Alfa Century Rally and Swap meet Gallery

In additon to the concours below, the previous day began with an autocross. I participated, and below you can see my cleanest run.  I didn't do that great, to be honest, but it was my first autocross and I had a good time. The biggest shock was how well the Spiders did.  I figured that the GTV6 should wipe the floor with the Spiders, but their lighter weight and lower center of gravity made up for their lack of power and chassis stiffness.  Autocross is sort of like a dog agility course for cars, and though it is a lot of fun to drive in, it looks so lame when you are watching it. I think Karting is more enjoyable as a beginner's form of motorsport, but then again, here you at least get to feel the handling limits of your road car in a safe environment. Thanks to my friend Rob for filming this!

After the autocross was over, my friend Rob and I sat for an hour in the sweltering heat waiting for the TSD (time speed distance) rally to begin. There was a huge line of cars, and each of them was seen off exactly one minute apart.  Most of them were Spiders, and one of them was a multi-million dollar prewar 8C 2300! The rally was also open to non-Alfas, so there were also some rental cars in there, and also a 1950's era De Soto, which drove off a minute before my car was sent on its way.  We ended up playing an absurd game of tortoise and hare with this gray, lumbering behemoth of a car! We caught him almost immediately, and passed him. But a wrong turn saw us backtrack for a mile or so and there we were behind him again!  After following him through miles of twisting roads where there was no passing, we managed to get ahead and disappeared off into the hills.  But when we stopped for a sanctioned 15 minute fuel and food break, he caught back up and started early so he was now ahead of us again!  After a few more miles of twisty roads, we got by again, and then proceeded to drive like mad to make up lost time.  We passed 3 or 4 other Spiders and a few rental cars, and I have absolutely no idea how we did in the end.  But Rob was a great co-driver and we had a blast on some truly breathtaking and fun Maryland roads.

Finally, it was time to kick back and relax at the Convention Hotel parking lot, and there was dinner served while people milled around and looked at the cars and commiserated.  My buddy Glenn, who originally sold me my car, was there with his two GTV6 track cars (including the infamous "Blue Meanie") as well as a customer car he was delivering for a new buyer and his wife. It was great to see him again, though he had some bad luck and broke both cars at the track so he never got to compete in the autocross.  Such is life with racing and Alfas I suppose. Click HERE for the full gallery of the whole day! And make sure not to miss gallery page 2!

Automobiliac at the ALFA CENTURY Concours!

What a weekend I had, folks.  It was sensory overload of the best kind-- kind of like going to a party at the Playboy mansion the day you got a new glasses prescription! For two days, I pretty much did nothing but look at, talk about, or drive Alfa Romeos, and I loved every second of it.  2010 marks the 100th Anniversary of the Alfa Romeo marque, and to celebrate, the Washington DC chapter of the Alfa Romeo Owners Club put on what can only be described as an unrepeatable Alfista extravaganza - or as I put it Alfapalooza.  Thursday there was a track day at Summit Point raceway, which I sadly missed, then Friday there was the Autocross (which I'll write about in a future post), the TSD rally, and then the swap meet and BBQ. Saturday was the concours held at the Stone Manor country club near Frederick, MD, where literally hundreds of Alfas came together from across the continent in what has to be the largest single gathering of these cars ever in North America.  I was so excited to be a part of it all in my small way. And I am thrilled to share with you the photos I took so that you can get a sense of what it was like. Today's post is Saturday's concours. I hope to post photos from the rally and swap meet later this week.

Click the photos for the gallery. Make sure you don't miss pages 2 and 3 of the gallery. There are over 125 photos!

http://www.automobiliac.com/automobiliac-gallery/alfa-century-concours-gallery/

Mini's Big Embarassment

I am not sure how many of you have been following this week's amusing publicity stunt gone wrong from Mini USA, but I'll summarize it for you.  Basically, Mini's marketeers (not to be confused with Mouseketeers) thought it would be a bit of snarky fun to challenge Porsche to a race, just to prove that their modestly priced giant-slayer could take on Germany's finest sports car.  They proposed the venue of Road Atlanta, and wanted to pit a Mini Cooper S against a stock 911.  Seems like a bad idea by Mini, right?  BUT, rather than racing on Road Atlanta's legendary road course, they set up a lame autocross track in the infield that is more of a go-kart course than anything else.  Porsche declined to take the bait since they clearly have nothing to prove given their illustrious racing history, and thousands of car buffs proceeded to mock Mini on Jalopnik and Mini's facebook page for trying so blatantly to stack the deck in their favor.  But that didn't stop them from trying the stunt anyways using a Porsche 911 they apparently brought themselves!  Here is the result:  Even on this Mickey Mouse parking lot track, the Porsche wins by 2 full seconds.  I don't know why they even bothered.  My favorite comment on Jalopnik encouraged Porsche to bring a 914-6 instead of a new 911.  I would wager good money that the 38 year old 914-6 could STILL beat the Mini on this course. Just pathetic. I think if Mini wants to run with the big boys, they should look back in their own history, and go back to Rally. I would love to see Mini take on Subaru, Peugeot, Ford, Mitsubishi and the rest on the WRC circuit.  But the new Mini is apparently more interested in cheap publicity stunts than real racing credibility.

Automobiliac Video of the Week: Le Mans - Just the racing scenes

This week's delectable time killer is a really well done compilation of all the race scenes from Steve McQueen's immortal movie Le Mans.  I assume most of you have seen the film, so I will spare you the plot summary.  Just watch and enjoy the sounds! God I wish I had been alive to see these cars in their heyday.

Alfa Romeos at Old Westbury Gardens - Gallery

This weekend, I had the pleasure of attending and actually participating in the car show at Old Westbury Gardens on Long Island.  This year's featured marque was Alfa Romeo, and over 40 Alfa owners showed their cars, including yours truly.  I had the distinction of parking my rather worse-for-wear red GTV6 next to a white one that was in time warp, just-rolled-off-the-assembly-line condition.  So my car looked comparatively even worse than usual. But everyone was really nice to me, and encouraging about the car.  The NY Alfa club members always seem to be really nice folks.  There were other marques present at the show, but sadly my camera battery expired before I even finished with the Alfas. Click on the photo below to see the rest of the gallery.