Hallett at the 2006 Convention

[Greg Gordon]

Well, we just got back from the 2006 convention and I thought I would write about our great time at Hallett.
For those who have not been there, Hallett is a fun and safe track, and it's family friendly.

We drove up to Hallett and set up the tents the afternoon before the event. It's really nice to camp at Hallett, you can walk or golf cart around the track or just enjoy the quiet remote enviornment. Plenty of room for the kids to play, and they even have an enclosed playset area for the little ones. Strangely nobody else camped overnight. We rolled off the air mattresses at 6 am, hit the nice campground style bathrooms and showers and got ready for track action.

My wife Misty was the only one driving and it was her first time ever driving fast on a racetrack. She drove our Supercharged GTV6, which performed flawlessly over the whole trip. Since my wife is a true novice and driving a street car on street tires we felt it would be best if she just left the car in third gear at all times and concentrate on steering.

For the first two laps, Russ N. drove the car to show Misty the proper lines. He can really drive! He started out behind 7 cars, with passing only allowed on three areas of the track he passed up a car at each opportunity having passed 5 of the seven cars in about one and a half laps. He was rapidly gaining on the next car when it spun out, he passed it and closed in on the lead car. At this point Russ pulled into the pits and let Misty take over.

Russ set a fast lap time of 1:53 while being held up IN TRAFFIC in a car he had never seen before. I was pretty impressed by that, and so was Misty. By the way, this was the first time Misty ever smelled hot brakes, which is kind of funny to me.

When he got out of the supercharged GTV6 Russ said to me "that FU$^%#$ has a lot of power but it needs real tires". That's a fair point, we ran the car on $48 Kuhmos, but I figured Misty would be conservative and not reach the tire limits anyway.

In this photo you can see Russ (in the Grey GTV6 behind the lead red GTV) getting past the GTV that spun out and gaining fast on the only car ahead of him. Just after this picture he pulled off and let Misty drive.

[Greg Gordon]

Now it was Misty's turn. She headed out onto the track and left the car in third gear. The timers may have noticed our car slowing down a bit. The lap times suddenly went from 1:53 to well over 3 mins! Misty was being carefull. She was pretty much always the slowest car on the track, however every lap she went faster and faster and she never went off the course. If there was an award for most improved driver she would have won. By the end of the day she had learned to 4 wheel drift the car, something she had never done before and her lap times dropped to below 2 mins. Still slow especially by the standards of the day, but there were a lot of experienced drivers out there, and most of the cars were trailered to the track and running race tires.

Here is Misty getting ready to Go. My son Jordan is visable in the rear window refelction.

[Greg Gordon]

I have a lot of respect for people who drive a car to the track and then time trail with it and drive it home. That shows not only is your car fast, but it can be used reliably and counted on for transportation.

Our own Papajam from right here at the BB had the ultimate example of this. He drove an old GTV all the way from New Jersey to Oklahoma, put in on the track and set some blistering fast times! That's his grey GTV right in front of our GTV6. Of course there were people with faster times, but few if any drove all the way to Hallett. (trailering the car to Tulsa and then driving it from there to Hallett doesn't count). My hat's off to this guy, to me this is what Alfa ownership is all about.

[Greg Gordon]

You can see Papajam's car about to pass our GTV6. Please excuse my poor photography, I was trying to get both cars in the photo.

[Greg Gordon]

By the end of the day Misty's time dropped to about 1:56. In her group of 3 cars (novice drivers, street cars, and street tires) that placed her between a GTV and another GTV6. The other GTV6 was also a grey 1983 car, although it had a 4.10 gear box and the driver was using the gears. Our car has the original 3.42 box and was left in third the whole time. Of course the supercharger helps it a lot and even from the bottom of a hill coming out of a low speed corner like the one in this photo it still pulled pretty well.

While Misty's times were amoung the slowest she improved a lot and had a lots of fun. She now wants to go to Stephens Brother's driving school, start shifting and get some sticky tires.

She is very thankful of the help she got from Russ and Keith. The information they gave enabled her to go faster with every lap.

[Greg Gordon]

I hope some others will post their experinces here. There were a lot of awesome Alfa track cars. Various 200+ horsepower lightweight 4 cylinder Spiders, and GTVs. One GTV6 racecar, a few hot Alfettas and even a Formula car. Lots of awesome hardware.

[DaveH]

Great post Greg. I love to hear that it was a family event for you. I don't think I'll ever convince my wife to go to an Alfa event, however my daughter Amelia is only 6mos old and she's already a believer.

Looking forward to more posts/pics...

[genericwood]

Greg, I'm glad you had a fun time. Sorry I didn't get a chance to introduce myself. We were parked just up from you in the yellow GTV with the wheel-cleaning 7 year old boy! There are a lot of great family memories at the track. My Dad raced a Giulietta there when my Brother and I were kids. I thought it was so cool that you could talk about "the *****" without getting into trouble! The track itself really hasn't changed much since the mid-70's.

By the way, I now officially feel bad about bringing the GTV to the track in an enclosed trailer!

Erik Wood

[conedriver]

Hi Greg,

Thanks for posting the pictures. We saw you at a distance, but were never able to say hello. The Tulsa Convention was really great. We're still travelling home but will post other experiences when I get home.

Regards,

Quote:

Originally Posted by Greg Gordon I hope some others will post their experinces here. There were a lot of awesome Alfa track cars. Various 200+ horsepower lightweight 4 cylinder Spiders, and GTVs. One GTV6 racecar, a few hot Alfettas and even a Formula car. Lots of awesome hardware.

[amico]

Can anyone provide a sense of the level of participation at the vareious events?

[aussie alfa nut]

how much taller can the arial get on the gtv6!!?

[turbolarespider]

We had a great time at Hallett! First of all, it was great to meet you face to face, Greg.

But our GTV ran really well on Friday, and Ines and I had a great time at the track! Just a note- we did trailer to the event, and were glad we did, as the car had a fuel pressure problem on Sunday just after the Concours, and we may have not made it home (which is why we trailered in the first place). And we did drive the car to the KC event, and participated in all of the events, so we have done that before....

I must say, Hallett is one of my favorite tracks of all time! And I'm really glad I didn't forget much of the track from our trip there 7 years ago. I ended up finishing third in class C, behind George (naturally), but considering the track isn't my strong point, I was rather excited about it. I ended up turning a 1:39.2 and Ines got a 1:45. She managed to take off 3 seconds from the morning practices to her timed runs, which was pretty cool.

As for turn out- there were 36 drivers at the track, and I heard 25-30 at the autocross.

I hope some of you plan to coming to Detroit next year to have some fun! If you liked Hallett, you'll like Waterford Hills.

Eric

[modena782002]

Quote:

Originally Posted by aussie alfa nut how much taller can the arial get on the gtv6!!?

[Greg Gordon]

I do wish I would have had more time to talk to everyone, the layout of the convention was such that we were never all in one place until the last day at the concourse show.

I really didn't have a lot of extra time at Hallett, between supporting my wife and keeping my 5 year old with Down's out of people's race cars. I was also a little paniky since there were a lot of new variables for the supercharged motor that I couldn't really test in street condtions. Like 91 octane fuel instead of the usuall 93, really high cylinder pressures for long periods of time due to slow uphill sections at 2500 rpm and full boost in 3rd, and the concern that 20 mins of hard running on a 90 deg day might cause some heat problems. It turned out fine, but I would be lying if I said I wasn't worried.

Both Erik W.'s and Erik S.'s GTVs were super fast. I am sure someone will post the time sheets soon. There were some GTV/Spiders that were actually close to the Formula car! Erik S's car is a true street car with a killer motor (I never saw it with the hood open but I watched it GO!).

The number 22 GTV and Mike Besic's spider were incredible. What a great collection of cars all in one place.

That arial is standard height. Look closely at the picture, it's just lined up with a tower in the backround.

The only sad thing for me was this convention made me realize how few Alfas, and Alfisti there really are. This was the National convention and local Mustang gatherings have similar turnouts.

[SteveMoon]

My son Jake and I also had a great time at Hallett. It was my first time there and I really liked the track and the facilities. I was not able to get around to socialize and take pics nearly as much as I would have liked though, since I spent the entire morning replacing a faulty fuel pump.

Naturally the fuel pump failed as I was pulling the car off the trailer at the race track and not when I was loading it at home!! After determining what the problem was (with able assistance over the phone from my brother Doug) Jake and I drove into town in Cleveland, OK and bought a universal Carter fuel pump, went back to the track, and installed it. Jake was a big help!

Since I missed all of my practice slots, the guys running the event let me and one other car that also missed out on practice go out for a special 5 lap practice session. I was very appreciative of this, and it just goes to show what a great group of people Alfisti are. With a total of 6 timed laps I had a low time of: 1:47.042 and a high of 1:47.939. The high was my first lap and the low was my last lap. Needless to say, I sure wish I was able to run my two 25 minute pracitce sessions. I'm sure I could have lowered my times with more practice.

All in all, we had a great time! There were almost 40 cars participating in the time trials.

Steve Moon