Race 61 - 1/8 Mile Rock and Race Meet, Finowfurt/Germany

Dr_Grip

Made from concentrate
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Jul 8, 2008
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Car(s)
79 Opel Kadett|72 Ford Country Sedan|03 Volvo XC70
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I spent another great weekend at Race 61. For those who haven't read my earlier writeups, it's a 1/8 mile drag race with a car show, rock and roll concerts and a bit of a fair attached. In a way, it is more awesome than the N?rburgring because the socializing takes center stage, without the coming and going to the racetrack and without the uptight atmosphere of "serious" classic car gatherings. If you've ever been to a summer open air you know the drill: There's the festival grounds with the stages and everything and there's the campsite and a constant stream of people between it. Except, at Race 61, if you have a pre-76 car and/or caravan (or anything newer that the people at the gate deem cool enough) you don't have to go to the campsite ever. You can simply drive right onto the festival grounds, park your car and build your camp there. This of course leads to all kinds of cruising and doing burnouts in the middle of the crowds, offering rides to bystanders, many people have small motorbikes or scooters, often heavily modified with them as festival grounds transportation... it all is very hands-on.
Another remarkable aspect is that there were more girls and women in attendance than on any car or rock music festival I've ever attended. And they all looked like they were enjoying themselves, not like they were being dragged along by their boyfriends.
Finally, there's the location: It's an old airfield that has been turned into an aviation museum, which is a fancy name for "there are cold war fighters parked up and left to rot everywhere". The cars are parked all around them, some people using a MIG's wing as a shadowy place to put their tent under or to hang up clothes to dry...

The crew was almost the same as last year: The Ford faction got additional support from a stoner rock dude in a Granada hearse and a father-son duo with their joint restauration project Granada.

Good times.


"Endlich normale Menschen!"


Dan proves he's a master of parking.

Apart from great cars, two situations from the "alcohol is bad for you" dept. need to be mentioned. When I got up on Saturday, I immediately realized that the Kadett's keys were missing. The fact that I located them on the Kadett's passenger seat, behind the locked door, did not lift my mood much. Luckily, the window was rolled down a bit, so we got a piece of wire and started fishing for the doorknob. After a few minutes, we realised that fishing for the keys probably was simpler. Suddenly, one of our friends says "Guys, let me give you a hand", sticks his head through the completely rolled-down driver's side window and opens the door from the inside.

Fast forward to us cruising on Saturday night - we got four people on the seats of Dan's Rekord, two guys in the cargo area and two people on the roof - and have to stop due to traffic, getting the car stuck in sand, digging it in to the rear axle right in front of the camp of a guy with a Volvo Amazon. While we were discussing how to get the car unstuck, he suddenly stated screaming. "WHAT KIND OF GAYS ARE YOU? WE'VE GOT FIFTEEN PEOPLE STANDING AROUND HERE, WE COULD CARRY THE CAR OUT THERE! ARE YOU COMPLETE AND UTTER HOMOSEXUALS? YOU POOFTERS! TWO GUYS LIFT THE CAR AT THE REAR AXLE AND THREE PUSH THE CAR OUT! I CAN'T BELIEVE THAT'S TAKING YOU FAGGOTS THAT LONG!" and so on and so on. The amount of derogatory terms for Homosexuals he could come up with was fascinating. To make matters worse, after we snapped a tow rope trying to pull the Rekord out with a Robur, we finally tried his suggestion and immediately had the car out.

Eventhough the Race 61 is a hot rod meet, the two most noteable car of the weekend, by a margin, were European-made:




One of 30 Citroen DS Henri Chapron Palm Beach convertibles ever made.




This one's pretty special as well. We talked to the owner a bit: This car was actually used by a Wehrmacht Officer and his driver to escape from the Eastern Front to their Bavarian home during the last days of the war, when the Russians were already pushing into Germany. The Officer stored the car in a barn. A few years after the war, he deemed the car to be beyond repair due to heavy damage from artillery fire, but a canvas on it and left it to rot. There it sat until the officer's son, preparing to sell the family farm, rediscovered it in the late nineties and sold it to a military vehicle collector from Bochum. He spent dozens of hours repairing the artillery damage (which included a badly-bent frame), but otherwise left it in the same condition he found it, random junk gathered during the escape on top and everything.

Keeping with the "European" theme, I also got a "guess that car" pic for you lot:

:D

T?V being random and allowing a modern-day engine built on historic vehicle plates:



Germans proving just how redneck you can go without ever having been to the US:



For those of you interested in logic and lack therof in vehicle inspection, note the different kind of plates on the cars: White plates with red lettering are dealer plates one can stick on any car, no inspection required. Black on White with a yellow box at the side is a short-term plate, no registration required, as well. X-YZ 123 is a regular german plate with T?V inspection, X-YZ 123 H means it's a historic vehicle that has been approved as period-correct and worth preserving. Notice that there's no pattern to what kind of plate is on what kind of car.





































At the end, disaster struck: After two days of hooning, madness and drunk driving, I managed to crash the Kadett into Dan's Rekord while going slow as hell and being completely sober:


That won't buff out. Luckily, I got comprehensive coverage. Dan's Rekord, by the way, shows no damage at all.
 
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