Mitty Bound!

The grass is greening and the trees are filling with leaves so it is getting to be time for our now annual spring trip to Road Atlanta for the Mitty weekend. There is a group of us North Alabama British Motoring Society club members that meet up with a contingent of 6-PACK members to attend the Mitty. We have been doing it for a few years now and every year it gets bigger and better. This year we added the Coker Tire Tour to the Mitty trip and it was a blast. The Tour was put on by Classic Motorsports Magazine and Coker Tire and they hope to make it an annual event.

Four Triumphs from NABMS in Huntsville, Alabama met up two TR6’s from Tennessee and Arkansas to make the trip up to Chattanooga on the twisting back roads bordering the Tennessee River. There were four TR6’s, a TR7 and a Spitfire making this part of the journey. In Chattanooga we would meet up with another 6-PACK member making it five TR6’s. We departed our Gurley rendezvous at 1:30 to arrive in Chattanooga in plenty of time for Thursday night’s activities at Coker Tires. The trip was uneventful and we had a blast snaking seven LBC’s along the winding roads of Alabama and Tennessee on our way getting waves and honks from other cars and people along the route.

We arrived in Chattanooga and checked in to our hotels and then over to Coker to start the festivities. The folks at Coker did a wonderful job with a guided tour of the facility and museum full of a wide range of classic cars. Our hosts Mr. Corky Coker and his wife Theresa were very gracious and down to earth people making us all feel welcome at their welcome facility. There we also met Mr. Tim Suddard editor of Classic Motorsports Magazine and his wife Marjorie, also very nice car people and a delight to talk to. Tim and Marjorie would lead the Tour drive to the Mitty the following day and Corky and Theresa would also join in a beautiful old car out of his collection. After the tour of the museum we were treated to a sit down dinner in one of the main buildings surrounded by many cars of Corky’s collection. If you ever have a chance to visit the Coker Tire museum, I recommend that you do as there are upwards of one hundred cars there on display and most of them are drivers. Corky told us that night that only about half the cars in the collection are on display at any given time and that they rotate the others in and out so even if you have been there, you may not see the same cars again next time. It is quite an eclectic collection with normal cars of the period still with their patina all the way up to fully restored vehicles and some priceless one of a kind cars.

After dinner and some mingling around chatting with fellow participants and the Cokers and Suddards we headed to the hotel for some rest as the next day would start early with a Cars & Coffee and driver’s meeting at Coker Tire.

The next morning about fifty cars congregated on Fort Street in back of Coker Tire which was closed to traffic in anticipation of the Tour field staging. There was quite a variety of cars there, from new Mustangs and Corvettes to a 1927 Ford Pickup. Our LBC group met a few more 6-PACKers and other TR6 owners there and now there were eleven TRiumphs on the Tour, nine of them TR6’s. The TR6 marquee now dominated the Tour field of fifty cars, it was going to be a fun drive through Cleveland, Tennessee and through Nantahala National Forest! We then would turn south and travel to Mercier Orchards in Blue Ridge, Georgia for lunch and a tour there. After a lunch provided by the organizers we would head to nearby Toccoa Falls. From Toccoa Falls, we would take curvy back roads and head south to Road Atlanta where the Mitty was just getting underway.

We took off in a long caravan around 9:30 soon to be separated by traffic lights. Now there were six or seven packs of cars that made their way to the Orchard along the banks of the Ocoee River by the Whitewater Center where some of the 96 Olympic events were held. At the Orchard we held another impromptu car show in the parking lot as the cars arrived and gathered, we had a wonderful lunch with a two hour break and were then ready to resume the three hour drive to get to Road Atlanta through the Chattahoochee National Forest. Beautiful scenery, curvy roads, hills and switchbacks – perfect for exercising our LBC’s that wanted to run.

Once we reached the Mitty and entered with the pass in our goody bags we were parked at the Coker Tire Car Corral in anticipation for the parade laps at 5:30. The cars were on display at the Corral for a couple of hours while the owners milled about talking to Mitty spectators and resting up from the drive. At 5:30 we were lined up and sent out on the track for three spirited laps around course, it was a blast. I managed to record the laps on my phone that was clipped to the passenger’s sun visor; it came out pretty good, although I think next year I am going to have to get a remote microphone to get more engine/exhaust sounds on the recording. It’s amazing how fast you can go through the esses to catch up when you drop back a bit from the car in front.

After the laps we were parked back in the Coker Car Corral and treated to a barbeque dinner at the nearby Classic Motorsports tent. The folks at Coker Tire and Classic Motorsports did a fantastic job putting on the event and I highly recommend it. We will definitely do it again next year and hopefully get more LBC’s there to represent our clubs.

The Mitty itself was great with a reprieve on the weather. We had some rain late Friday night in what was forecasted to be a rain filled weekend but surprisingly the rain was gone by the time we emerged out of our tents on Saturday morning for coffee and breakfast never to be seen again for the weekend. Racing was just beginning and cars were making their way loudly around the track by our campsite at 8:00 am. After two fun filled days of racing, walking the paddocks and talking to racers we started packing to come home. Another highly anticipated Mitty had come and gone and now it was time to caravan home. Sunday afternoon was spent on the four-hour back roads drive home with beautiful weather and our six TR’s caravanning their way across the west Georgia mountains avoiding the larger roads back to Alabama. Another great extended weekend car trip driving 650 miles in our LBC’s and no breakdowns, a perfect weekend that we look forward to again next year.

Greta job Classic Motorsports and Coker Tire in organizing a wonderful tour and racing event for classic car owners!

By Luis (Lou) Mijares