Being the total car fanatic I am, one of my hobbies is racing. Years back, I did a lot of autox and some track days. Took an extended break when my kids were born. Just started getting back into it this past year. I joined up with a local race team which runs in a series called the "24 Hours of LeMons". If you haven't heard about it, the upshot is that you take inexpensive cars, but all needed safety gear in them (cages, brakes, suspension) and run an endurance race. We had a race this past weekend at Summit Point Raceway. One of my teammates has a friend who is a professional mechanic and auto restorer. He drove 200 miles to hang with us for the weekend. He brought his MINI, which is a grey market 1989 model. He said a week before the race, it was nowhere near driving condition. He thrashed all week to get it together. The car was seriously cool. It got attention from everyone. We had people stopping by our pit all weekend. I didn't bring my MINI with me. I brough my beater station wagon, as I had things to transport. But someone on the race team pitted next to us had a newer MINI. We parked them nose to nose and I got this shot. It's amazing how small the original really is. The new one is "tiny" by today's standard, but it dwarfs the original!

Oh, and we had an awesome race weekend too!!

 

Awesome picture! I'd love to own one of those minis one day. Someone in my neighborhood restored one with the driver's seat on the right a couple of weeks ago and looked amazing! I couldn't believe how small they actually used to be.

 

Your classic needs some more work but, nontheless it is still a great Mini and a great picture. I like