Fascinated by a great Ford Thunderbird convertible, I got into a conversation with a guy while we were studying the cars at Cars & Coffee at Øvrevoll Galloppbane outside Oslo.
-"It's Henry Harrfelt's car", said the sideman, who was somewhat older than me. I didn't bother with the name, and continued to talk about the T-bird.
-"Do you know who Henry Harrfelt is?", he asked.
-"No...?"
Norwegian motorsport has produced several great talents. Brothers Henry and Sverre Harrfeldt have both been successful as speedway drivers.
Earlier in the day I had visited the NMK Drammen's event at Drammen Travbane. It started with a display of speedway driving. It brought back memories from my own childhood, when I watched speedway at Jarlsberg Travbane with other boys. Afterwards, we practiced how to "drift" sideways with our tricycles on the loose gravel. One of the guys had speedway handlebars. But none of us knew the names of the leading speedway drivers.
Actually, speedway was not our first choice. We would see Trond Schea excel with the Lotus Cortina, Escort Twincam or Mustang. None of us really had sett Trond Schea as something other than a shadow inside the leader's car. Nevertheless, he was an idol for us young people. I had a poster in the boys room of Schea's Ford Escort Mk1 Twincam Rally in airy float.
I like rally cars that are built up from normal street cars, where for example Volvo still is Volvo and Ford is Ford. Not like racing cars without visible anchoring in some of the models you can see along the road. I know little about motorsport. In that respect, I am audience with a capital P.
Among other things, it was people like me that NMK Drammen opened the gates to, at the Drammen Travbane last weekend. There I got to study real speedway bikes. Low center of gravity, no brakes, only one gear. That's the way it should be. There were also nostalgic motorcycles and cars - both on display and displayed on the track. I think it was fun to see older rally cars again, like the Ford Escort mk1, mk2, mk3 and the new Focus RS and ST. The latter was not out on the track while I was there, but the club fielded several polished exhibition cars. I think there has been a good Ford environment in Drammen.
Perhaps it was Trond Schea's appearances with Ford that made my first car actually a Ford. A regular 70 model Cortina mk2 with 1600 Kent engine crossflow and 90 km on the odometer. After the evening shifts, I took long detours home and got to know the Cortina on winding country roads. The Cortina was easy to set up before the bends so I could then hit the gas so the gravel splashed into the forest. There was a lot of fighting - on my own and other people's cars, including a 000 GT. For a while I think I could probably disassemble and reassemble Kent engines blind. Ford must have done something right in terms of arousing interest in motorsport.
Meke and drive - do you recognize yourself? Being able to do this under orderly conditions is another good reason to join a motor club.
Or perhaps you should have taken drifting with a bicycle to new heights?
