Festival rolled into Northwest Corner with 100-car parade

FALSL VILLAGE — The vintage race car parade rolled through Lime Rock, Lakeville and Salisbury on a bright summer afternoon, Thursday, Aug. 30, fetching up in downtown Falls Village.

There were more than 100 cars in the parade, with an emphasis on Bugattis. Mitch Conroy, the parade organizer from Lime Rock Park, said it might be the biggest gathering of Bugattis ever in the Northeast, if not the world. More than 30 of the cars were Bugattis; more are expected to take part in the weekend-long Historic Festival event.

Salisbury Resident State Trooper Chris Sorrell led the parade into town with his decidedly non-vintage police car.

Raymond Jobst, from Vermont, was sitting on a bench on the Falls Village Green. “I’m with the 1913 Bugatti,” he said.

He was chatting with Julie and Bob Baltozer, who came up from Mechanicsburg, Pa. 

None of them had been to the area before. 

Which was fine with Bob Baltozer. 

“I’m a car enthusiast,” he said. “And a small town enthusiast.”

As the cars rolled into town, around 4:30 p.m., emcee Colter Rule alternated between singing along with recorded music (example: “Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline”) and offering commentary on the vehicles passing by.

When most of the cars were parked, he turned the microphone over to Wanda Houston and her group, who began with the unofficial race car parade theme song, Bobby Troup’s “Route 66,” in a rock arrangement with jazzy features.

Their work done for the moment, some of the volunteer town constables headed for the Green and the twin attractions of shade and beer.

With the party in full swing at 5:30 p.m., a lone figure wearing a backpack ambled down Main Street and turned left on Railroad Street.

He looked a little puzzled.

The hiker, Isaac Goff, trail name “New Guy,” a 17-year-old from Kentucky, said he had heard from other hikers that something was going on “near the power station.”

But he wasn’t expecting a vintage race car party.

He started hiking the Appalachian Trail in Harper’s Ferry, W. Va., on July 16.

The recent high school graduate said he plans to hike the southern section of the trail next year. 

Or join the military.

Or both.