Gridlife @ Lime Rock Park 2023
It's hard to sit here and not think that all of this has been said before. All things considered, I'm still relatively new in this era of car culture, and I didn't even know Gridlife existed a couple years ago. When Gridlife hosted their first event at Gingerman in 2014, I was wailing on guitars in every venue in NYC we could get into; I didn't even own a car.
Fast forward almost a decade; Gridlife comes to Lime Rock for the first time. Lime Rock allows drifting for the first time. And my third trip to Lime Rock quickly became the best. The crowds were huge, the vibe was smilin', the racing was intense and the drifting was bananas. Jump forward one more year to 2023, and the crowd had swelled to what felt like double the size of the inaugural Lime Rock event in 2022.
The size of the racing field had doubled. The number of working media had more than doubled. You could see it all over the track, in the paddocks, the exquisite Prime-curated Concours, the campgrounds, and on the obscured faces of everyone on the hill swallowed by burned rubber: there is no denying the momentum of this movement. Everything goes in cycles, and my generation that grew up dreaming of Supras and RX-7s and Skylines now has the means to obtain them, modify them, and race the snot out of them every weekend.
The drivers are the rockstars here, moonlighting as their own mechanics and grinding away late into the night so that they could get their cars back into the heat of a time attack battle the next morning. World-renowned automotive photographer Larry Chen always had a crowd of fans around him, and there was no mistaking when he was on track in chase mode, ripping around Lime Rock with his camera rig suctioned to the nose of a white stock loaner Supra, enveloped in the tire smoke of a 1000hp drift car. His chase rigs and the resulting photos have quickly become iconic, and it also should be noted, he's just a really nice guy too.
There's something to be said for the welcoming and sharing spirit of this thing. It wasn't one person that did it, it was the whole of the energy that culminated in something greater than the sum of its parts. And the sum of its parts was great to begin with. The light in young kids eyes as they bounded around the Concours, shakas from strangers, thumbs up from the drivers on cool down laps, the selfless sharing of equipment, tools and expertise in Paddock B late Friday night to get a disassembled race car back on the track the next day, there was just something special here; much more than just a track event.
But make no mistake, there was respectfully fierce racing on track. This isn't NASCAR, these drivers don't lean on each other in the corners; everyone wants to bring their car safely back into the paddock in one piece after each session. But each level of competition was intense and exciting, both the Time Attack classes and the Cup races, pushing cars up and over the limit and into tire barriers; I found a little piece of my friend Donald Lui's Team Slowbro Civic taillight on the uphill behind the Armco. I joked to the station worker that it might be my buddy's taillight and he immediately responded, "Was it blue?" Yes, it was. He laughed. "He was ok, he continued on... left a blue streak!" I lost track of Tachwork Contributor Chris Booth later in the day because he was wielding a hammer and a piece of wood in Paddock A, helping Donald bash his Civic's rear quarter panel back out.
Drifting always seemed to draw everyone to the fenceline. During those shred sessions, a few Frankensteins stood out; Adam LZ brought his insane 4 rotor Supra, Ryan Tuerck brought his wild 1966 Toyota Stout drift truck, but there was no discounting the fire-breathing V8 sounds from many cars that came from the factory with half the cylinders and 1/8th the power. And that goes for Time Attack, Cup races, and drifting events as well. Viewing these cars up close is entirely possible at Lime Rock in the paddocks, and crowds formed around each of the tents during the course of the day.
Everyone had their own experience; everyone's auto journey is different. But wherever we were in our own journeys, Gridlife served as the conduit for everyone to gather as they were and share in the experience of these things that we hold dear. I didn't get to half the things I wanted to do, there's just so much to do and see over a Gridlife weekend. Again, this has probably all been said before, and this is just one newcomer's experience, but it's easy for even me to see that there is something good here. And it's growing.
- Nicholas Pascarella // @nicksglasseye
Photos: Chris Booth // James Woodard // Nicholas Pascarella
