GMT Racing Shop Visit

[11Budlite]

All,

 

If anybody is ever in the Danbury Ct area (right across the NY border off RT84) you should give GMT Racing a call and check out their shop. I contacted Eileen Mitchell and stopped in a couple days ago to get a tour of their facility.

 

Being a dog lover, I enjoyed the greeting by their four dogs at the front desk! Met with Eileen and she introduced me to JR Mitchell who took me for a tour of the shop. Stepping into the shop area I was surrounded by all kinds of cool vintage racing machinery. There were a couple Lotus Sevens (S1 and S2), a Lotus Eleven that ran at LeMans, a real early Bentley, a late 30's BMW 328, a long hood 911, and more tube frame formula cars and sports racers than you could shake a stick at!

 

Well, JR proceeded to give me a detailed inspection of one of the Lotus Seven vintage race cars they maintain for a customer. The chassis, welds, suspension, body panels, wiring, plumbing, detailing, were all exactly how I would do it if I had the skills and the talent!

 

So after being suitably impressed by the Seven, JR introduced me to Dean, who's their main welder/fabricator who specializes in the nickel bronze welding so prevalent in that era's spaceframes. JR brought me over to the chassis jig area and showed me an example of Dean's work. Needless to say, it certainly looked like he knows what he's doing!

 

So JR showed me the rest of the shop including the machine shop/engine room which had a flow bench, all kinds of machinery, and an engine dyno.

 

They work on mostly vintage racing machinery, but I did see a carbon fibre tub from a more modern formula car and what looked to be a couple EFI V6 engines.

 

Here's a link to their site: http://www.gmtracing.com/

 

And their engine shop: http://www.arjayracingengines.com/index.html

 

The only thing I was disappointed in with the tour is I forgot my camera. :banghead:

 

Bruce :7drive:

 

PS: JR also said they were moving to a new facility next month because they had lots of work and they needed more room.