Topic: Our trip to Dinwiddie (Petersburg), VA for the PIP show

[fb_rider]

Tom (MD Bandit) and I headed out today around noon for the Pontiac in the Parks show at Virginia Motorsports Park in Dinwiddie (as everyone keeps correcting us and telling us we are not in Richmond or Petersburg), VA.  Our first obstacle was the DC area traffic:


We got lots of thumbs ups and comments of - you don't often see one of those Trans Ams, much less two.  Even with the traffic, Tom was still smiling 


We made a stop at the rest area just north of Richmond and had to take a couple of pics:



Here's a pic of the cool bridge that goes over the James River that I took just before my front tire blew out:


Yes, my front tire blew out .  I was getting a vibration the the steering for most of the trip, and just thought my front end needed aligning.  Surprise, it was a dry rotted tire coming apart at 75mph   I was lucky enough to be at the end of the bridge, with an exit ramp only 3/4 of a mile ahead.  I got it parked and called Tom, who was already 4 or 5 miles down the road and had to come back.


2 miles down the road was Waller Tire (I'll give them a plug) - they basically just had a garage full of tires.  Believe it or not, they didn't have any new Radial TA's in my size, but they had a exact matching used one in great condition . One of their guys came back to my car and replaced in right in the Exxon parking lot for me - by hand - in about 5 minutes.


A short ride back to their "shop" for balancing and cleaning (yes, they even cleaned the tire for me) and we were back on the road.  A great group of guys 

Tomorrow is supposed to be nice weather and a great show - we're looking forward to it 

[fb_rider]

Today was the first day of the car show.  At the hotel before we headed out:


One of the highlights of the day was talking with and having our cars photographed by Christopher Phillip, the Associate Editor for High Performance Pontiac Magazine:



Here's me with my car:


An aerial view of the car show from the top of the grandstand - about 80 cars showed up:


We each were interviewed by the track announcer, and then we did a parade pass in front of the grandstands.  Here's Tom being interviewed:


Entering the track for the parade pass:


Overall, it was a very fun day.  They were pretty late getting the racing running due to the wet track.   Today they gave out 15 best of show trophies - unfortunately none for us.  Most of them went to GTO's.

We went back in the evening to see some more racing.  There were some incredibly fast cars, many upper 9 to low 10 second cars.  Top speed was the Grocery Getter - I seem to remember it was 176mph in the 1/4 mile. 

Tomorrow is another car show - with 1st, 2nd, and 3rd for each class.  And more racing, and 85 degree sunny weather     Should be another great day.

[rkellerjr]

As I said over at TAC, sorry I couldn't make it guys but school ended up trumping my trip up to see you and enjoy the show.  Hopefully we'll get to shake hands soon at another show.

[eroc022]

good pictures....

[Eagle 1]

Man I bet you guys did get some second looks.  Not very often you see two black and gold TA's running along together.
Nice pictures.

[darkDragon]

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[fb_rider]

It was a great weekend, and Sunday turned out to be an even better day.  Sunny and 85 degrees, lots of great racing (including a 6000 hp rail), and we took home 3 trophies   .  Chris from HPP seemed to take a big time liking to our SEs, and had us pose the cars under the Pontiac sign for some pics - Tom and I were loving every minute of that  .

[Maryland Bandit]

It was sweeter Sunday winning after getting hosed Saturday. (another story there). Met some really great people as always, and had a good time. I'll go back next year.