By Drew Johnson
Wednesday, Jun 16th, 2010 @ 6:10 pm

The summer season is finally upon us, which can only mean one thing to the automotive enthusiasts – it’s car show season. We here at Leftlane decided to get in on the summer car show action, spending this past weekend at the Ault Park Concours d’Elegance in Cincinnati, Ohio.

First held in 1978, the Ault Park Concours d’Elegance has grown tremendously over the last 33 years, blossoming into one of the premier classic car shows in the United States. The annual event now attracts more than 200 cars from across the country.

The Ault Park Concours consists of two events – a Countryside Tour on Saturday and the show itself on Sunday. Leftlane participated in both events, but we’ll be bringing you coverage of the Concours a little later.

Countryside tour
A recent addition to the Ault Park Concours, the countryside tour is open to all car enthusiasts and gives show attendees a chance to sample the local roads. This year’s tour kicked off in the Mariemont town square, winding through the roads of Clermont County before arriving at the Motorsports Country Club.

We awoke to rainy conditions on Saturday morning, but fired up our Detonator Yellow Dodge Challenger SRT-8 test car and headed down to the city center. We were pleasantly surprised to find that the foul weather hadn’t discourage many tour participants, with the meeting spot already filled with a few Ferrari s, a handful of Porsche s and even a Citroen SM. More cars arrived as the rain tapered off, making for quite the rolling collection.

The tour took us rally-style through the back roads of Cincinnati, giving us plenty of time to admire the cars around us, as well as the car we were in.

Although not quite the typical concours car, our Challenger proved to be perfectly suited for our countryside tour. Sure some of the Challenger’s competitors might be lighter on their feet, but when you’re behind a classic Delage, none of that really matters.

The SRT8’s 6.1-liter HEMI was an absolute blast to hammer when the road opened up, with the six-speed manual only adding to the fun. Despite its large size, the big V8 actually likes to rev, which kept the rally interesting even at slow speeds.

After (quickly) covering all 45 miles of the planned route, we finally reached our destination – the Motorsports Country Club. Situated on the outskirts of Cincinnati, the MCC was designed for hard-core karting enthusiast, and is actually the only private karting club of its kind in the country. Thanks to its incredible facilities – including a half-mile track, garage area and clubhouse – the MCC enjoys a membership of about 70 people. Membership perks include on-site kart storage, kart maintenance and the ability to take a spin on the track whenever the urge hits you.

The wet conditions kept us from sampling the track, but karts routinely hit speeds of 80 mph and pull 2.6 g’s around the half-mile circuit.

The countryside tour represented just a fraction of the cars that attended the Ault Park Concours, so check back for Leftlane’s continued coverage.

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