Scenes From Gridlife Circuit Legends at Lime Rock Park

Circuit Legends included a concours event, full of cars from the seventies to the 2000s. But, with this being an enthusiast event that appealed to JDM enthusiasts, the cars in the concours were the same as the ones in the parking lot. I know the Type R was just a car that someone drove to the track, but I couldn’t tell you if the R34 GT-R was a display piece or a daily.

Pictured: Something like $70,000 worth of Corollas. Everybody wants to be Takumi Fujiwara, and a few people are willing to pay through the nose for the privilege. The hachiroku gained popularity for being cheap, light, and flickable. It’s still two of those.

This FD RX-7, in full RE Amemiya regalia, was parked nose to nose with a Paul Newman Oldsmobile that had actually raced at Lime Rock. On any other weekend, that Olds would be surrounded by gawkers in cargo shorts and white New Balances, but this weekend it sat dead center of the Concours tent unappreciated — everyone focused on the rotaries instead.

Lime Rock is a small track — one and a half miles, seven corners. Day spectators tend to hang out at the Esses, where the Big Bend exists into the Left Hander and Right Hander. Campers spend their time between the Uphill and West Bend. The campers missed out, because the drifters spent most of their tire smoke over in Big Bend and the Right Hander.

As far as I can tell, no one’s drifted the full Lime Rock course before. The track’s held drift events in its infield, but never out on the circuit. This is a good change. Drifting rules, and more drifting is better than less drifting.

Andy Smedegard Motorsports fielded a ton of vehicles at Circuit Legends, in every group — time attack, wheel to wheel, and drift. “Andy makes a good product” was a common refrain of the weekend.

Getting a panning shot of a moving car is hard enough. Add another car, moving at a slightly different speed, and you make life a lot harder for yourself. Then you add portrait orientation, for some reason, even though cars are longer than they are tall and moving horizontally. Looks pretty cool when it’s all together, though.

EVs are the future of cars, so why not include them in the future of racing? You don’t realize how loud track curbs are until you hear an electric car hit one, with no engine note to drown out the tires.

I’ve been attending races at Lime Rock for probably twenty years. Never, in those decades, have I seen a teal and pink S13 out on track. This whole time, I was missing out on so much, and I didn’t even know it.

This S14.5's bumper was on the verge of coming off during every lap. On one, some contact with a barrier actually removed parts of the rear bumper, but the front held strong.

R34 Nissan Skylines don’t yet meet the 25 year law, but a few limited-production examples can be imported under Show and Display. None of those have four doors, like this Skyline, but it may have been brought in for track use only — never to see the streets.

Or, maybe it’s titled as a 240SX by a DMV that didn’t know any better. What’s important is that it’s here, it’s built with attention to detail and the full knowledge that it’ll get beaten around, and it’s doing what it does best: Sliding around corners on a tight track in the woods.

If you’re an avid Gears and Gasoline viewer, like I am, you’ll recognize this Civic. I won’t spoil the Lime Rock episode, but just know that this little K-swapped hatchback beat Corvettes, Porsches, and BMWs for lap times.

Keep your eyes peeled for a full piece on Gridlife at Lime Rock Park, and how those two vastly different areas of motorsports enthusiasm came together in a weekend of tire smoke and sun. Until then, though, just keep your eyes on this orange peel.