I made it to the track by late Friday morning, with about 20 minutes sleep the night before, in time for a practice session in a light rain. For me it was the most significant session of the weekend -- the first back in the car after a long layoff. I guess it's natural as you get older to wonder whether you can still do what you could do when you were younger. Without any real test in a couple of years, I really wondered whether I could still "make it happen" again in a race car. I lined up last for the session, but felt comfortable in the old car as we went out on the track. The adrenalin surged as we got the green flag on the first lap. Right away I couldn't understand why everyone was going so slowly. I quickly passed a few cars, and narrowly avoided a couple as they spun off the course. (I guess there are certain disadvantages to living in climates where it rarely rains.) After a few laps I was pretty comfortable and able to get the power down fairly well. Clearly I wasn't treating the course as being as slippery as were most of the other drivers. The "rain line" many were using simply wasn't the fast way around, so passing was fairly easy. Suddenly I was surprised to find that there were no other cars in front of me. After leading the pack for another lap, we got the checkered flag for the end of the session. So much for being rusty.

Friday night we ate dinner at the Seneca Lodge, the traditional social home for racing at the Glen, where all of the great drivers have gathered, including those years when the U.S. Gran Prix was held there. The highlight of the evening was meeting many of the contributors to VClassics, who I had only corresponded with before. With essentially no sleep the night before, this unfortunately couldn't be a night of late partying.

Saturday morning dawned with clouds, and quickly turned into fog and misting rain which delayed the start of the racing due to visibility problems for the safety workers, and denied me another chance to demonstrate the "stealth" capabilities of my silver grey car in the fog. When it finally lifted, the morning practice was reduced to a few wet laps.

By the afternoon, the weather had cleared and qualifying was to be on a dry track, a track where those running with racing slicks rather than vintage-legal treaded tires would have an advantage. (Although we were racing at a vintage event, the tire rules were waived for the Volvo event, and several competitors opted to take advantage of this and ran racing slicks.)

I was gridded 6th, as I did not have a dry time on which to base my position. This put me in the middle of a group of reasonably competitive cars. After the start, I realized that I had only practiced in the rain, so a little adjusting to dry conditions was necessary. As I was getting used to things, I was in the middle of a battle for position between two other 1800s, those of Gary Jebsen and Dave Rauch, and the 122s of Patricia Alspach and Rich Kushner. Both 122s were behind or in front of me at one time or another, and I traded positions with Alspach several times over a couple of laps. I was right behind when she went inside of Jebsen to pass him at the end of the pit straight. I pulled inside of her at the end of the braking zone and we went into the entrance to turn one three abreast. (I have a photo of this, but it unfortunately does not convey the "action.") I came out in front and was followed closely by the two 122s until the end. I finished second in the session behind Duane Matejka who was running on slicks, reportedly had a new 5-speed close ratio transmission, and pretty much seemed to have his act together.

After qualifying came one of the most enjoyable parts of the weekend -- the after-race gatherings and discussions, where we traded stories of what happened out on the track and met drivers and their families from all over the country. There was the usual comparing of setups and examining cars we had not seen before. I will certainly remember the discussion I had with Richard Gordon of IPD, and the stories of his early days of racing which were much more fascinating than his after dinner speech.

A true highlight of the weekend was meeting Art Riley at the Banquet. As with many of us, I am only racing an 1800 because of him. In the 1960s, as a teenager, I was a big road racing fan. I used to live near the Bridgehampton racetrack on Long Island and would go up there to watch the SCC races whenever I could. Art's 1800 was usually there, and always beat cars ranked in much higher classes. I've always been fond of rooting for the underdog, and it's even better when they can come through and win. In any case, it was because of watching him race that I formed the dream of some day racing a Volvo 1800.

The race on Sunday was somewhat of an anticlimax, as it lacked the variety of the qualifying race practice sessions. By this time, we were all lined up in order of the speed we had shown so far in the weekend. Unless something unusual happened there would not be as much passing as in the earlier sessions. I was gridded in second, and knew that unless it rained my vintage legal tires and worn engine were no match for Matejka on his slicks. Thus, my task was basically to try and keep everyone else behind me for the 12 laps scheduled. With an engine getting weaker each time out, it would not be easy. Patty Alspach was right on my tail, waiting for me to make a mistake, for every turn of every lap until she broke a ball joint and went into the wall entering turn one. With her out, another white 122, that of Rich Kushner, took her place on my tail. He dogged me for a couple of laps until he took a shot at an out-braking pass going into turn one. I let him go, turned inside of him and came out of the corner in front, making it a pass and re-pass in the space of about 100 yds. He seemed inclined to settle for third place after that. At this point it was getting harder and harder to get into second gear, so I was hoping the race would end before the problem got more serious. On the last lap, with about half a lap to go, I tried to get it into second and came up with nothing -- second was gone and the rest of the trans didn't sound good. And just at the wrong time, as I suddenly seemed to be catching Matejka, and Kushner was still right on my tail. Somehow things held together and I was able to hold onto second place until the end.

The awards ceremony was something to rival Formula 1, with ceremonial baseball caps, much champagne to spray, dignitaries, many photos, etc. When it was over, it seemed a little odd that it was OK to drive back to the paddock in a race car with an open bottle of champagne between my legs.

Now for the part that has caused me to put off finishing this thing -- the editorializing Phil requested. As a racer, my comments will be limited to the race aspects of the event. Well here goes, and I hope I don't offend anyone.

It was great to have a fairly large group of Volvo racers together again, and hopefully I made several new friends, but in terms of numbers, there are usually as many Porsche racers at almost any vintage event. If you look at the number of Volvo racers who were not there, especially considering that the rules had been opened up to allow non-vintage cars such as IT and current SCCA production class racers, then you have to consider the turnout poor. It certainly was not an improvement over the last Volvo Gran Prix at Road America in Wisconsin in 1998. Some of this has to be blamed on uncertainties about the event that lasted into the spring. Rather than having official invitations going out to racers months in advance, they were received by a limited number of racers little more than the month before the event. And even then, there were still uncertainties about the rules, which left questions as to which cars were eligible, and costs. With only one exception, the cars from the Midwest just did not show up. In any case, the result was a disappointing turnout.

Another disappointment was that we were only allowed to race against other Volvos, unless we wanted to pay a second entry fee of over $300. This was unusual, as at most events of this type, the featured marque race is a bonus that you get in addition to the sessions with other vintage cars of the same class. The cars in the Super Vee reunion at the same event got this benefit.

As to performance, this was also below expectations. I had not raced against any of these cars since 1998. My car was essentially unchanged, and had an engine that was decidedly tired after nine years of racing. (A post-race examination revealed a completely worn through thrust bearing.) I fully expected that others had gotten a lot faster, and actually was looking forward to seeing their progress over the intervening years. Unfortunately, there did not seem to be much. Whereas vintage cars in general have gotten much faster over the last three years due to continued development and a further relaxation of many of the rules, the representative Volvos at this event were in general not only no faster, but were actually slower. Even the winner, on racing slicks, was slower than we had both run on vintage tires at the same track in 1998. And this is not a difference of fractions of seconds. The top times at this event were all more than four seconds slower than the time I posted in '98 to set a Watkins Glen track record for the Volvo Historic Series in 1998 (that I believe still stands). And the qualifying and race conditions were excellent for posting fast times.

It may be that this single event was not representative. Some of those at the event may have had problems and ran much faster later in the season. Other individual drivers and cars may have made improvements. On the other hand, who am I to talk. I was one of those who was running slower than in the past, but I think that this provided a good benchmark as to how others were progressing. However, the lack of rules for this event made any accurate assessment difficult beyond the overall results, as some cars were modified or changed tires just to take advantage of what was to most of us a last minute, no rules proclamation, while others remained true to the vintage character of the event.

Is the above just "sour grapes?" I hope not. It's meant as an honest appraisal of the performance level of vintage Volvo racing that hopefully serves a purpose and could be a benefit to those involved. I think that we can work together to have better, more competitive events in the future and improve the overall level of the performance of vintage Volvos. The 142 racers in SCCA's ITB class have done a good job of sharing performance information and developing their cars to the point that they have nearly dominated a class they were not even supposed to be competitive in, according to many experts. Volvo vintage racers can do the same. There does not have to be as big a difference in performance between theoretically similar cars, or a lack of improvement from year to year as there appears to have been. I would just like to see everyone get faster and more competitive, and am spending a lot of time now trying to make it happen.

On the positive side, there seems to be increased interest in performance among Volvo owners, whether they have vintage Volvos or some of the newer models. Volvo track days on the West Coast have become big events. Grassroots Motorsports magazine is doing a series of articles on vintage Volvos, centered around their 122S street performance/vintage racer project car, and this will give our efforts more visibility. There are more cars being prepared for vintage racing, and we need to support them. I would strongly support future events like the one last June, and/or Volvo club track days, as both help to advance the interests of Volvo performance and are a lot of fun. If anyone needs help getting a car prepared, or getting it up to speed, I would be happy to help.

Photos by R. Harrington