[Healeys] Healey Memories---more about the kindness of bygone days

[BJ8Healeys]

During Southeastern Healey Classic in Gatlinburg, Tennessee in September 2002, Michael Oritt was navigating for me in the fun rally.  We missed a clue, which both of us recognized too late, so I whipped off into a paved side road to turn around.  I missed the big pot hole and hit it hard with the left front wheel.  Ouch!

We continued the rally but came upon a couple of ladies whose Healey was dead in the water, so we stopped to help them.  Realizing our hopes of winning the rally now were gone, we just went back to the hotel.  

Later that evening, I participated in a slow-speed Healey parade through downtown.  Each time I ran over a manhole cover, I could feel a knock in the steering column.  The next morning, I discovered the left front shock had ripped the top of the tower on three sides and the shock was rocking back against the column.  

 

This was a real problem – where to find a welder on Sunday morning in Gatlinburg?  Obviously, I couldn’t drive the car 500 miles back home.  Once my problem became known, a group of Healeyites gathered around offering suggestions.   Bill Walton of the Carolinas AHC in Charlotte said he had trailered his BT7 to Gatlinburg behind his motor home, and could trailer my BJ8 back to Pete Delaney’s shop in Charlotte for repair if I would drive his BT7.   Wow, would I!  

 

Steve Byers

BJ8 Registry

AHCA Delegate at Large

Havelock, NC  USA

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