Was on a business trip to Orlando and had a few days to kill until next meeting in NY. Got a rental car and draw down to Miami via the west coast of Florida. On my way down I stopped by at a dragway at Bradenton and I also found one local 1/8 track outside Miamy (CountyLine Dragway).
Unfortunatly I forgot to bring my camera, so all these fotos are taken with a mobile phone....
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On my way over to the west coast I
I stopped at a local private aircraft museum, Fantasy of Flight. The guy had over 120 privatly own aircrafts, and claimed to be the one in the world with the largets private collection. This day he did some passes with one of his P-41. That is a HOTROD!
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Bradenton dragway . The guy at the gate had been living in Sweden (Hudiksvall, Kramfors and Uppsala of all places) and we chattet quite a lot. I then let me in for free :-)
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First time I was ona US track. I just which we had something like this in Sweden, and preferably in Stockholm area.
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| They had a gas station with all high octane race fuels available (three difference octanes available)! And they fill your Nitrous bottle while you're waiting. |
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A lot of 4wd trucks where racing.
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If I remember right this guy was in the 12.th with his daily drive truck. Nitrous, baseball cap and t-shirt. The whole track was covered in diesel smoke when he did his passes :-) |
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Stopped by at Anna Maria Island for a quick swim on my way south. This was a great place! Will do my best to go back here with the family for a longer stay.
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Lunch at this nice diner on an island just outside
Naples |
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Ended up at Marcos Island for the night. Didn't like it at all first. Just expensive hotels and luxury homes. Almost by mistake I found this pearl imbedded between all these luxury homes and hotels. Go at room for $90 for the night! Boat House Motel http://www.theboathousemotel.com/
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Nice view form the gallery
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Very nice place. Clean and nice rooms.
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And perfect view to see the sun go down in the Mexican Gulf
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It is impressive to see the sun go down. It is almost within seconds and you can see the sun actually moves.
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Last picture before the sun was completly gone
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And ther was a very nice restaurang/bar at the dock 5 min walk from the Inn callad Sook. Perfect!
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Went the most southern route over from westcoast to Miami. Sopped by at a wild life center to check out some aligators
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Driving out to Miami Beach I passed this photo session. A nice Corvette with supercharger and a girl in almost invisible bikini :-) Sorry for the bad picture... (need mobile that has a camera with zoom :-)
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CountyLine Dragway jut outside Miami http://www.countylinedragwayinc.com/ A local 1/8 track. Just when they opened the gate, also the heaven opened. It was rainng cats and dogs (as the englishmen say).
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But it was a short rain. And they actually did a quite good job to dry it up despite the limited equipment they had.
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The track was run by a guy called Cheap Pete, obiously some sort of "legend" locally. Heard a lot of talk about him in the pit (not all that good....)
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INteresting to see the very big difference betwen teh !quality" of teh cars. This was probably the the nicest and mots "professionally" looking car there.
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Some interesting cars showed up...
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One of quite a few Novas
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Then I saw this strange fellow
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A most practical size:-)
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Motrocycle engine
equipped. Obviously quite big over there. http://www.umdra.com/ |
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Unfortunatl I never saw it run. He did a burnout and then they had to roll it off the track. Obviously something broke.
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And then a even more strange car. A 250cc gokart with body. And it was not the young guy driving, it was the older fellow (dad?) who was the driver.
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I was very interested to see this run, but they never got it to run clean.
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Another strange build.
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Think they called this style a "hoppie" ?
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This guy only did one pass and then I parked with the spectators
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The only dragster there, Never got a clean pass either.
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I wonder what our Swedish tec inspection would say about this kind of mess in the trunk
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They had some rescue equipment like an ambulance. But I wonder what had happen if somebody actually got heart. They jumpstarted the ambulance when they needed to move it at one point before the race started.....
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Look closely! It is a small dog, all dressed in leater, crach helmet and googles.
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Again sorry for the bad pictures. But a mobile phone is not designed for sports events in the night....
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