I thought that to celebrate our 38th wedding anniversary, my 70th birthday, 41 years of owning my 50 year old English sports car, surviving another 19 years after suffering a very serious stoke and after one-half day of having my car almost finished after 41 years of work, that my wife and I should drive it halfway across the country to the 2024 Healey Conclave at Road America race track and Blue Harbor Resort on Lake Michigan in Sheboygan WI. And, hopefully, back home again.

    How do you pack a Jensen-Cooper [Healey] for a 23 day road trip? Carefully.Two soft duffle bags under the folded down top and two in the passenger footwell with a trunk full of tools and spare parts.

    Well, why not? None of us, myself, my wife Bokhee, or my car were getting any younger, I had always wanted to drive a convertible sports car through the Rocky Mountains, and I had always wanted to visit Road America, one of the best, if not the best, race tracks in North America. Bokhee agreed to come along as navigator and trip manager so I booked our reservations at the Healey Conclave and some events at the VSCDA [Vintage Sports Car Drivers Association] meeting at Road America the weekend prior to the Conclave. What could go wrong? Besides, it was now or never. But I told Bokhee that there were going to be absolutely no promises that we would even make it or what the trip was going to be like. I did promise her that she could bail out at any time and I would drop her off at the nearest airport for a flight home. But that I was going to keep going no matter what.

        Leaving home on our great adventure, Bokhee is in the passenger seat. Nice looking car.

        We decided on a southerly route out and a northerly route back and a total trip time of 23 days with spending 9 days at [what I was calling] Healeyfest. Since I was going to have to do all the driving we elected to restrict our daily drive to about 5 hours and 300 miles per day. I wanted to avoid driving at night if possible, and from the number of big, dead animals we saw by the side of the road this was a good idea. Anyone of those deer or cattle or big undetermined animals would have destroyed my car and probably killed us both by coming through the windshield. My car has a very low nose; any animal would have just rolled over the hood and into the passenger compartment.

        This meant a 7 day/6 night trip out [2200 miles] and the same time frame coming home, but only 2000 miles. We spent 9 days at the Blue Harbor Resort in Sheboygan and drove around to various events for another 600 miles. By the way, this part of Wisconsin is absolutely beautiful.

        The trip out, which ran through 7 states, was by way of [starting at] Redmond WA, La Grande OR, Pocatello ID, Rawlins WY, North Platte NE, Omaha, NE, Waterloo, IA and then Sheboygan WI. The trip home ran from Sheboygan to Austin, MN, Mitchell SD, Spearfish SD, Billings MT, Missoula MT and Ritzville WA, then back home. Over all, a leisurely drive. It was a vacation, not a marathon.

        After working on my car for 41 years and after my car spending the last four years in the shop getting a new engine from Lotusbits in England and installed by Byron at VRM [quite a bit bigger job than I had anticipated], a new transmission, new paint, new seats, new interior, new top, new gauges etc, I picked up my car late Wednesday night and we left first thing Thursday morning Sept 5th, with about half the items on my to-do list checked off. I told Bokhee that I had no idea if we were going to make it to WI or not, but that I was at least going to give it a go. I think she thought that we wouldn't even make it two days out before the car would break down and she would be able to go back home again. I doubt that she ever believed that we would really spend 23 days on the road. I have to admit the trip out was eventful.

    We [meaning me] immediately got a speeding ticket for 30 mph over the limit south of Yakima WA the first day because I hadn't really driven the car in four years and I had replaced the speedometer twice and the tachometer once since I had gotten it back from the shop the first time. As I was driving along watching the gauges I kept thinking to myself “I can't be doing 90 mph, the tachometer and speedometer must be way off. This feels like 60 or 70 mph”. Unfortunately the WA State Patrol officer with his radar gun around the corner disagreed with me and said I was going 90 mph in a 60 mph zone, so I got a $465 dollar speeding ticket to start the trip the first day out. That sure put me on my toes the rest of the way.

    It was 95 degrees just as soon as we crossed over the mountains into Eastern Washington, with the top down and the sun beating us to death. Bokhee thought she was going to die while I drove the entire way with one eye glued to the oil temp and water temp gauges and the oil pressure gauge. I [and Bokhee] was absolutely convinced that I was going to melt the engine or that something was going to break or fall off. The nose of the car was all custom bodywork designed and built by me over 40 years ago and I had never really had a chance to test the aerodynamics or the air flow to the cooling or the fuel injection. There was a record heat wave all the way to Nebraska, which meant, with the high elevation, that the air was hot, dry, and thin. But the three row oil cooler and the four row aluminum radiator kept the engine temps down to 180-200 degrees all the way. Byron did a great job. I told him that he is a genius. He told me that I must not know any really smart people.

    Life on the road. You never know who you will meet. When it is 95 degrees, park in the shade.

    We spent the first night at La Grande OR and then pushed on through downtown Boise [95 degrees in an open car in stop and go traffic] to Pocatello ID for the second night. I noticed that the engine seemed to be running very rough and was starting to lack some punch. By the third day at Rawlins WY it was obvious that something was seriously wrong, the engine seemed to be running rich, and it would not idle. The tail pipes were very black and it looked like I was running way too rich. I was guessing fouled plugs or some kind of fuel injection problem. We pulled into an auto parts store to buy some new spark plugs and I pulled out the plugs one by one, and sure enough, they were very foul with carbon deposits. I replaced the plugs and called Mike Taylor at Lotusbits. He reminded me that I had ordered the fuel injection without any kind of barometric air pressure sensor, and that he had never put one one before in because they are never needed in England. To be fair, he had asked me what the elevation was at my home and I said it was only 300 feet above sea level and I did not think to mention back in 2020 that I might someday drive across the country. At that point we had been running at 6000-7200 feet elevation for hundreds of miles Problem identified but not solved. I asked Mike to send me a sensor unit in care of Blue Harbor Resort and all I could do was hope that I could find someone in Sheboygan or at Road America who could install it and reprogram the ECU. On top of that we had not had time to completely set up the ECU for the car. Vintage Racing Motors had run my car on the rolling dyno twice but the engine still needed more fine tuning. Mike agreed and sent one to Blue Harbor Resort for me. In the meantime I was running the car at up to 7200 feet elevation with the fuel injection ECU set at sea level. Not to mention running at 4500 rpm and 90 mph for hours at a time.

    Remember, the speed limit out there is 80 mph and everyone was doing 80-90 mph too. You had to drive at least that fast just to stay out of the way. We sometimes hit 100 mph or more on long straights or passing triple tractor trailer rigs. I did learn that the car was very aerodynamically stable and I could even take my hands off the wheel at 100 mph [very very carefully, of course]. That was some good news, since I had shaped and the built the new front end myself.

    Bokhee inspecting the engine after the fuel injection problem in WY. The car got a firm lecture about behaving in the future. It seemed to work. Nobody talks back to Bokhee.

    Fortunately I had brought a nice set of tools along for just something like this. The white long-sleeved shirt was to protect me from the sun while driving.

    Completely fouled spark plugs; the engine would barely run. New plugs made a huge difference.

    From Rawlins WY we aimed for North Platte NE and miles and miles of corn fields [which was okay] and miles and miles of cow manure smell, which wasn't, since we were in an open car.

    We would try to leave the last hotel stop at about 9:30 in the morning, drive a couple of hours and getting horrible gas mileage because of the corrupted fuel injection system, stop for gas, stretch a bit, have a drink and a snack and then back to driving. Couple more hours driving, stop again, and back on the road. After our second stop Google Maps directed us down some country road to get back on the freeway further east, instead of going back through town to get back on the interstate. As we were driving along these empty country roads through the corn fields out in the middle of nowhere [think Cary Grant in “North by Northwest”] the engine completely died. Dead as can be just as it was starting to get dark, with me having lost my regular glasses and only having my sunglasses to drive with and Bokhee completely unable to drive the car anyway.

    Great, just great.

    Bokhee got on her cell phone to look for a tow truck in case we needed one; I really didn't want to have to spend all night in the car with no heater. I was thinking that this was the end of our road trip. I had moved the battery to the trunk and added an electric trunk release, which now didn't work. I had hidden a pull wire for just such a problem and got the trunk open. Of course one of the battery cables was loose because the shop [not VRM] had not tightened it down after rushing to put the car back together. It had worked for 1500 miles and then quit in the most remote area of the trip. But another quick repair and we were back on the road. So far our luck was holding up.

    Everywhere we went people were interested in the car. These guys knew quite a bit about cars and wanted to know all about the Lotusbits engine.

    We then drove through Nebraska with one more night in Omaha, then on thru Iowa towards Waterloo to see Pat Lind. Pat had bought the SCCA Huffaker Jensen-Healey, raced it for years and now is having it restored by Huffaker in CA. Pat and his brothers operated Lind Brothers Motors and Lind Brothers Racing. They were very successful and still have their original building with a huge collection of spare pars and an enviable car collection. I bought two Lind Brothers Racing T-shirts and wore them everywhere the rest of the trip. That stop was a big part of my pre trip planning. About two hours away from his garage the exhaust became quite a bit louder. A quick peek under the car didn't reveal any serious problems so we pressed on. I guessed that the new exhaust system had broken, but not in any super critical area.

    Taking a quick look at the exhaust system two hours outside Waterloo Iowa. What fun is a road trip without a little adventure? Boring, right?

    As soon as we got to Pat's place he jacked up the car, popped underneath and saw that one of the header pipes had broken. He wedged it back into place and recommended a shop who might be able to fix it. Boubin Automotive agreed to work late that night and start early the next day to sleeve the broken pipe so we could keep to our schedule.

    I know what Bokhee was thinking. "I knew we would never make it." I have to admit that Bokhee was a great sport the entire trip. I am a very lucky guy.

    They did a great job and we left for Sheboygan after lunch with Pat. Since I had specified the exhaust system and failed to consider an intermediate hanger at the end of the transmission, which meant all the weight of the exhaust system was on the manifold and the rear hangers at the very back of the car, I blame myself and not the car or anyone else. Anyway, another problem solved, thanks to Pat and the great people in Waterloo.

    Pat Lind jacked up the car, dived underneath and immediately diagnosed the problem.

    Myself [left] Bokhee and Pat Lind in front of the original Lind Brothers dealership. Notice all the car manufacturers they represented. Lotus, TVR, M-B, Jensen-Healey, Jensen, Peugeot.

    The sleeved exhaust that got us all the way to Sheboygan and then home again.

    We pulled into the Blue Harbor Resort just 2 hours later than our long planned ETA, on Wednesday afternoon [Sept 11th] after 2200 miles of high speed driving, despite the unanticipated emergency repairs, and the late lunch with Pat Lind in Waterloo. Bokhee and I were both flabbergasted that we had made it, and on time too. Must be a great car.

    The Blue Harbor Resort on the shore of Lake Michigan in Sheboygan WI. A beautiful place and perfect for the 2024 Conclave.

    We were sure glad to arrive and take a break from driving. The resort was right on the shores of Lake Michigan and this was my first ever view of the Great Lakes, at least one of them. Another small bucket list check-off.

        This is a memorial along the old roads that made up the public race track in the early 50's.

        Thursday was a very welcome rest and relaxation day, since we knew that Friday [the 13th....can you believe it?] thru the following Saturday were going to be busy. We started to see the parking lot fill up with all kinds of Austin-Healeys [3000's, 100-4's, 100-6's and Bugeye and square body Sprites]. I kept hoping to see another Jensen-Healey. No such luck, and in fact I didn't see another Jensen-Healey the entire meeting. Since we were back down to less than 600' of elevation I changed the plugs again to get a fresh start and the engine ran fine once more.

        Notice the cute little Lotus Elan hiding amongst all the big Healeys in the parking lot?

        Friday was our first visit to Road America for the weekend vintage racing. We got to park in the pit area by the Victory Circle grandstand with a large group of Austin-Healeys, right in front of the bookstore-gift shop.

        The car park at Road America where we all got to meet and greet and show off our cars. All of the A-H owners were so friendly and curious about my "Healey". "What in the world is that?"

        I drove up to park, some old guy came running out of the gift shop to ask me what kind of a car I was driving [a very common occurrence at every gas station, restaurant, grocery store or hotel where we stopped], as he said he had never seen a car like mine before. Of course I had to brag a little about how it was one of one and a custom built car and that I had built most of it myself over the last 40 years. It turned out that this was Burt “BS” Levy, the well known racer & author of the “Last Open Road” books. He loved my car. So do I. I thought that he has great taste in cars.

        We walked back over to the bookstore and I found out that he was signing copies of his books alongside David Hobbs, the prolific racing driver from the 1960's and 70's and well known racing commentator. Mr Hobbs raced at Le Mans 20 times, as well as Formula 1, Can-Am, Formula 5000, and even NASCAR. Since it was early and things were slow I had an opportunity to have a nice long chat with both authors/racing drivers. When it came time for a break Burt dragged Mr. Hobbs out to look at my car. As I was showing him the engine he commented that his home town of Warwickshire, England was the same as Lotusbits, the company who built my 2.5L 907/912 engine. Burt asked me if I was coming back to the track for the Healey World Challenge Race on Sunday, as he was going to have a surprise for me. As we were planning to be at the track the entire weekend I said sure, without any idea of what the surprise would be. I also bought some of his books and David Hobbs's autobiography "Hobbo".

        David Hobbs, [left], myself with my Lind Brothers Racing LLC t-shirt, Burt Levy.

        Saturday was another meet and greet at the track while the vintages races were being run, then a parade tour of the old race course through the town of Elkhart Lake. Driving along those old country roads, virtually unchanged from 1952, and trying to imagine racing at over 100 mph alongside telephone poles, fences and big cows in pastures right next to the road made you really appreciate how dangerous open road and town racing was in the old days and how fearless the drivers were. Meanwhile I was actually so busy answering questions about my car that I didn't get much of a chance to watch the vintage races at the track.

        Mr. Hobbs seemed to be very interested in my car. He is a very polite and interesting man. He also has great taste in cars.

        Sunday afternoon all the cars in the car park lined up for a 40 minute parade tour of the Road America race track. It is an absolutely beautiful facility. It sure would have been fun to drive the course a little bit faster than the parade laps, but rule #1 was absolutely no passing unless the car in front of you broke down [which did happen]. Bokhee shot a nice long video of the track, if you have never seen it. After the parade lap and the victory celebration of the winner of the Healey World Challenge [who came all the way from England], Burt pulled me into the victory circle to hand me the Buddy Palumbo award for the car owner who drove the longest distance to the Healey Conclave and who had done the most work on their own car. That was a little overwhelming.

        My car always drew a crowd, which was very flattering. My ego grew 2 hat sizes on the trip. I ended up answering so many questions I got a little horse. Here is Burt's award.

        Monday there were more activities than we could possibly attend but I did get to attend some talks about the early days of racing at Elkhart Lake and some home movies of those races.

        Another crowd asking questions about my car. I loved every minute of it.

        Getting in line for my first ever autocross. They had helmets for rookies to borrow.

        Tuesday was the big day for the autocross at Road America. This is an actual track next to the main track [I think it is a go-cart track] with curbs and elevation changes, not just a parking lot with cones. I had [very nervously] signed up for the autocross in advance, even though I had never done one before, as I had been told it would be limited to a certain number of cars and was sure to sell out early.

        I thought that they had set up a great format for the autocross. Groups of ten cars, with four cars on the track at one time. Everyone [in your group] lined up, were released onto the track at 15 second intervals, did a warm up lap, back in line for a couple of minutes, then four hot laps, all in line. Great fun and very challenging. My final time was not that impressive, but I did improve by more than 12 seconds from my first lap, and I am sure with a little more practice I could have reduced that by quite a bit more. My main concern was to not hurt my car, because I needed it to drive home, and to make sure I didn't negatively affect anyone's day, because there were some serious auto crossers there. It seemed like a very tight course, but like I said, this was my first time. My car sure seemed big compared to the race prepped Sprites.

        There was also a 2nd parade lap tour of the big track, then a group photo session.

        My car is on the far left. Many more cars were to the right out of the frame. Over 200 cars came to Healeyfest. About 10% of the pre-registration cars failed to make it for one reason or another.

        Wednesday was the big car show in downtown Elkhart Lake.

        There was street parking for over 200 cars in 10 classes, with professional judging and also popular voting. I parked my car on the grass along with the other Group 9 cars and started wandering around looking at a lot of beautifully prepared/restored cars.

        Group 9 cars [Specials] on the left and Group 10 [Vintage Racing Cars] on the right.

        Since there were professional judges rating the cars on how perfectly original they were and I was only voting on popularity [which could be anything I wanted it to be] I decided to rate the cars on how well the owners had modified them to be better cars than new when they left the factory. For example, one owner had converted his Austin Healey 3000 to a custom made fuel injection system, and had done a beautiful job. Definitely not a stock 3000 but I thought it was the best car in it's class, so it got my vote. Same voting criteria for every other class of cars. Group 9 was for Healey specials, and rather than vote for my own car, which really had very little "Healey" left in it, I voted for a very rare kit car based on a wrecked Austin Healey 3000, a 1967 Fiberfab Jamaican. In fact, this was the very first Jamaican built and is still owned by the original designer/builder, Chris Beebe, who was working for Fiberfab at the time. Chris is well known to readers of Road & Track as a frequent co-driver and friend of Peter Egan, one of my favorite writers. Whenever I got discouraged from a lack of progress on my car over the years I would go read a column or article by Mr. Egan and it would rekindle my enthusiasm. I was hoping to meet Mr. Egan in person but no such luck. He was kind enough to respond to my email and we had a nice email chat about English sports cars.

        Chris Beebe [4th from left] and his 1967 Fiberfab Jamaican built on a rolled and wrecked A-H 3000. I am on Chris's left wearing my Lind Brothers Racing t-shirt.

        Thursday was the big dinner and award ceremony. I was very flattered to win another long distance award, having driven from Redmond, WA [top down all the way], but in reality there were two other cars that drove from Portland OR, technically about 100 miles further away if measured by the shortest distance, but I guess I won because I took a slightly longer southern route rather than the straight I-90 drive, which was 200 miles shorter. I kept the trophy anyway. I did win an award in the autocross for the fastest car in Class 9, but since I was the only car in Class 9 to run the track, not much to brag about. But I kept that trophy too. I did shave 12 seconds off my time in only 4 laps. That had to be worth something. Actually, it felt just great, really excellent.

        Bokhee is holding the Healey Conclave longest distance trophy and I am holding the autocross trophy. We were both pretty excited. First time at any kind of Healey convention.

        Bokhee and I took another R&R day Friday and spent some time working on the car getting ready for the long drive home. We left Saturday morning and the trip home was much less eventful than the drive out. The only problem was an oil leak that steadily got worse, but I had bought plenty of replacement oil and we rolled into Redmond right on schedule. I did change spark plugs a couple of times; I could not find anyone to install the new air pressure sensor so we drove straight home without it.

        ll in all it was a very successful road trip and everything went far better than I ever thought it would. We had the top down 99.9% of the time. My car, with all the modifications I had made, was very comfortable to drive. Bokhee and I had a great time and I loved minute of it, even with the various breakdowns. I hope every sports car owner gets to take a road trip like this. Let's get those old English cars out on the road and spread the word about what great cars they are.

        I wonder if I can talk Bokhee into a road trip to Laguna Seca next year?

        Laguna Seca, here we come?

        This seems like a good time to give my sincere thanks to everyone who helped turn this dream into a reality. It was a very long term project.

        In no particular order:

        Thanks to everyone who followed the story in my posts on the Facebook Jensen-Healey sites. All the positive comments after a long drive or some kind of discouraging event were greatly appreciated.

        My wonderful wife of 38 years [so far], Bokhee Cooper. Plus her whole family for all of their support over the years.

        Byron Sanborn of Vintage Racing Motors, who put the car back together, and perfectly. Plus Thor, Peter, Steve, Jake and Lucy. It was great working with all of you. Thank you.

        Mike Taylor of Lotusbits, who built the 2.5L engine [along with everything else engine related [from the air box to the exhaust headers].

        My long-time friend Steve Prestek, who has helped me for many years with anything and everything whenever I asked. Always great advice too. Thanks a million, Steve.

        Pat Lind, Lind Brothers and Boubin Automotive for fixing my broken exhaust system and saving our road trip.

        Rob and Jon at Fenders and Fins for their expert painting and rust repair. Beautiful job, guys. You made my amateur bodywork modifications look professional.

        Matt and Jon at All City Convertibles for the custom top and leather interior. Beautiful. You guys got a lot of complements.

        Peter Egan and R&T magazine for all of the great information and inspiration over the last 60 years. Irreplaceable.

        Willie "the Wizard" for all the custom wiring and troubleshooting.

        My very good friend Tim Jullian for doing so much work on our house for Bokhee so I could concentrate on getting the car ready, not to mention taking care of our house while we were gone. Thanks very much, Tim.

        Mike and Jim at Delta Motorsports for 41 years of great help.

        Ken Grey at Dave Bean. And a posthumous thank you to Dave Bean himself, again for 41 years of help and advice.

        Jim at Metric Mechanic for rebuilding my 2 Getrag transmissions.

        Drivelines Northwest for building a custom carbon fiber driveline that could handle the bhp and rpms of the new engine.

        American Racing and Discout Tire for the custom wheels and the 4x4" bolt pattern.

        Anyone else that I forgot [hey, I did have a stroke]. Thanks.

        And, of course, Ebay, Google Maps and all the people who invented the internet.

        PS Anyone I missed and wants credit please shoot me an email at ultimatejensenhealey.com. I would be happy to give credit where credit is due. Thanks.