it really doesn't stay too dry inside, even with the top up. Its about 35 miles for me, so I think I'll drive the Tiger anyway.

Stu

It was a good day at Thompson, but I'm really disappointed at the turnout. There are only about 100 cars racing this year. Last year there were 150+. Maybe because it's Father's Day weekend? I don't know. I don't know how many entry fees they need to make the event financially viable. I also found out that the VRG is doing a vintage weekend at Palmer in early August.

I met forum member "aeronca65t" who was racing his Midget. I helped him push it back on the trailer. Transmission problems. He was heading home.

Palmer? I was surprised to see they finished it. Last I'd heard was that everything had stopped, a couple years back. Looking at their schedule, I see lots of their events are "private". So no spectators?

As far as the turnout goes, well, its not the first one, its Father's day weekend, AND... Sunday will require rain tires. And maybe lightning rods...

Stu

In reply to stu67tiger:

Re: Palmer ...

http://classicmotorsports.com/forum/grm/palmer-motorsports-park/101803/page1/

Stu, tomorrow look for an old guy wearing an orange baseball hat that says "Newport RI" on it. That'll be me.

Multiple disappointments this weekend. Rain predicted for Sunday (also in the car corral and parade laps) when I'd planned to go, so we went Saturday. But that was only the start. I got about 10 miles from home when the Tiger suddenly had no power. It was running, but nothing was there when I stepped on the pedal. So I did a 180 through a gas station, and headed back. Still no power, then, an instant later, all was back to normal. The rest of the drive home had no problems.

So we switched to the Subaru and headed out again, finally getting there about 10:30. You called it, much smaller this year. Hung out with my friend Phil with his blue Alpine for a bit. He was hoping his problem in the morning session was just a fuel pickup issue. Was right by the fence where the GT-6 scraped the Armco. Wandered all over the place, looking for Photo ops, not much.

Left about 3:45, daughter's birthday stuff to do at home.

So now I have another mystery to solve before British Car Day next weekend.

Stu

Stu, I walked past the blue Alpine many times today and no doubt you were there, but I didn't know. Too bad. There was some pretty good racing today but small fields. The big bore qualifying race after you left was excellent. I did get a chance to "BS" with Burt Levy. What a character! But that goes without saying. He's the guest speaker at the dinner in the clubhouse tonight. (His new book is being released in a few weeks). Also ran into David Lachance from Hemmings Sports & Exotic Car magazine and talked for awhile. Great guy. Very personable. Not full of himself like some magazine managing editors or publishers.

Well I've done two of the three events and plan to go to Larz Andersen next Sunday. Glad I went toThompson yesterday it poured today. Unfortunately I had wanted to go up today with my son and do the parade lap in the Spitfire.

Instead we watched the Red Sox smoked a good cigar and had a little Pappy Van Winkle's Family Reserve. Not a lap around Thompson but a good Fathers Day.