The Mitty from a Racer’s point of view
| 14 May 2008
The Mitty was a race weekend that started about 30 years ago. I don’t know if there was a book first, but a movie “The secret life of Walter Mitty” starring Danny Kaye was about an ordinary guy dreaming of doing extraordinary things. One of the things he dreamed about was being a championship race car driver. The idea of the Mitty was to give ordinary people with old SCCA type race cars a chance to do some gentleman racing. No bump drafting, no “rubbin’ is racin’, no dive into the corner, no win at any cost. Just take your old race car out and enjoy the drive.I remember going to one of the early ones. A lot of small bores (Bug Eyes, Triumphs, Healeys, Alfas, Super Vees, and an occasional real open wheel race car. The Mitty grew over the years. A few years ago there were 650 cars in the event. Unfortunately, the original idea has been lost on big teams, big money and ‘historic’ two year old cars....... (read more link below)
If you went this year, you only saw 250 historic cars and most of them were Porsches. In order to have a large event, the organizers had other race series join them in order to look big. The professional Miata series, Mustang CanAm, Vintage NASCAR, and vintage F1 filled out the field.
Mary and I arrived Wednesday afternoon to register and set up. We were hoping to get a little preferred treatment because our pit mate for the last 10 years happens to be a tech inspector. He usually gets in before the normal people are allowed in and saves us a fairly good spot. We usually sit in a line of 100 rigs, wait two hours to go through registration and another two hours before being let into the pit area. Then it’s a fight to find a place and set up camp. When we arrived there was no line at all. We pulled right in front of the registration building, walked up to a waiting registrar as there was nobody there and registered in 2 minutes. We drove right in, slid in next to Greg and were ready to set up camp in less than 15 minutes from arriving at the track.
We spent the rest of the afternoon visiting old friends as vintage racers are like a fraternity. We’ve made many good friends over the years so we spend as much time socializing as we do racing.
Thursday is test day which we usually do not participate in unless we are at a brand new track. I usually go up for a little while to get teched and ready to run as we always run at 8:00 am Friday morning. I didn’t need to this time as Greg had keys to my trailer and had already gone in and applied all the appropriate stickers and signatures.
After leaving the Z Club meeting, we went back to the hotel and got good nights sleep. We had to be up at 5:30 am to have breakfast with all the other racers at the hotel and were at the track by 7:00 am. Open the trailer, uncover the car, warm it up and get into my race suit took the next 45 minutes and we were on the track at 8:00. Since I had a brand new motor, I keep my revs under 5500rpm. My oil and water got a little to hot to suit me. This brings up another problem with the current Mitty format. We only get time for 10 laps at a time. 2/3’s of the group are people who rent-a-ride and are not experienced. They also do not understand the term “gentleman racing” so they are out to “win” the first practice session. After 5 laps we were black flagged so all the wrecks could be removed. We spent the 4 hours between sessions checking all our fluids, timing, jetting and replaced the oil temperature gauge in case that was the problem. We also became pit crew for Greg during his sessions.
Our afternoon session was no better than the morning. I was still over heating. I don’t know how hot it could have gotten since we ran 3 laps and were blacked flagged for wrecks. We got 3 more laps before being black flagged again. Our group has already gone from 50 to 40 as Porsches and Mustangs kept getting hauled away on wreckers. We decided to flush the radiator and replace the oil cooler. It took a few hours but we were done in plenty of time to attend the Mexican party for all the racers. Free food and beer. A couple of us keep talking about how to solve my overheating, Jerry’s tire wear, Greg’s lack of brakes, etc. All our wives talked about whatever wives talk about when they’re bored with our conversation.
Saturday morning we didn’t run as hot, but we got even fewer laps because of all the wrecks. One was a just completed restoration of a Jag XKE coupe that backed into the outside wall at turn 10. The back 2 feet of the car was missing, I assume spread all over turn 10. We changed the jets and tried to get ready for the Enduro. The Enduro is a one hour race with a mandatory 5 minute pit stop. But we do this for fun, so when it started to pour rain we decided “this ain’t fun” and didn’t go out. About 2/3’s of the field joined us staying in the pits. We knew we made the right decision when the front 6 cars spun off turn 1 on the opening lap. Only half of the starters finished. Well-prepared cars in the hands of inexperienced people is a recipe for disaster. We went out Saturday afternoon for our qualifying race hoping we had at least got the over heating under control. No such luck. I decided to go and run it full blast and I over heated in 3 laps. A caution flag helped, but it got far too hot so I came in. At this point, it was useless to even try to run Sunday morning. We just closed up shop and waited for the party. Saturday night’s party is open buffet with prime rib and all the trimmings. A 70’s band entertained while we drank beer and benched raced late into the night.
Both Friday and Saturday we enjoyed all the club members who came by to see us. We were always working on something and had little time to sit and talk, but we chatted while we worked. I hope we gave everyone an idea of what a race week end is like. We only got up the hill to the tent one time, but it looked like everyone there was having a good time.
In my opinion, the Mitty will continue to go down. Most of the individuals with true vintage cars are moving to SVRA. We will do our first race with them in September at Road Atlanta. It’s not as big and doesn’t have all the hoopla, but you’ll see many more true vintage cars than you saw at the Mitty. The other thing is the cost. I get tickled when club members complain that a lapping day which will put them on the track for two hours costs $150. The Mitty is a $700 week end and I ran a total of 16 laps. I would have doubled that if I did the Enduro, but that’s still very expensive compared to a club lapping day.
Before you decide racing isn’t worth it, come to the SVRA week end in September and see real vintage cars race. Maybe, I’ll have my over heating figured out by then.
