... 514 miles, a warmup ride for our "iron butt" friend, roger, but for mere mortal motorcyclers like eric and myself a pretty good day's ride ... courtesy of eric's "points," we checked into the hilton garden inn and got a good night's rest ... the next morning we wandered [translated: took a bunch of wrong turns] to the watkins glen international raceway, where our passes let us into the pit area ... two minutes spent looking at the new jaguars on display, eric decided to take a test spin ...
... not really caring much about using only the first three of six gears, i passed on the chance to sit behind the wheel of a $88,000 car that has more horsepower than most locomotive engines, and instead served photography duty for eric's course runs ...
... tempted, of course, but neither of us bought a car ... we moved on to a stroll through the pit area ... the old alfa romeos fascinated me ...
... when i was a kid i dreamed of owning a lotus europa ... thirty-one inches high at the top of the doors, colin chapman's design philosophy of "simplify, then add lightness" was considered at the time to be "the nearest thing to a roadable formula one car" ...
... the alfa romeo grill is in and of itself a thing of great beauty ...
... in the garage we found a stable of alfas ...
... maximum power at minimum weight, that's the idea ...
... a datsun 610 engine, 1800cc's, shoehorned into a datsun 510, something i understand since to this day i measure all cars against my still-missed 1972 kelly green 510 ...
... the man who built this 510 also did jay leno's ... 'nuff said ...
... we watched all sorts of classes and categories of cars race ... here a mini cooper demonstrates a bit of humor with a rotating wind-up key ...
... not the fastest car on the track, but this alfa romeo giulietta gives up nothing when it comes to good looks ...
... an alfa spider purrs its way around the course ...
... these were the four-wheeled rocket cars ... i get confused, indy vs. formula one vs. other open-wheel types, but i do know they were all so fast that through the camera lens it was difficult to follow them as they sped by the bleachers ...
... another of the speed demons ... this was my first serious outing using a thirty-year old manual-focus zuiko 200mm on my fuji x-t1 ... after about an hour or so i was beginning to get the hang of it ...
... some cars you wear, it seems ...
... at the flag, i don't think it could get much closer than this ...
... forget the jaguar test drive, i would dearly love to take a 510 around the track ...
... if it was kelly green it would be perfect ...
... but [he sighs with fond memories], blue'll do, too ...
... winners' circle, each with a "what great fun" look on his face ...
... what great fun ... and, to top it off, we got to a twisty-turny new york country road back to our hotel ... yes, indeed, what great fun ...