Gallery and Notes From a Nissan Weekend at The Classic Motorsports Mitty
In cleaning out my notes and gear from The Mitty here are some comments and thoughts on the weekend, including a gallery with just some of the great Nissan and Datsun cars that thrilled fans all weekend.
- This was the largest gathering of Datsun and Nissan models this reporter has ever seen.
- After a few down years this event is starting to gain some momentum with good car counts and great racing to thrill the ever growing number of fans who are returning to this great annual gathering.
- The HSR Paddock should be very proud as it helped raise over $17,000 dollars for the Person County Animal Rescue efforts through the 2nd Annual Racers for Rescues silent auction. Robyn Handy and her small group of helpers gathered up some awesome goodies. Thanks and congrats to all for supporting a great cause.
- There was a great bit of nostalgia for me personally when I first spied the 1975 Schkee run in the second generation Can-Am by Tom Klausler and later Tom Spalding founder of Racevision the first American company to do on-board cameras. Lots more on this car in coming days and weeks including some awesome more modern on-board footage.
- It was a good weekend for Willis Woerheide driving the red Schkee to a 3rd in class on Saturday and a class victory on Sunday!
- The appearance of the Formula Jr cars also provided a bit of nostalgia with everything from the front engined '59 Bandini and Dreossi Special to the '72 Merlyn Mk20a. Throw in a couple of Coopers and Lotus and it made for fun exciting racing. Bob Hoemke in his '62 Cooper T59 & Mitchell Hibbs in his '69 Merlyn Mk11a took the victories.
- It was marvelous to see and dear friend Janet Upchurch on the grid during our Facebook live session. Three generations of Upchurch racers were on the grid, Janet, her son Grayson and her Grand son Grayson. Young Grayson is following in dad's shoe steps making headlines in the go-kart world.
- Grayson the elder had four top 5 finiishes including 3 runner-up finishes in the wonderfully turned out 1970 Datsun SRL-311
- It was great to see local Atanata hero Doc Bundy on track again. He drove a '64 Lotus 23b to a win and a runner-up finish in Group 3b
- Congrats to all the other race winners. Doug Campbell who handed Upchurch two of his runner-up finishes in his Genetta G4, Larry Cooper who took both Group 3a races, John Harrold who won the first Group 3b race, Mark Brannon who used his '97 Lola T97/20 to do the double in Group 4, Ed Sevadjian also doubled up in Group5 with his '69 Chevey Corvette Roadster, the duo of John Reisman and Eric Curran driving '10 Coyote/Corvette split Group 6 wins Mirco Schultis and his ex-ALMS PC '09 Oreca FLM09.
Full results can be found at hsrrace.com
JR.
