Coronado Speed Festival 2017

This past weekend was another day of watching incredible vintage racing machines tear around on a stretch of runway at Coronado Navy Base in San Diego.  The 2017 Coronado Speed Festival was just as great as previous years, and the weather in America's Finest City couldn't have been better. Click here to access a collection of 547 photos that I snapped at the event. -Editor Vince

Coffee Brake: Coronado, Where the Rubber Meets the Rudder

The middle of an active Navy base might seem like the worst place to drive a car with 800 horsepower in an angry pack of other like minded lunatics, but that is exactly what has happened every September since 1997.  This weekend, Sept 17, 18 is the 2016 Coronado Speed Festival, hosted by the SVRA, and run on the North Island Navy base as part of the Fleet Week celebrations.

Coffee Brake: Coronado Speed Festival 2015

This past weekend I had the extreme fortune of attending the 2015 Coronado Speed Festival, hosted by the SVRA, and run on the North Island Navy base as part of the Fleet Week celebrations.  This is an event I've attended in the past, but this year someone handed me a yellow safety vest and told me I had the run of the place...just don't get run over.  Armed with a dSLR camera, 300mm zoom lens, sunscreen, media pass, and a giant hat I snapped a few hundred photos.  

Miscellaneous Ramblings and Musings From The Coronado Speed Festival

-by Hunsbloger: I miss Andy Rooney on Sunday nights.  As I get older and my eyebrows are starting to look more like his, I'm beginning to understand how certain things just caught his attention, even though they escaped the notice of others (Squirrel!)  Vince gave a more complete account of the races, so I figured I'd pry the microphone out of Andy's cold dead fingers to point out some of the things that would have otherwise gone unnoticed.  (Feel free to read in his voice)

 "What're you thinking?" or "Ethan Hunt's Car" 

Someone having taken the time to get up extra early in the morning, drove early to the base, paid extra to get their car parked in  the car show area, only to leave it protected from the admiring gaze of the public...by leaving it under cover all day. Don't waste your time trying to decode the model of car cover as it was made by the now defunct North Coast Tarpaulin Works and there is no online catalog.

Coffee Brake: Vintage Racing at Coronado

Welcome to the Coffee Brake, where we discuss things other than the best custom Fiero-Camino hybrids.  Every year I look forward to the summer festival of awesome machinery known as the Monterey Historics at Laguna Seca...however, due to family/DT/other commitments I was unable to attend the annual pilgrimage to worship at the house of the great corkscrew.  Instead, this weekend I am heading out to the Island of Coronado located adjacent to America's Finest City, for the 18th annual Fleet Week Coronado Speed Festival (Sept 19-20, 2015 at Naval Air Station North Island).

DT Roadkill Update: Baby Cobra

Snake experts say that baby cobra bites are the most fatal because they inject their entire venom supply into their victims instead of metering out a small amounts like an adult cobra, but we think that baby cobras are lighter, faster and more maneuverable than the grown up version. We are talking about V8 swapped Austin-Healey Sprites here, because we share Indiana Jones' fear of real snakes. We received an email from the seller of this Rover V8 equipped Bugeye and wanted to share it with our readers.

Coronado Speed Festival Highlights

Fleet Week is San Diego's annual celebration of cool military toys and includes a unique historic race on the old Coronado Naval Air Base runway.  Like most everything in San Diego - the Speed Festival is a laid-back affair and seems more like a local car show than a big time race- but lots of cool cars show up and the racing is fun to watch.  Vintage racing is often times compared more to a parade than a real race due to the extremely high cost of wrecking one of these classics and the often questionable capabilities of the affluent guys behind the wheel - this can be forgiven the moment you hear, see and smell them on track.

DT RoadKill/Seller Sub: 1960 Austin Healey Bugeye Sprite w/V8

As we mentioned the other day, DT was able to attend the Coronado Speed Festival (we will do a full writeup with pics after we recover from sunburn and photoshop the lens dirt out of our images) and we found a bit of RoadKill that turned into a Seller Submission.  This DT exclusive 1960 Austin Healey Bugeye Sprite has a Rover 3.5 liter V8 swap, a ton of suspension work, fantastic body and is for sale in San Diego, CA for $24,995 asking...yes, a bit above DT's normal budget limit- but the seller was a nice guy and said he was willing to take offers (see image below for contact details).