Allards Running in the ‘Wet’ at Sonoma

By Steve Schuler and Cordell Bahn

Two Allard J2’s ran in the 2nd annual Sonoma Historic Motorsports Festival at Infineon Raceway (formerly Sears Point) on the weekend of June 4 - 5.

Activities commenced with Wednesday’s practice in the rain. They then took advantage of a 'quick and dirty' practice session on Thursday afternoon after tech. They were glad for it, because it was the only hot period on the track with a completely dry road course.

There was a drizzle a few times during the Friday practice sessions, but not enough to slow things down that much. Cordell reported lots of fast cars filling his mirrors – among them Steve Schuler's J2 #4 car driven extremely well and fast by Steve's friend from Australia, Graham Smith. It rained almost all day on Saturday, the first scheduled day of racing. As a result Steve Earle wisely declared the whole day a practice day on the wet course.

Graham Smith won the 2A Race Group trophy for best spirit/performance/etc. This made Graham very happy, but he could not understand – from his aggressive ‘down under’ racing perspective – why his 5th place finish warranted the award. Schuler explained it was for running three times in the rain on Wednesday practice, and each day thereafter in the wet/slippery conditions in ‘true Allard spirit’. 

Cordell had a nice run until his #18 car began to develop some handling problems in the third practice session. Despite the fact that Cordell did not race, the two Allards looked wonderful together on the track, and off.