OK, SIT DOWN, get a beer, wine , soft drink and relax. This is a good story. All true of course.
As I said I went to the vintage racing at Mosport near Toronto Ont. last weekend. This was the 24th running and about 250 cars showed up.
Chris ( man ) Retchford and myself went to this event and let's just say it was an adventure. We started from my place Fri. about 1:00 PM and drove 3 hours back to Toronto in his '65 230SL four speed. It's a fairly nice car and it ran pretty well on the trip.
We stopped at a supplier I have and picked up a few things and had a nice visit. I also brought along a crankshaft from a 220SE Cab. that i'm doing with the object of having it re ground. We were going to taking to the shop but ran out of time. We decided to stay at his home and had very nice dinner and maybe too much refreshments ( not me really) and then went to sleep way too late. It was a nice evening though.
In the morning we drove north and then east of Toronto on our search to find the track. Even though he had been there before it's not an easy place to find. There's signs but they don't really get you to the front gate. We were driving in his '76 Triumph Spitfire with the top down. Man , did I get burned.
We finally found the track and then spent a half hour trying to find our way in. This place is over 600 acres and there's several gates- each one with a certain purpose. Panoz bought this place a few years back and it's looking pretty good now.
This was also a meeting for Triumph cars and there was lots to look at. Many vintage racers and people from as far as Texas. We had a good time until the racing ended for the day so we decided to go to the nearby stock car track which was also part of out ticket in. This racing was over about 9:00 PM so we decided to find a room for the night.
We put the top (up which restricts visibility) and headed for nearby Bowmanville. As we were driving along it was just getting dark out and all of a sudden two cows were walking out on to the road. Fortunatly they were ones with white patches and I saw them. I yelled WOAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!! and he slamed on the brakes. The noise scared them and they ran back into the field. Having been raised around livestock all my life I knew only too well what would of happened to us if we would of hit them..... I got out of the car to direct the traffic if they came back but some locals took over so we headed to town and got something to eat and some rest.
In the morning we found that the parking lot was filled with all kinds of English cars. Jags, MG's , Morgans , Mini's , Triumph and others . We drove together back to the track and had a nice car show with probably 150 cars of all types. They let us on the track for two laps and I can tell you this place will scare the best drivers there are. Blind hills, off camber turns, declining radius, yep, it has them all. Nicki Lauda once said that 4 - 5 turns are one of the 10 most difficult in the world. That says alot. I talked to a number of racers and one of them who was driving a 2 liter Lola and said he could easily hit over 140MPH on the back straight! This is uphill all the way too! Only 2 LITERS?
No benz cars though.
Now comes the non racing interesting part.
We left the track tired, sunburned and a bit wasted. It's really a long walk just to go and get a drink of water there. We were driving along deciding on which route to take to go back to his place. This discussion really wasn't going anywhere and when we came to a stop sign I said go straight through. He wanted to turn and I said go straight through. Not seeing his signal light on and having been watching my side of the little car to say if the coast was clear or not, he dicided to turn left. I yelled WOAAAA!!!! again ( I was getting used to it by then ) because this van was coming really fast. I expected to survive the cow incedent only to be crushed from behind by a bigger cow. Somehow it missed us ( not sure how really) and our 57 horses got us up to speed. I could tell he was unhappy with me because he said something about how when he decides to go , he goes! Just then and while I was kind of digesting all of this, I spotted a piece of metal on the road. I didn't want to say WOAA!!! again so I guess I kind of froze and he hit it. It made this funny noise and then everything was OK. Well, sort of.
The metal had slashed the tire and suddenly it went flat. The car was all over the road and it looked like he was heading for the loose gravel on the shoulder. This time I spoke up and said '' stay on the road until we slow down '' which he did.
So there we were , out in the middle of no where feeling like a couple of kicked dogs. We moved the car to a safer place and pulled the spare out. We had a wheel wrench but it didn't fit. No matter how many times I looked in the tool box no wrench appreared. Suddenly some guys we met at the track stopped to help us. They didn't have a tire wrench either. But they did have end wrenches and so we were able to remove the tire. That's when we found out the spare was flat. No problem. These guys had a tire pump and soon it was filled. Only thing was it all leaked out when we removed the hose. No problem. We used two small screwdrivers to fish out the valves and used the good one. Tire filled and installed we all went and had a coffe. During all of this roadside fun I could see a storm coming our way....
So there we were in the Spit doing about 50MPH and cars passing us at 80 MPH out on the 401. We were concerned that the spare would blow out since it was only 27 yearts old! I could see this storm coming and was considering asking if we would be OK. My notion of English sports cars are that they leak and refuse to run at the slightest hint of moisture . I was to be proven wrong on both accounts. If anything, old benz cars leak far worse.
All of a sudden the sky fell on us. I mean a really hard rain that had everyone at a crawl. After a few minuets it slowed down to almost nothing and we were back doing about 30 MPH heading towards a curve in the highway. As I said the vision isn't that great in such a small car and I'm 6'3'' so it's hard to see out. The windows were fogged and as we came around the bend we ran into a wall of water. This was THE most violent storm I've ever been in. No wind but lots of lightening and rain so hard I couldn't make out the big truck in front of us. Then came the hail - marble sized and the ground white with it. Some really big pieces too that would hit the soft top and move it inwards hitting my head. This was just too much. I remember asking something like '' You Ok? '' He said yes, but it didn't sound like it. This was really something and then it rained even HARDER! The hail was so intense that you couldn't hear anything. Beyond scary.Water was flowing down the side of the highway so hard it was forming waves which were slpashing up on to the car and coming through the door seal.
Moving the car was impossible as the side of the road was probably 2 feet deep with standing water ( we were in a bit of a low spot) There was a big truck behind us and one in front. Hail was coming down that would of hurt you or knocked an eye out if we ever got out and we were parked under a street light with lightening flashing all around us. But the little car never stopped running or let us down.
Finally it let up and then another smaller rain. A few miles down the road and the pavement was dry. There were lots of flooded areas with dead cars everywhere but we just sailed right on through.
Next day had us back at my place in the benz for some repairs. Did the clutch hose as it was so close to breaking I'm not sure how we got home.
Durring the storm I remember thinking how lucky I was that my wife wasn't with me. She's beyond petrified in a bad storm and hides in the closet with the cats. Could you imagine her in this little car with the second coming just outside?
regards to all,
Dan c
Daniel G Caron
