CVR makes its annual June trek to The Glen

Watkins Glen is always a great track to go to in June.  Well, it’s really a great track to go to any time during the driving season.  CVR held the first of our two WGI events for the 2019 season on June 17 & 18.  What a great two days they were for all participating drivers. We had almost perfect weather with only a little precipitation during the morning of Day Two.  As usual, the track conditions were fantastic.  Pretty much everyone loves driving at WGI.  We had drivers come from as far as Florida and Canada to join our event.  Remarkably, those drivers from far away come to our WGI DE almost every June and we are happy to have them, year after year.

WGI participants were given a fun shirt we had made up with the CVR logo on the front and a humorous tire chart on the back.  I’m sure we’ll be seeing these shirts for the next five years (at a minimum), not always at the track but at other CVR events and even at non-CVR related places. 

“It always put a smile on my face when I see our first time participants and first timers at The Glen come off the track with big grins on their faces.”

I always warn first- time newcomers that by days end they need to be prepared to be hooked on a new hobby and most every time they are already planning for their next event before their first event has ended. 

After our first day on track ended at WGI, there was an instructional track walk (drive) of the track given by Rick Canter.  The track walk is a great way to see all of the camber and elevation changes up close.  Those that did the track walk piled into vehicles and went to several parts of the track, piled out of the vehicles and got to look both up track and down track and learned about the elevation changes that seem much more extreme when you are standing on the pavement as compared to when you are driving over the sections at speed.  Thanks to Rick for leading the track walk.

We ended our first day with a delicious dinner buffet at the Harbor Hotel.  Besides the dinner we also held a fun raffle where I got to practice my entertaining MC skills, along with my new side-kick Todd Pajonas.   It was a tough crowd, with lots of groans, especially when the Canadian drivers were subjected to a lot of ribbing.  Eh?   We also sang Happy Birthday, with a slice of cake included, to 16 year old Morgan Veth.  Morgan was at the track with his dad Chuck, helping with tire changes, tire pressure monitoring and whatever else needed to be done so we wanted to make his birthday memorable.  It wasn’t the best performance of the song – our DE people are better drivers than singers, so he’ll probably remember it for at least a couple of years. 

To wrap up the evening (and what everyone was waiting for) we had a private magic show put on by our good friend/DE Instructor, Bruce Trigg.  Bruce is very generous in donating his time to entertain our drivers with his magic talent.   As always, his performance was over the top.  I still want to know how he got Iain’s $100 bill into the lemon – real exciting.  We all extend a big thank you to Bruce and his wife Ann (Great Wife, per the license plate) for all of their support and generosity to CVR’s DE program. As PCA says, “It’s not the cars, it’s the people”.

For those of you who keep putting off trying DE, it is still not too late for 2019 as we still have several more events planned for Lime Rock Park.  If you missed this event, get on ClubRegistration.net and sign up for the next CVR DE event.  I hope to see you at the track this year.  Be safe, have fun and remember, gas is glue.

Most photographs courtesy of Randy Cresci of Clutch Foto. To see more photographs from this event, go to ClutchFoto.com.