Sonoma Historics (Formerly Wine Country Classic)

[Jon Mello]

The Sonoma Historic Motorsports Festival is less than two weeks away, June 4th and 5th. I'll be up there Friday through Sunday. I hope to see many of you up there. I always have a good time at this event.

[oldtransamdriver]

Jon, I will be down there with a few friends (driving from Vancouver B.C.) - should be there sometime Friday afternoon.  Will be visiting Ron Tribble and chad Raynal among others in the paddock and staying at the Comfort Inn in Vallejo Friday and Saturday.

I'm going to bring my Trans-Am and Can-Am programs - it's time they found a new home.

Robert Barg

[OCTARD]

The Historic Trans-Am cars schedule for the 2011 Sonoma Historic weekend..

• Thursday: 2:30pm-2:50pm  [Practice]
• Friday: 11:50am-12:15pm  [Practice]
• Saturday: 11:20am-11:40am [Practice]
• Saturday: 4:05PM  [Race, 11 Laps]

NO Historic Trans-Am cars on the track SUNDAY

The full event schedule can be seen here: http://generalracing.com/participants/event-schedule

[cuda48]

I'm planning on rolling in on Saturday.  I'll ask around for you guys.

Mike Camicia

[beighes]

If I can effect repairs on the aging Range Rover, we plan on being there Saturday.

Steve

[Jon Mello]

Chad, thanks for drawing attention to the fact that the T/A cars won't be out on the track on Sunday. They will still be at the track, just not racing that day, correct?

[OCTARD]

Yes, Jon.  The General Racing folks ask that all cars remain visible in the track paddock, even on the days they're not running.

-Chad

[cuda48]

Chad,
Do you guys have rain tires?

Mike

[OCTARD]

Some guys might, but I wouldn't run the Camaro in the rain anyway.  For no points, no money, no nothing... It's just not worth it to me.

[Jon Mello]

It looks like some potential wet weather up there this weekend.

[oldtransamdriver]

Well I did get to the Sonoma Festival and spent some time in the T/A garages where I met Chad, Robert, and Jon, and a few more guys.  Really enjoyed my time there.  Those cars sure looked way more spiffy than how I remember most of them.

The weather was brutal on Saturday but they adjusted the Sunday schedule so everyone got to race.  Chad, I thought you won the race on Sunday, or it looked like you did from where I sat in the grandstand, but the official results say no?

Came down from BC in my old 99 Dodge Caravan with 2 of my friends, one of whom just started racing an 87 ex Canadian Player's GM series camaro 2 years ago. He is now building a stronger 87 camaro. He is 59, an engineer guy and is having fun.  The old Caravan was an unkown quantity but never missed a beat down and back.  some of my T/A programs found happy new owners.

Robert Barg

[OCTARD]

Hello Robert,

Though the weather was a bit iffy a couple weeks back, I couldn't have had a better time spending time with you, Jon, Mike C., Robert, Dale Mathers, and a bunch of other folks.  The rained out Saturday just provided more time to hang out with everybody.

I'd imagine that the results listed on the Sonoma Historics site for the Trans-Am group are showing the top qualifier, Ken Epsman.  Ken dropped out of the race early with a leaking valve cover gasket, that was then creating smoke off the headers/exhaust.  But it's not terribly important that the results of a vintage event are that accurate, as the real history of these cars has already been made.

It was nice that our car ran well, and that we came home without any known damage.  I enjoy seeing my "crew"/family happy after a race too.  They're the ones who give all their time to help me build/prep/repair/clean/etc.

-Chad