So what does it mean to drive a car "at speed?" My chance to do this came the other day when Chip Mautz emailed, telling me that Grassroots Motorsports magazine (GRM) was doing an article on Sprites and Spitfires. They had reserved Road Atlanta and needed a street Sprite to complete their collection. Was I interested? I immediately contacted David and Tim at GRM and they invited me to join their party.

The track day was Tuesday, this was Thursday, not leaving much time to get the car in order. First things first. I had the local Sprite guru and racer Dan Dougherty, owner of Global Restorations, conduct a thorough safety check. As I do almost all of my maintenance and this is my first Sprite, I felt it was a good idea to get experienced eyes and hands to check my work. As Dan is a fellow member of the local AHCA chapter, he was willing to jump right on this with very short notice. The car got a passing grade except for the oil leaking from the front seal. Not a safety factor for me, but a concern for others and certainly a failing grade if the car went through tech at the track. So, it was off to Atlanta Imported Auto Parts to get a new seal and timing chain cover gasket.

Buying the parts and installing them are two different matters. Have you ever installed a spridget front seal with the engine still in the car? BMC never meant for this to be a regular maintenance item. The grill and radiator had to be removed, the engine mounts loosened, and the engine jacked up to the point that the car lifted off the front tires, all so that the crank pulley could clear the front cross member! After liberal application of two 3-foot crow bars, the pulley popped off, followed in short order by the timing chain cover. The front seal simply fell out onto the ground: One potential leak source confirmed. The new one fit snuggly and with a little grease added and some goo on the gasket, it all went together, no problem. While I was at it, I fabricated a PCV system using an inline valve. Later BMC A-series engines tend to leak (more) without good crankcase ventilation. I could not have gotten these tasks done in time without the advice of many folks on the spridgets email list, members of the Atlanta AHCA club, and Tom and Lamar at AIAP.

The next step was to add three-point belts, another track requirement. I had previously secured a good set of belts from a '73 Midget. Earlier cars like mine had a double-stud belt attach point on the rear wheel well, whereas the later belts have only one hole for attachment. I had to fabricate a simple bracket that allowed both studs to take the strain of belt attachment. After this came a quick oil change and a last minute wash and wax. The car was ready, I hoped.

All this made for a busy few evenings (I do work and had commitments set for the weekend prior to the call from GRM), the result being that the car was not test driven until Tuesday morning - Track Day. Luckily, the car fired right up and showed no signs of leaks after a 15 minute drive around the neighborhood.

Wayne Whitaker, a friend who always gets roped into these special projects, followed me up I-85 with about every tool and spare part I own in the back of his wagon. I was taking no chances on a last-minute mix up or failure. We met Chip in the Road Atlanta parking lot after an uneventful trip. A quick peak showed oil on the front cross member (rats!), but much less than would have been found without all the work. I added about 2 gallons of 110 octane leaded racing fuel ($4.00/gal - ouch!) and advanced the timing to the marks I'd previously set.

The GRM guys and the other Spit and Sprite drivers were waiting for us by this time. It was immediately obvious that mine was the only stock street car there. There were several racing and/or highly modified Sprites and Spitfires, including one of each with rotary engines. The "street" Spitfire that I presume would be compared to my car was actually a pristine example of the marque lovingly restored to the same level of tune as an historically significant racing Spit from the late '60s early 70s (I didn't catch which champion it was modeled after; it's the Union Jack Spit in the photos).

Wayne's wagon made the perfect support vehicle.

After brief instruction, we followed Tim (owner/publisher of GRM) out in his rotary-powered Spitfire for a morning photo shoot. The pace car was an older Mustang with the hatch propped open and the poor photographer rolling around in the back. Speeds were kept down to 50 mph or lower. This was a good introduction to the track, but we were all bobbing and weaving to reposition ourselves at the behest of the cameraman. It was a lot of fun running in loose formation with other growling small cars, sometimes running three abreast. How often do you get to do that? (OK, maybe you do it everyday on I-285, but is that fun or stress?) It quickly became obvious that a 948 Bugeye nicely restored to early historical racing tune and my stock Sprite were the slowest cars. But we still had a lot of fun, and the other guys made sure that we weren't left in the dust, which I thought was pretty considerate.

Soon the camera car pitted and we were unleashed to run the course as we saw fit. The driving went something like this: We were using the short track in which turn 5 is a right sweeper up onto the back stretch right into turn 9. This course has fewer straights and more curves per distance. We spread out around the track. Some of the cars immediately pitted, others such as myself just kept going. As a total rookie, my driving was on the edge (and as you'll read, a little beyond). I found myself leaning forward over the wheel, back arched, wheel gripped, teeth gritted, and hard smile on my face. Though I was running stock 145/13's on stock wire wheels, the Sprite stuck to the road quite well, with the rear end breaking loose only a bit in turns 2-3-4 and 10 into 11.

Such driving is physically demanding. My forearms, wrists, and hands soon tired from gripping the wheel. Gloves would've helped a lot once my palms started sweating, which was about the time we left the paddock. Wind burn and dehydration also took their toll. But, the most demanding and immediate physical challenge I found surprising: In right turns, my left leg was pinned by g force to the left panel. It seems silly, but I really had a tough time getting my left foot onto the clutch in right turns.

The mental demands far surpassed these physical challenges. Absolute concentration was required to run the car safely, much less well, when "at speed." Even for a complete neophyte such as myself, it was obvious that with all the elevation changes, the trick to this track is energy conservation. As with any track, taking a turn poorly causes loss of speed, affecting the run then and later in the course. But at Road Atlanta, not planning for the added effect of gravity can mean overworked brakes or, conversely, molasses-slow uphill exits. Additionally, the elevation changes can be disorienting for the first-timer and the expert. I'd read somewhere that at the Petit Le Mans, one of the Italian drivers opted out because this track always makes him seasick!

A good example of losing momentum and concentration happened once as I was heading into turn 5, a sweeping uphill righthand curve. Unless plenty of speed is carried into the downhill start of the turn (coming out and down from the esses), my little Sprite's power would just begin to falter about half way up. A quick downshift would handle this well. There was always a moment where I had to decide whether I'd carried enough speed into the turn or whether I'd need to shift. Factored into this decision was that this was also the toughest turn to pull my G-pinned left leg off the wall to tramp on the clutch. One time I faltered and lost speed before downshifting. To get speed back up (I couldn't possibly let the 948 cc Sprite catch me!) , I really wrapped it out in third, shifted to fourth later than I had been doing, and carried too much speed into turns 10 and 11. I came out wider than previous runs, heading uphill to the crown of turn 12 under the bridge. I was later told that lots of people wipe out here...

Just as I crested the hill, light on the tires and running wide into the curve (and thus not being real sure of what was ahead of me), the orange racing Spit flashed by on the right. I flinched and that was all she wrote. The tail broke loose so fast that I still can't figure out which way it went. Literally in the blink of an eye (both eyes in my case!), I became just a passenger along for the ride. The concrete barricade, hitherto unnoticed, now loomed (or so it seemed).

Later, spectators told me it was all quite entertaining. This mishap of course occurred in plain view of the infield pits. Apparently I whipped the wheel back and forth several times, over-compensating half way down the hill. Even when I hit the grass, I never quite spun the full 360, though this may have been preferable! Eventually the car decided it'd had enough fun and ended up pointing more or less in the right direction, so I proceeded on my way.

The rest of the day was rather more tame. As I told David of GRM, coming through a spin-out unscathed had completed the full Walter Mitty experience for me. I ran several more laps, then Chip took a few laps in the Sprite. Wayne rode some laps as passenger later. I do it all again in the Fall; my wife bought me a track day as a Christmas gift. This time I get two hours of instruction, then they turn me loose!

Tim & David (Grassroots Motorsports)
Wayne Whitaker
Chip Mautz
Sam Marble (AHCA)
The Ashby boys for the helmets
Frank, Robert, Ron, Jay, Ulix, David, Peter, John, Rick and many others (spridgets email list)
Neil's Restorations
Atlanta Imported Auto Parts
Global Restorations
Claudia Saari (navigator & sponsor)