I'll write the news story then, to the best of my ability. Please forgive me if I screw up any names, as my memory isn't the best for
that. Also, feel free to add your points to this, I'm just trying to give an overview for all the unfortunate ones who couldn't be there.
The event started out Friday night just having dinner and seeing who was all showing
up, and the question of the day was: Where is Lance? Turns out he got stuck in a major snowstorm trying to struggle through Wyoming, and amidst his adventures and struggles to make it was spending the night in an emergency shelter in a gymnasium in Rawlings, Wyoming. When he gets back, he'll probably have a better story to tell. He was finally able to perservere through and arrive Sunday. We're all comparing notes and I think we've all decided to order Solaris headlamps after seeing them on Matt's silver 2000 SVT. Matt gets the mileage record, coming all the way from New Jersey.
Saturday morning broke misty and cold, and degraded to snow
over the course of the day. Therefore, washing the cars was impossible, though we had planned to do so.
Please excuse the dirtiness of the cars in the pictures once they are available, mine was absolutely filthy!
However, we still met to admire and compare notes, and headed off to the dyno, where we saw Eric's Contour "Type-R". Really, it had a reprogramming done, and for some reason it reduced power at 4000 and 5000 rpm, but increased it at 6250. I intend to do a dyno here in Minneapolis for comparison purposes, just to see what we lost due to altitude. When I have that info, I will post it.
We then went on a fun run to the east, and I got the crap scared out of my by John, as he flipped his flashing lights on to identify
himself, just as my radar detector went beserk. Once we all got together, we took an
approximately 150 mile jaunt, with the non-SVT's bouncing off their speed limiters
much of the time. I took a couple of speedometer pics I hope turn out.
Then came dinner and we all went our ways to get ready for the next day, hoping the road course would be open.
Luckily it was, and the ALFA (sorry John, couldn't resist
)Romeo group was more than welcoming, letting us share the track, and even including us in their lunch, and
giving us ribbons like they presented to their own. Great group of people, and I also thank them for being so good to us. Lance
finally has made it after his ordeal, although I would have liked to see the Alpine Special ground effects the snowstorm gave him (he said they basically were as low as possible and still have the wheels turn and the car move.) On the track, Corbin's experience led to the best times, and Matt did second, and the Quaife is UNBELIEVEABLE! No drama, and it makes it easy to just throw the car around the course. Bob's 18" wheels, Koni's and Eichbach's just kept the car planted to the course, I can't wait for my Koni's to arrive after seeing that. After that was dinner, and then we all started having to go our separate ways, but none of us wanting it to end.
One thing (OT) I do need to state was that everything was so cloudy and hazy until Sunday afternoon, that you could not even see the mountains. So on Monday, before heading back east to Minneapolis, and the real world, I took a private fun run of my own going about 60 miles west into the mountains. OK, I wasn't going anywhere near triple digit velocities, and my attention was distracted by gawking around at the mountains (flatlander me never saw any before, so I
was going bug-eyed at them). Lance, on the other hand, has probably seen as many as he wants to for a while.
It ended up only being 9 cars total at various times, 3 green (1 SVT, 1 Contour, 1 Mystique), 2 siver SVT's, 2 Black SVT's, 1 red SVT, 1 Blue SE. However, we all had a great time far beyond what mere words can express, and wherever the next National Meet is (and SZ 2001 in Kalamazoo, Michigan), I'll
do whatever I can to make sure I'm there, as it was well worth the trip. As much as I would have liked seeing more of you there, and definitely want to see more CEGers at future events; I must admit in journalistic honesty that it was nice to have only a few to share the track with, so even the cloud of only having a few there has a silver lining.
Pictures should be coming up when we can get them developed/scanned... We took enough of them, so there should be plenty of good ones turning out for you to see.
John wrote:
It's late so I won't post everything I want to But, this is for Nick and everyone wondering about the ATX/MTX issue. Here are the results of our timed laps on the 1.7 miles road course. Everyone had an SVT except for Lance, who has a 95 SE MTX, and me, I have a 98 Mystique Zetec WITH ATX.
Best times
Corbin C. 1:27:07
Matt G. 1:29:32
Bob H. 1:31:60
Deana C. 1:31:99
James O. 1:33:22
John M. 1:34:21
Lance K. 1:35:71
So as you can see, not bad hanging with the SVT crowd
We had an excellent time. We had the track most of the day and shared part of the time with a great Alpha Romeo Group. Thanks again to the Alpha crowd.
John
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I don't have a personality. I have an attitude
Ross 1998 E0 SVT T-Red
[This message has been edited by svtcarboy (edited September 28, 2000).]
[This message has been edited by svtcarboy (edited September 28, 2000).]
