Friday, we took out Carolyn's VR4. It proved to be fast and capable but it popped out of 2nd gear at high rpm trailing throttle -- something we had not experienced on the street. Carolyn couldn't drive it but I could, so I put in many laps then half a day Saturday. The brakes weren't up to the abuse so we retired the car since we still had to drive it home.

Originally we planned to trailer it, but while loading Thursday evening the pivot on the tongue of the trailer broke so a fast rearrangement was in order. We ended up driving both the truck and the VR4 in tandem with Dave Fazzino -- whose own truck lost its alternator in Lake George. Another fast rearrangement ensued. We took on his barrels of race fuel and other stuff

then he lumbered down the road to a nearby Ford dealer to drop off the truck for repairs and drove his Evo to the event. He passed us in Tupper Lake where we had stopped for lunch but didn't see us coming out of the restaurant so we trailed him by a few miles and all converged at the track.

We intended to run Jon Coffin's Rabbit for the weekend. For reasons unknown, he arrived quite late on Saturday so Carolyn begged a ride from Jeff Collins, a generous person with extra cars. Thus, her Saturday ride was an E36 chassis M3. Interesting but not inspirational. Also, it was on street tires and she was starting to drive aggressively enough that we became concerned about tire wear, considering that he wanted to sell the

thing the next week with those tires on it. As it happened, one of Jeff's other cars -- a spec Miata -- wasn't getting much use so she asked for that one. He thought it a fine idea so she spent Sunday in that and enjoyed the best driving performance of her life.

Meanwhile, I had switched to Cliff's spec Miata and drove the snot out of that for the rest of the weekend -- in between 4 other cars: Emilio's Subaru, another pristine and very stock VR4, Dave's Evo, as well as Jeff's spec Miata.

I dragged a somewhat reluctant Emilio up to play and provide some coaching for him. I wanted a chance to work with him on the track. After getting him in a Spec Miata as well as running a 125cc shifter cart, and a full set of tires being corded and the brake pads taken to fully metallic on his Subaru, we succeeded in smoothing out his

corner entries. By the end of Sunday he exhibited repeated laps of very smooth and consistent turn-ins. He is still smiling from his few days up on the tarmac with us

What about Jon's Rabbit? you might be wondering. Well, on Jon's first run, the 20+ year-old car suffered a fatigue failure in the upright (knuckle) on the driver's front and just plain broke, putting him soundly out of action. Another round of plan rearranging followed, aided by generous donations of vehicles and tools and labor from the gang.

Dave blew off his manic energy by driving six zillion laps on Friday then posting FTD on Saturday (got edged out by Jeff's turbo Miata on Sunday). Late Saturday Dave dramatically overheated his car and initiated another round of plan rearranging until Sunday morning, when it was determined that everything really was OK. (He retrieved his truck from Lake George on Monday and came to a happy ending.)

During all this, it was staggeringly, debilitatingly hot and humid. My god, I thought we were gonna die, especially Carolyn after 6 hours of driving to the event in an non-air-conditioned car. We never got any of the storms that refreshed Vermont -- just baked, broiled, and fried. On Saturday, we shut down for about 3 hours to rest both ourselves and

the track surface. Some folks went swimming in the St. Lawrence; others rode in the shifter-karts available from the new track owners, Dan and his wife of Cartier Motorsports Inc. who are very pro everything and with whom we got along great. Since those "others" were Dave, Emilio, and I, we didn't get to dip in the river.

By far, this event is the best bang for the buck we have experienced in autosports. Great company, wonderful track and lots of instruction, too, without stress. The track now has a many improvements as well as a concession facility, Very nice. They are also in the planning phase of building full facilities for the track. Our event calendar will resolve around the events offered here for the foreseeable future.