THSCC Forums

So, I have this disease that causes me to look at anything related to aviation. It is involuntary. I can't help it. Fortunately there is no cure.

That is what lead me to this site about old abandoned airfields around the country.

http://members.tripod.com/airfields_freeman/index.htm

and then eventually to looking at this airport.

http://members.tripod.com/airfields_fre ... tm#rockymt

Read down a little and you will see a citation by Jan Chamblee who apparently competed with us back then.

If anybody has any photos of us running out there and wouldn't mind sharing them with the aviaiton geeks of the world, pass them on to me. I'll send them to the site owner.

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Todd Breakey
STS 42 - 1992 Sunburst Miata
Dammit!
"You souldn't play leap frog with a porcupine. You might get hurt." - Eliza

Todd,

Incredibly, I just saw that site last weekend too. It has our Sanford site written up also.

As to Rocky Mount -- I do have some pictures from ~1982ish timeframe. A friend took some of my car running there, but I think there are a few others too like Roy Thompson (think that was his name) with the red Vette he used to trailer in from Winston I believe. The one time we had a radar gun out on the main straight (the runway leading away from the Hardee's HQ building), Roy hit the highest speed which I think was just over 100. Not a big deal today, but back then he walked on water.

Anyway, I need to find and scan these sometime soon. If I can find them, I have some from ~1979 from the old Bendle's parking lot, Kidd's Hill Plaza I think it was called up behind Crabtree Mall. I think those are B&W though -- I'll hunt.
Chuck

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Current stable:
2019 BMW M2 Competition slicktop 6MT
2011 BMW M3 sedan slicktop 6MT
2007 BMW 328i wagon (slushbox for now)
1975 CanAm 125MX2

I too ran at the Rocky Mount Airport. When we first started running there we used the full length of both runways and the taxiways. I ran a stock Datsun PL510 and was clocked at 95 MPH at the end of a long pretty straight streach. I remember one of the courses we ran there featured a slolom with 100 ft spacing on the cones. I had a G analyst at the time and peaked at 1 g in the slolom running on racing slicks in D Mod. I was told that I was lifting the front tires off the ground in that slolom. One of the first courses I ran there was about 3 Mi. long and we only reused a part of the X where the runways intersected.

Somewhere I have a picture of the 510 on course but it is a tight shoot so you could not tell where.

We had a mishap there too. Owen ? rolled a honda civic right front corner to back left corner and ended up on his wheels. The car belonged to Mike Greene. A prepared civic went through the trees at least once. And Kurt Spitzner went into the trees with a V8 powered Vega. The trees were not nearly as big as in the website photo.

We used to camp out on site. Some of us were too poor to get a motel room.

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George Bright Member # 141
One of the youngest of the old farts.
Yes I voted against you joining the club.

George,

Perhaps my initial thought about the vette hitting 120mph was right then...I figured I was recalling too great of a speed, so I "just over 100". Do you remember the guy I'm thinking about? It was a red C3 Vette with a roll cage, etc, and he and his wife used to come from somewhere west of Raleigh. I would say "an older guy", but he was probably the age I am now.

Chuck

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Current stable:
2019 BMW M2 Competition slicktop 6MT
2011 BMW M3 sedan slicktop 6MT
2007 BMW 328i wagon (slushbox for now)
1975 CanAm 125MX2

Sounds like "The Gauntlet" course that William Huneycutt set up in 1989. (perhaps he copied an earlier design)


Which explains why Charlie Guthrie did not die on "The Gauntlet" course when he shot off into the trees after a sway bar end link on his Spridget broke. Courseworkers started sprinting down there expecting the worst, only to find Charlie mowing down more saplings on his way back onto the course. Like we always say, if you have to go off, aim for the soft trees!

Seven or eight years later, a friend of GH Sharp's wasn't so fortunate, and totaled his 3rd gen RX-7 on some hard trees.

I believe it was 2002 when we named the tree-lined intersection of the two runways after an Auto-X VP's wife.

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Art McDonald
Premier Amateur #518
2008 Dishman Cup
Pivot Cone Snob

Rodney is a waxer (but in a good way)

Rocky Mount speeds--- I also saw 100+ mph there, just before a turn-around on the main runway! I couldn't resist looking at the speedometer on my V-8 Corvair, and consequently mowed off a few small trees. I was still finding splinters in the radiator air intakes years later. I believe this was in 1986 or 1987.

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'66 CORVAIR MID-ENGINE V-8
'88 FIERO GT