Today we went to BeaveRun racecourse to watch the finals of weekend #1 of Pittsburgh Vintage Grand Prix racing. They generally run some of the more recent and more powerful cars at BeaveRun, which is a road-style course, but not so winding as the course at Schenley Park where they'll run the real oldies next weekend.

Here's a map of the track. We had lunch and watched the races from the BMW/Mini tent, which was at Turn 11.

 

 

We had expected to find lots of friends for the Red Runt, but there were only 2 little buddies at the tent. I think the weather kept a lot of people away. It was sprinkling now and then, and then shortly before the first race of the afternoon, it really poured – we were walking around the paddock at that point, and we had to take refuge in the Kart racing pro shop, which was kind of interesting.

The BMW/Mini tent was a nice location to watch the race from, and lunch was good (catered by Pandolfo's restaurant in Bridgeville) - dijon pulled chicken or BBQ sandwiches, coleslaw, and various little cakes. We didn't know anyone there, since this was the first event we've attended, but we plan to go to more events, so then we'll get to know people.

Paddock photos:

 

And here are the races:

 

Group 1: muscle cars basically (Mustangs, Corvettes, Cobras, Porsches) – though only 6 of the 16 entrants actually went on to the track, probably because it was so wet. You can see the spray coming up from their tires.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Group 2: vintage small-bore (Triumph, MG, Porsche speedster, any pre-war) – this was a fun group, though 2 of them ended up in the grass going around the bend in front of us, again due to the wet road.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Group 3: BMW / Porsche Challenge (just a race between members of the local BMW and Porsche clubs, all years and models). There was another downpour during this race, and the lead car spun out around that bend you see there; the driver got an award at the end of the day for "saving his car while doing multiple donuts" [and another car narrowly missed him].

Group 4: vintage big-bore & historic small bore (Jaguar, Maserati, Aston Martin, Mini Cooper, etc). Another car spun out in this group, but no harm done - though he had a hard time getting back out of the grass. The Jaguar here in the photo was having a hard time keeping it on the road every time he took this bend. More rain during this race, which had to be difficult for those with open cockpits.

Group 5: Formula racers – these guys were really zipping around the track!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And Group 6: Historic medium-bore (MG, Triumph, Porsche, Alfa Romeo). During Group 5 we moved to the balcony of the main grandstand, where we could see the start and finish, and also Turn 7 coming down the hill to Turn 8.

By this time, the weather had broken, and the sun was out… but the races were over.

Fun afternoon!

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