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Riverside Vintage Event Synopsis
by Louie Figone
January 27-29, 2011
When Faye and Mona said that they needed time off and would not be doing this year’s event I thought this can’t be the end of Riverside vintage so I said I would take it on but only with the help of Faye and Mona. This will always be Faye’s event as she and Tom Medley had the first vintage get together in 2004 which was rained out. The first successful vintage event was 2005 which was planned by Faye and Mona, then on the Thursday of the event Mona called in sick, Ernie Fisher and Terry Ives scrambled to help Faye out. In 2006 Mona was on board and since then it became a class act and gained its reputation. From that first event the Riverside vintage has turned into a must go to event if you are into vintage karts. My idea was not going to try and do the event as grand as they did but to have a vintage event that was more laid back and “let’s have fun.” Mona took care of all the pre-entries and did an enormous amount of back stage work. She and I would exchange emails at least three times a day. Faye was there for me every day also with advice and taking on jobs that I could not or have the time to do. The event went off very well: the weather was perfect, mid 70’s to 80 deg each day.
Jim Donovan of Max Torque clutch fame put on a great lunch and dinner for everyone at the track on Thursday. This guy loves vintage karts. If he was not cooking he was building clutches or cleaning karts for anyone the needed help. I think he was in every ones pit at some time or another. The Adams put on a great BBQ rib dinner on Friday evening.
Jeff Campbell, our new VKA President flew in for Friday and Saturday and did some great video and still work. His pictures have been posted on the VKA website. On Thursday I counted 76 karts, Friday we had 130 karts, that includes the show karts and on Saturday we had 79 karts in the flagged events. There were a total of 66 drivers that registered. The ambulance did not have to move so that was good. I worked with Timel Adams Sebastian from the Adams facility and she was great. Timel worked with Faye in 2004 and she can also be credited with getting the vintage kart reunion going. Timel worked very hard to make the event a success and the Adams want us back each year. Friday night after the show and raffle the Adams had the drifter cars on the track and they put on quite a show for those of us that stayed late.
I want to thank Dick Miles and Vince Hughes for doing the raffle. They did get quite wound up and also Dick did all the ticket sales for the raffle and the 50/50 drawing which was won by Carol Rippy. Thank you to David Cordier for handling the microphone and the race-heat announcements on Saturday.
Thank you goes to Ernie Fisher for his donation to the raffle with his many items; Jim Donovan for the Max Torque clutch; K & P for the set of front tires; another set of fronts from an anonymous donor; Gus Gustafson for a set or rear tires; John Mullen for the leather jacket; Tom Patronite from Azusa Engineering for the driving jacket; Bill Parun for the bottle of wine; Tom Corso for the Azusa seat tank and for helping in pre-tech; Gerry Milazzo for his donation’s; Kurt Burris for the T shirts; Richard Kennedy for his donation’s; Bill and Dodie Freeman, Rick and Mona Sturgeon for their generous cash donations toward the event; Tom Medley for his collectable printers plate of “Stroker in his Hot Rod” mounted and signed on the back by Tom himself. Tom Medley was there all three days and a great historian for us. Thanks to Tom Willms for supplying the alcohol, Terry Ives for working non stop on other peoples karts so they could get on the track. Terry came just to help out and did not get any track time. Thanks to Peter Preschern for doing the grid and his wife Carolyn and his sister Ann Elliott for doing the grid sheets. Carol Ives along with Roilene Pierson and her friend Steve for scoring and doing the points. Also thanks to Gretchen Bereiter for helping with the on site registration and the chocolate chip cookies that were put to close to me. A special thanks to Lynn Haddock for bringing Duffy Livingston out to the event and being on the judging team with Jack Murray and Tom Thorin for the kart show.
I know I must have left some people out but most of all I want to thank all the karters that came, without you we would not have an event. I also want to mention that I know that some came with the intent to win but to me we are all winners just being there. I know I got my therapy on Thursday and Friday practice and that was enough for me, it’s all about the people involved and visiting with them. The rest of the event was the icing on the cake. If any of you have any ideas that would make the event better pleas let me know. I have rambled on enough so with that I thank all of you.
Louie Figone
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