The Boston Herald Traveler SCCA Trans Am at Bryar, New Hampshire, July 1969...
...was NOT my first car race.
That distinction goes back ten or twelve years earlier to my mother’s birthplace, Cherryfield, Maine, specifically to the local fairgrounds. I spent many childhood summers at the family homestead there – surrounded by Victorian Eastlake furniture hand-crafted by my great grandfather and feasting on a steady diet of lobsters relatives had caught, clams we’d dug ourselves and blueberries prepared every way possible in the “Blueberry Capital of the World." As a city boy, I envied the local kids my age, some of them cousins, driving huge tractors and bailing hay.
Already a car fanatic, one day I heard a deafening roar through the woods across the dirt road from our house. My father grabbed his machete and slashed a path toward the sound and we emerged on the other side behind a dirt race track just in time to watch a jalopy careen over an embankment and disappear. I sound like Mario or Aldo telling this tale except that I never pursued racing in any serious way. Nevertheless, after that I was hooked!
By July 1969 I’d had my Massachusetts drivers license for five whole months and it seemed like time to hit a PROFESSIONAL car race. Loudon, New Hampshire lay a mere seventy-five miles north of Boston, so – with a couple of friends AND my dad aboard – off we went in my brand new Dodge Dart GTS 340 to Bryar Motorsports Park, a 1.63-mile road course at the site of what is now New Hampshire Motor Speedway. The Herald Traveler Challenge Trophy SCCA Trans Am race attracted twenty-five entries, of which only eleven finished the 200 mile event. Mark Donahue won in the Penske Sunoco Camaro #6 but look at the names on this chart!
Parts of Bryar remain to this day which, when combined with the speedway portion, becomes a 1.6 mile road course. The more things change…
In the years since then, I’ve enjoyed Trans Am at Lime Rock, both the first generation in the 1970s and later during the Scott and Willy T. era of Roush Mercury Cougars and Ford Mustangs as well as the not-your-father’s Oldsmobile Cutlasses, including one driven by a famous actor who went only by his initials. Also, a future IndyCar and NASCAR Cup star named Robby Gordon:
Given the weather outlook in Nashville I decided to hedge my bets and watch the Friday Trans Am Series presented by Pirelli’s Big Machine Vodka SPIKED Coolers TA2 Series (Ricky Bobby would be proud of that mouthful).
All I can say is yikes! And these were only the 450 hp TA2s, not the 850 hp full-on TA monsters! What a hoot!
Of course, Trans Am was the only race of the weekend I could watch start-to-finish uninterrupted by commercials... live on YouTube! This was offset by yet another hysterically screaming Australian (or was he a Kiwi?) in the booth. Jonathan something. Thankfully, he was joined by the founder of the Big Machine Label Group and organizer of the Nashville Grand Prix named Scott Borchetta. He’s also a Trans Am racer, temporarily sidelined by injuries. He made up for Jonathan’s shortcomings by a) paying attention to the race and b) knowing what he was talking about. Oh, and by speaking in a nicely modulated voice with no irritating accent.
I loved the in-car video for views of mostly buttonless, three-spoke MOMO-ish steering wheels and 4-speed, H-patern shifters, as well as for the heightened sense of speed compared to permanent road courses, one of the reasons I love street races, both on TV and in person.
Here’s the full race report from Trans Am, via racer.com. Incidentally, racing or no, I NEED to visit Nashville someday:
As to the IndyCar race, it was pretty good, with sufficient drama and very few cautions, at least until the end. By that point I’d been reduced to watching the last five laps on my iPhone 14, my WiFi doing a superb impersonation of 128K dial-up. My 4K iMac was buffering and finally froze completely, then my 1080p TV through a Roku stick did the same. My AT&T phone saved the day! Never thought I’d say that!
And yes, there was also an IMSA race from Road America which – unlike practice and qualifying – was riddled with commercials. My enthusiasm was also tempered by news that IMSA had run its last race at my beloved “home track,” Lime Rock Park in Connecticut, having just returned from the FCP Euro Northeast Grand Prix presented by LIQUI MOLY in July. That makes two final editions I’ve been to this year, the other being Super Sebring. Is it me?
Hmmm…