Think Spring! – Part 2 – Sebring!

After dropping off the ’66 FHC in Gainesville, FL, we headed down to Oviedo, FL – about 2.5 hours further south.  One of our good friends from high school, Tammy, lives there with her husband.

Tammy was in our class – 1989.  In our school, there was about a 2-year split on dating between guys and girls, and while we got along great with the girls in our class, we all dated girls 2 years younger.  And the girls in our grade for Senior year were already dating college guys, etc.  And so it went on for years…  I think this happens alot, as freshman and sophomore guys can’t drive, and so they don’t have a whole lot to offer in those first couple of years…

So we were just good friends with the girls in our same grade.  There was a group of about 5 Senior girls who were real hell-raisers, and Tammy was one of them.  She was a wild one, and her and Graham were actually both voted “class clown”…

Tammy went to U of D at the same time I did – which was only about 7 miles down the road from where we grew up.  Every year, several kids from our high-school would go down there to college, and since you don’t know anyone at first, we would all gravitate to each other.  And so I actually was better friends with Tammy during the freshman year of college than in high school.  We had a group of 6 or 7 of us that we hung out with, and one of them was a guy on Tammy’s floor named Shaun – they got married and live in Florida, so he’s an old friend too!

Some of the people in high school I see ALL THE TIME, but most, we only see at the reunions, and Tammy is one of those since she lives 1,000 miles away.  When Graham contacted her and told her we were coming through Florida, she insisted we stop in, and we eventually made plans to spend Friday night with her and Shaun – it was lots of fun to drink beers and catch up – while also reminiscing about the good old days.  And of course, they were BLOWN AWAY that the death-trap I drove around in is now worth a quarter of a million dollars (properly restored, of course – not in a pile downstairs on the floor…) – AND I quit my job to play with them!

After visiting with them, we headed down to the SVRA vintage race in Sebring – one of the key reasons for choosing this weekend for the trip.  I knew I would only be able to spend a few hours there at most, but I just wanted to see it one more time…

In March of 1990 & 1991, I went to the vintage races at Sebring as “pit crew” for Bill and Trent Terry of terry’s Jaguar.  I’ve probably talked about this before on here, but it’s worth mentioning again – this was GREAT!  I have a pretty good imagination, and going to these races was as close to going back in time as I was going to get.  The Terry’s were a great family and bunch of characters, and this whole experience was a BLAST!

Bill was racing his red #88 1961 E-type Coupe, and Trent raced his #38 MG Midget.  Bill’s car was pretty well sorted by this time, but Trent’s was constantly in need of attention – almost entirely due to Trent’s driving abilities being so far beyond the machine itself.  In those days, Group 1 was a constant battle for 1st place between Trent’s Midget and a VERY fast yellow Mini Cooper S…

Sebring in those days just felt so REAL to me!  I was DEEP into the “inside” of the scene – everything seemed very fast-paced and intense – probably because unlike all of the other vintage racers, Trent, at age 19, had ALOT to prove…

Trent and I were two peas in a pod…  We weren’t “best friends” or anything – it’s just that at the races, we were the only two 19-year-old guys around, and we had ALOT in common.

• We both worked at Jag shops that repaired and restored E-Types…
• We both sold E-Type parts over the phone and knew every part # by heart…
• We both built E-Types from the ground up in high school – our first car.  Mine was a British Racing Green ’63 OTS, his was a black ’63 FHC…
• We both drove our girlfriends to the prom in our E-Types – in 1989…
• And when we first met in the Bahamas in January of 1990, we had both just had a BAD breakup with those girls…

So while I was more of a nerdy college type by then, and Trent was a long-haired, heavy-metal dude – in our true element – surrounded by E-Types and vintage race cars, we were practically the same person!  We were both very serious about the racing all day – one year, we swapped out the transmission in his MG between heats in 45 minutes – and I’ve talked about that feat ever since.  At night, we would cruise the local towns around the tracks – in Sebring, Mid Ohio, Road Atlanta, etc. – in Bill’s GIANT 4-door, 1-ton, dually pickup – with the cab extender, 200-gallon tank of racing gas, and the wing on the roof!

Trent was a great guy, and an GREAT driver – and actually became nothing short of incredible in the years that followed.  I eventually graduated from college and stopped working at the Jag shop in favor of a much more lucrative career in IT.  But he was one of those guys that you could see 10 years later, and pick right up where you left off.  I always knew deep down that I would be coming back to E-Types, knew Trent would STILL be in them, and looked forward to the day I would make that phone call and get back together…

Unfortunately, that was not to be…

In the Summer of 2008, Trent was in a bad motorcycle accident, and eventually passed away from his injuries.  I had not spoken to Trent in years at the time, and even so, it was a real loss to me – I truly did plan to pal around with him again some day when this business started.  Who knows – maybe his passing had something to do with this, because strangely, it was right after that when I started to get really serious about Monocoque Metalworks.

So going back to Sebring was kind of a “mixed emotions” thing – and I think the overcast weather added to that feeling for me.  The track was the same, the cars were basically the same, but it seemed like the heart had been torn out of it.  Before, I was DEEPLY involved – whether it was working on the cars, or setting up for the dinners hosted by Terry’s Jaguar, I always felt like a big part of it.  Now, I really felt like an outsider…

Mostly, I just miss the great times I had with Bill and Trent Terry – their hospitality at relatively few races during college – I think it was only 5 or 6 – created a lifetime of memories.  And looking back now, I feel like I was there for all of it in the SIXTIES – instead of the NINETIES – it was that real!

Thanks, Trent – it wouldn’t have been the same without you.