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| Through The Esses - Archie Urciuoli A Vintage Racer Brings Lola To The New Track In Town |
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Then I decided I didn't want to work quite that hard anymore!
I sold the 956 to Vern Schuppan, who was the original factory driver of the car when it raced as new. I wanted to go back to an open car so I bought this Lola T70. I also have a Ford GT 40 which I will only race once or twice a year. I might bring it out at something like the Monterey Historics or the Lime Rock Vintage Festival. I expect to run the Lola at this year's Lime Rock Festival and then a week later at the Glen Festival.
Our conversation next turned to his impressions of the new Thunderbolt circuit at NJMP.
I am very favorably impressed with this new track. It is obviously longer than Lime Rock and shorter than the big tracks like the Glen, Road Atlanta or Road America. It has a nice mix of turns with high speed areas and elevation changes. It's a bit tight when you compare it to Road America, lets say, but it's not ridiculously tight like some of the new tracks that have been built recently. Some have been made too tight by putting in too many turns for such a small space. That takes a lot of fun away. If you go to a track with a car like this Lola and you have five or six second gear turns you are not really flowing the way the car can go. I like this facility very much.
While NJMP is just beginning what is hoped will be a long and storied history in racing, it turns out Urciuoli has been here before&almost.
Many years ago I raced at Vineland, New Jersey, which is about 15 minutes from here, so this is something of a reinvention of that in a sense. But I think they have done a very nice job here and it will only improve as the facility matures.
We knew we had probably taken up enough of his time at this point, so we decided to wrap it up by asking him if he was looking forward to taking his new gal Lola for a fast ride.
I am so eager to go back out on this track! I'm still getting the car settled in with shock adjustments and so on but my hope is that I can live up to the cars capability!
We suspect a racer with his years of experience, in a car with a long racing history, will have no problem showing a brand new race track what fast really is. And wherever he is today, Eric Broadley is probably smiling.
PS: Urciuoli sent us this update just before we posted this column: The old girl won the group 5 race on Sunday!
Click Here for ash photos from the SVRA event
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