Reply to "Spa trip"

The racing was going on, training and qualifying. Group C’s in anger down the straight outside our windows, champagne glass in hand…

Soon it was time for the track session. That’s been described earlier, but I’d like to add that my Pantera behaved perfectly. No overheating, no brake fade, no lack of power at any time. In fact I didn’t use a tool on the whole trip, just added half a liter of Royal Purple and fiddled with brake light wires to clear up a bad connection the day after. I did have to use tools when I got home, but more on that later.

After the track session where we had given these people a track experience, we had one more task to do. We should pick up one person from the hotel just outside and drive them to their restaurant. So we did. I got a Dane in my car, he was invited by the sponsor Richard Mille. An ok guy, owned an Alfa, so did appreciate our cars. Most of the 25 kms were in woods and mountains, uneventful, just talking cars. He took notes in a little book. But when I saw that I had gotten a little behind and a straight opened up, I put it in 2nd and floored it. Without warning him. He laughed heartily for a while after.

We left them at their restaurant, and had to find our hotel. The Bergerons, Philippe (Porsche 911 track car, is building Group 4 replica) and I. I was the one with a GPS, so I led the way. We got to the wonderful hotel in Verviers, whose parking lot always is full of interesting cars. Two years ago DeTomaso was the celebrated mark at Spa, this year it was TVR, so plenty of those. Dinner and to bed

Day 3, Saturday. Being a morning guy, I stood up, washed the car, fixed the brake light, and drove to the track. I entered the hospitality suite, where we on Sat and Sun had a nice hostess. Since I was the only one there, we talked a bit. She said she was studying to be a translator and wanted to learn Danish. I thought to myself, she must be hitting on me; nobody in their right mind wants to learn Danish! But then I thought that no cute 22 year old in her right mind would be hitting on me, so it was probably the Danish language she was after. And it was…

I spent most of that day walking around on the inside of the track. To Les Combes where you can’t get very close but there’s an abandoned bridge where you can stand and see the cars from behind as they race towards Les Combes. Wish I had been here when Hakkinen overtook Schumacher on that straight, with a backmarker in the middle of the track, the best "move" in racing history IMO.