Carolyn's only contact with vintage sports cars was through a High School friend that owned a Triumph. After she met Bart, her life changed completely. At the time, she was driving a big station wagon (won't mention which domestic brand) which Bart convinced her to sell so she could have a Fiat 124. Not having driven a stick shift before, Bart took her to a nice flat parking lot where she became quite proficient at shifting. Her first attempt at starting in 1st on an uphill was quite a memorable occasion. Noticing that she was holding up traffic, she put the car in neutral, pulled on the emergency brake, got out of the car, approached the guy in the car behind her and informed him that if he ever wanted to go anywhere, he'd have to drive her car to level ground! He agreed and she followed in his car. Needless to stay, the driving lessons took place on hills after that. Since then, Bart has had Carolyn driving XKEs, VWs, Volvos, Mazdas, BMWs, Saabs, and even a Lotus Elan!
Carolyn and Bart spent over 20 years camping and watching races at Lime Rock Park in Connecticut. Bart always dreamed that he would one day race, and Carolyn was there ready to help him do just that.
They joined a sports car club and spent summer weekends driving auto crosses, road rallies, and time trials.
In our young and foolish days!
They often planned these events and set up the coarses. Carolyn worked and drove right along with Bart. She even wrote a computer program (when only BASIC was used and everything was stored on cassettes) to score multiple legs of road rallies for an unlimited number of cars.
Carolyn retired in 1997 after 32 years of teaching. She knew Bart had been unhappy living in the cold "north" country for so long, so he was to decide where they would live next. They both wanted to go south, and after some exploration they discovered that Northeast Georgia was just as beautiful as the mountainous area they were leaving behind.Carolyn moved her aging mother to Georgia to live with them. She spent 5 years at home taking care of her mom. After her mom passed away, Carolyn was called upon to help at the shop with the book keeping. Len, the original partner, decided it would be a good time to move on and so he did. Pretty soon Carolyn discovered that she was well able to do the accounting, order parts, develop estimates for repair orders, and write computer programs (surprise, surprise, no more BASIC or cassettes - Easy Cal, etc. are all there now!) to suit the needs of their business.
Carolyn's hobbies of woodworking came in very handy when asked to fabricate a new wooden dash or speaker boxes.
Having learned to reupholster furniture, she found it quite natural to install new seat kits, dash board covers and carpet kits. Of course she's always there to answer the phone, help bleed brakes and clutches, and get her small hands in small spots. Bart often needs that extra set of hands to hold the other end of the bolt he's tightening or push cars around the shop. Bart says that with her background in elementary education, she is very good at communicating with all of these "big boys with their toys"! Carolyn, like Bart, loves to see these vintage cars drive away looking and running like new.
