Blackhawk Farms Track Story
9 June 2018 CAROC Blackhawk Farms Raceway Track Day
Weather Update, 4 Hours Out: Heavy Clouds, Thunderstorms with lightening, Possible Hail, localized Flash Flooding…
CAROC Race Day Organizer’s Prognosis: Guardedly Optimistic!
…and that in and of itself was a real leap of faith!
Five days out, and in spite of a number of nasty weather fronts forming across the West and Deep South/Southwest, the Northern Illinois Race Day forecast was predominantly clear and dry with sunshine and broken clouds the entire Saturday.
Three Days Out: Forecasts were still optimistic…with reservation. Rain was falling, fronts were converging, and hail was smacking a few roofs here and there across Chicagoland.
36 Hours Out: deteriorating (as if things couldn’t get any worse) conditions, with a CHANCE of Race Day Clearing.
>24 Hours: Heavy rains were falling throughout the Upper Midwest Region! Which then gave way at Six hours (0230) to Start Your Engines to a steady downpour reaching 2”/HOUR! Then, as the ‘60’s comic (showing my age here…) Allen Sherman sang/described in “Camp Grenada”…Everything Cleared up…gave way to sunshine…and the games began with over 45 Race and/or Touring Events registered participants and more than 150 attendees there to show and tell with their myriad of marques!
All that said, when asked about penning this article, I had to preface my acceptance with a disclaimer that I was going into things with a personal bias toward the Day and Alfas (owner of eight over the years…!) in general.
I just didn’t know how deep it ran until that day, and that’s where I pick-up from there….
In retrospect, I have to say, that the last time I had encountered this much white knuckle excitement, and flat out fun on four wheels, was in 1999! That was when I right seated a BMW M3 (forgive my errant transgression) in Germany!
We took off from Kaiserslautern near the West/Central border with France on a Timed Personal Best Road Rally past Stuttgart toward Munich with a detour to the finish line at the gates of the ETTAL ABBY, an age old Benedictine Monastery between Oberammergau and Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Bavaria which served up 1 liter MAS’s (Steins) of arguably the best monk Brewed Dark Beer in Germany paired with Smoked Ham Hocks the size of softballs with fries! A worthy prize for such an endeavor (which averaged speeds of over 90 mph in a US Spec auto in a Gumball Rally styled event).
That benchmark of sheer motoring enjoyment has stood the test of time up until the 9 June 2018 CAROC Blackhawk Farms Track Day in South Beloit, Illinois. Whereupon, it was simply decimated after a 20 minute Autobarn Of Evanston Alfa 4C right seated test drive! That experience was nothing less than one of unabashed, purely visceral driving excitement at 3 figure speeds down the straightaway into the first of 7 hairpin turns!
The 4C’s cornering ability was remarkable….flat in…flat thru….flat out! Straightaway performance was equally amazing as it snapped out of the final turn, the only thing missing was an audible CRACK! That said, as remarkable as that car was, during a Post Event Lessons Learned/Event Review session, I found out that it was the Stelvio, which was there alongside another 4C, a Quadrafolgia and a Giulia, which turned the most heads! Definitely a shout out to the Autobarn staff and owner, Richard Fischer for making that happen!
On a personal note, two days before, my ’86 Spider Veloce went down with what turned out to be a defective Master Brake Cylinder. So I substituted my 2006 Pontiac Solstice Roadster (22,960 miles, but who’s counting) to take my place in the que during the Touring Event.
Ending up in the middle of the pack waiting for the checkered flag to fall listening to the Beach Boys belting out Car Songs in an untried, never run to track limits, 2-seater PONTIAC of all things, I didn’t exactly have any expectations of grandeur. I only wanted to finish! It didn’t help any that in the rearview mirror was only a GRILL of a (what turned out later to be a…) “VIPER POWERED” enhanced 10 cylinder, 719 horse powered to the rear wheels, 2004 Dodge Limited Production Pick-up Truck (17,000 miles on the odometer!)….which politely paced me thru the first lap but smoked me like a cheap cigar within feet of exiting turn 9 into the straightaway!
I may have finished near the very bottom, but I had a tremendous time in the little Solstice, which proved to handle the curves not too dissimilarly than the 4C! Though at about half the speed, but less we dwell on the technical side of things…it more than proved itself to be a really fun, more than capable little car that has been said would have possibly saved Pontiac if it had come on the scene sooner with a better reliability score than they had (simply put…if it ran without oozing, dripping, shaking, loosing a rear end, or any number of other maladies…right off the showroom floor you had yourself a keeper!)(No gray areas allowed)!
Then there were the static displays of 1950’s, 60’s, 70’s, 80’s & 90’s era Alfas (Guillietta’s, Duetto’s, GTV’s, Graduate’s, Veloce’s, and Quads) on up to 2018’s, Ferrari’s, Mini’s, Austin Healey’s, Vettes, A race ready Solstice from Florida(!)(not mine), Legend Sports Racers, Fiat’s, MG’s, Triumph’s, Camero’s, Corvette’s, Scion FRS, Lotus’s, trucks and an X-Bow!
Either all of the above taken together, or separately, the final take away from this, our Yearly Signature Event was nothing less than “It was the Most Successful in Years”…or my favorite…simply put…..”We’re Back”!
Wayne Toberman, CAROC Board Member and nearly lifelong (or at least from about 14 on…) Alfisti!
View Picture Gallery
9 June 2018 CAROC Blackhawk Farms Raceway Track Day
Weather Update, 4 Hours Out: Heavy Clouds, Thunderstorms with lightening, Possible Hail, localized Flash Flooding…
CAROC Race Day Organizer’s Prognosis: Guardedly Optimistic!
…and that in and of itself was a real leap of faith!
Five days out, and in spite of a number of nasty weather fronts forming across the West and Deep South/Southwest, the Northern Illinois Race Day forecast was predominantly clear and dry with sunshine and broken clouds the entire Saturday.
Three Days Out: Forecasts were still optimistic…with reservation. Rain was falling, fronts were converging, and hail was smacking a few roofs here and there across Chicagoland.
36 Hours Out: deteriorating (as if things couldn’t get any worse) conditions, with a CHANCE of Race Day Clearing.
>24 Hours: Heavy rains were falling throughout the Upper Midwest Region! Which then gave way at Six hours (0230) to Start Your Engines to a steady downpour reaching 2”/HOUR! Then, as the ‘60’s comic (showing my age here…) Allen Sherman sang/described in “Camp Grenada”…Everything Cleared up…gave way to sunshine…and the games began with over 45 Race and/or Touring Events registered participants and more than 150 attendees there to show and tell with their myriad of marques!
All that said, when asked about penning this article, I had to preface my acceptance with a disclaimer that I was going into things with a personal bias toward the Day and Alfas (owner of eight over the years…!) in general.
I just didn’t know how deep it ran until that day, and that’s where I pick-up from there….
In retrospect, I have to say, that the last time I had encountered this much white knuckle excitement, and flat out fun on four wheels, was in 1999! That was when I right seated a BMW M3 (forgive my errant transgression) in Germany!
We took off from Kaiserslautern near the West/Central border with France on a Timed Personal Best Road Rally past Stuttgart toward Munich with a detour to the finish line at the gates of the ETTAL ABBY, an age old Benedictine Monastery between Oberammergau and Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Bavaria which served up 1 liter MAS’s (Steins) of arguably the best monk Brewed Dark Beer in Germany paired with Smoked Ham Hocks the size of softballs with fries! A worthy prize for such an endeavor (which averaged speeds of over 90 mph in a US Spec auto in a Gumball Rally styled event).
That benchmark of sheer motoring enjoyment has stood the test of time up until the 9 June 2018 CAROC Blackhawk Farms Track Day in South Beloit, Illinois. Whereupon, it was simply decimated after a 20 minute Autobarn Of Evanston Alfa 4C right seated test drive! That experience was nothing less than one of unabashed, purely visceral driving excitement at 3 figure speeds down the straightaway into the first of 7 hairpin turns!
The 4C’s cornering ability was remarkable….flat in…flat thru….flat out! Straightaway performance was equally amazing as it snapped out of the final turn, the only thing missing was an audible CRACK! That said, as remarkable as that car was, during a Post Event Lessons Learned/Event Review session, I found out that it was the Stelvio, which was there alongside another 4C, a Quadrafolgia and a Giulia, which turned the most heads! Definitely a shout out to the Autobarn staff and owner, Richard Fischer for making that happen!
On a personal note, two days before, my ’86 Spider Veloce went down with what turned out to be a defective Master Brake Cylinder. So I substituted my 2006 Pontiac Solstice Roadster (22,960 miles, but who’s counting) to take my place in the que during the Touring Event.
Ending up in the middle of the pack waiting for the checkered flag to fall listening to the Beach Boys belting out Car Songs in an untried, never run to track limits, 2-seater PONTIAC of all things, I didn’t exactly have any expectations of grandeur. I only wanted to finish! It didn’t help any that in the rearview mirror was only a GRILL of a (what turned out later to be a…) “VIPER POWERED” enhanced 10 cylinder, 719 horse powered to the rear wheels, 2004 Dodge Limited Production Pick-up Truck (17,000 miles on the odometer!)….which politely paced me thru the first lap but smoked me like a cheap cigar within feet of exiting turn 9 into the straightaway!
I may have finished near the very bottom, but I had a tremendous time in the little Solstice, which proved to handle the curves not too dissimilarly than the 4C! Though at about half the speed, but less we dwell on the technical side of things…it more than proved itself to be a really fun, more than capable little car that has been said would have possibly saved Pontiac if it had come on the scene sooner with a better reliability score than they had (simply put…if it ran without oozing, dripping, shaking, loosing a rear end, or any number of other maladies…right off the showroom floor you had yourself a keeper!)(No gray areas allowed)!
Then there were the static displays of 1950’s, 60’s, 70’s, 80’s & 90’s era Alfas (Guillietta’s, Duetto’s, GTV’s, Graduate’s, Veloce’s, and Quads) on up to 2018’s, Ferrari’s, Mini’s, Austin Healey’s, Vettes, A race ready Solstice from Florida(!)(not mine), Legend Sports Racers, Fiat’s, MG’s, Triumph’s, Camero’s, Corvette’s, Scion FRS, Lotus’s, trucks and an X-Bow!
Either all of the above taken together, or separately, the final take away from this, our Yearly Signature Event was nothing less than “It was the Most Successful in Years”…or my favorite…simply put…..”We’re Back”!
Wayne Toberman, CAROC Board Member and nearly lifelong (or at least from about 14 on…) Alfisti!
View Picture Gallery