VRG will run the Turkey Bowl XV over the Thanksgiving weekend at Summit Point, WV.
The event is very low-key, "grassroots-type" event with a mix of modern and vintage cars. Camping is available and weather looks decent. It looks like they'll have a cool, modified LeMans start in one session.
In reply to aeronca65t:
11/25/2011 Had a good time at the Turkey Bowl today! Got there around 9:20 (too late for the Vintage Big Bore practice), got settled in the padock, checked in, and tech'd. And just had time to go out for qualifying. The Dart ran great. Had some issues with (very minor) rear tire rub, which I think are ironed out with the careful application of a 12,000# bottle jack and a BFH. The race session was big fun as I got used to the car (only my 2nd session in the Dart on a dry track).
I was thinking I would go to a 3.73:1 rear from the current 3.55:1 at some point, but I was turning 6,700 (on a 6,800 RPM limit) at the 600' mark to turn one, and my corner exit from 10 was not where it will be when I get the driver dialed into this car and track later. I did not QUIT finish the race session as the brake peddel was getting pretty low so I took the pit-in on what turned out to be the checker lap. Replaced the rear street shoes with some Porterfield R4s to match the front pads for tomorrow.
11/26/2011 Hee! My issues today were mostly self inflicted. Got to the track and made some "adjustments" to the rear quarters, dialed out some rear brake, got changed into my togs for the warm-up session and... where are the keys? ... Answer Back in College Park on the floor by the back door. 3 hours later I'm back at Summit and roll out to take some worker laps on the lunch break to bed the new rear shoes and test the rear tire clearance again. The race session went great, started at the back and fell back to DFL while I was waiting for the tires to warm up, then started picking cars off one at a time. The car could probably use a taller gear as a good exit from 10 hits the 6800 rev limit about 900' out from turn one, but I need more brakes first. Brakes only started getting really soft on the cool-down lap though. Turned out that the the rear shoe on the right rear drum had spat out its retaining pin. The Spring and retainer hat (?) were still in the drum and nothing got too chewed up. Turns out that the Pinto brake hardware kits Bruce Shelton (I was padocked with him and another Pinto driver) had on hand contain the right length pins for the MOPAR 10x2.5 drums!
11/27/2011 More fun today, The Warm-up, at 9:00 a.m. was a little short (out lap, hot lap, in lap) due to a couple of cars (Sprite and 7) breaking on and stopping in bad spots. Adjusted the rear brakes and took some workers for rides at lunch, ran at 1:00, went faster but asked too much of the brakes one too many times and had to come in with a 3-pumps-to-stop peddel 2 laps from the end. I know MPC (301-371-3888) only rated this 318 @ 330 RwHp/303 RwFtLb, but it sure goes like stink in this 3400# package (and the spiral turbo baffles went into the tail pipes after the dyno work was done: http://www.spiralturbobaffles.com/ )! Folks kept remarking how fast and quite (relatively) the car is. I ended up only buring about 15 gallons of 93 octane pump gas. I missed 3 track sessions over the weekend thanks to a latish arrival on Friday and the dropped keys issue on Saturday So I likely would have needed 4-10 gallons from the track pumps to feel comfortable hitting the track for the final session on Sunday. I was very happy with the way the car felt everywhere on the track. It planted well out of 10 and 1, felt stable under braking into 1 and 5 (when the brakes were working), allowed me to get the throttle flat in 3rd across the bumps at the apex in 9 transitioned well through the 5,6,7,8 complex, and stuck amazingly well for a car on 3 year old Blue Streakes.
Lesson number one is to flush fresh fluid through the brakes no more than 2 weeks before each race. Other things I'm eyeing to get better braking include getting more air to the fronts (already have scoups ducting air at the center of the rotors from the back side of the LCA, plan to add ones for the calipers) and at least SOME air to the rear drums; I plan to explor alternate compounds for the pads and shoes (say Carbotech's XP12).
And one other thing... I don't know who at VRG is tasked with arranging the weather for this event, but... 3 days in a row with sun and temps in the 65-70F range in WV at the end of November? I want them to buy my next lottery ticket for me!
You looked good out there! Next year I'm bringing my car! (I was only around Saturday)
I got to do a slow-speed pace lap with the Maryland British Car Club (leading them with my '08 Accord)......but that was my only laps for the weekend. One of the guys in that group brought his super nice Daimler SP250 Dart and I had hoped to have him drive it up to your car for a "2 Darts" photo.....but I ran out of time.
I was there with Entropy Racing. I took some pictures, but they're on my other computer. I'll post them up laters.
In reply to aeronca65t: Hey Thanks for posting the photos! That's a great shot of me stalking the 'Vette! Got him down the front straight shortly after that. Too bad you ran out of time I would have loved to see the Daimler, that's one of my favorite British cars, and I've only ever seen pictures of them!
man, my wife had to go to work Friday. I sat at home and played xbox pretty much all day, I definately should have gone up to summit point!
awesome looking dart cpdave.
Ha, I got at least one or two pictures of that Dart...
My favorite shot (so far) from the weekend 
that's awesome! i was walking around paddock on friday taking pictures with my K1000. i'm waiting for walmart to finish developing, should be hopefully today. i will be scanning them in so i will post a link here to my flickr. not many "action" shots...
love the dart, btw..
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