So, time for my little story; of course I told my future-ex-wife 2 years ago that I was going to go on this trip but that didn't stop the AK-47 stare-down from her when the date was fast-approaching. I had to escape a little early to avoid getting caught in the cross-hairs so I took a flight to LA and Uber'd to the Cadillac Hotel in Venice where you can visit the world-famous beach, go to a 4-star restaurant for dinner and smoke cigarettes with homeless people within 40 feet of the front door. Wayne K was kind enough to pick me up on Sunday morning, grab Chris & Doug from LAX and scoot us down to Irvine to watch the cars get unloaded from the truck.
I was the only guy there without a coupe, that's because I was to much of a sissy to drive mine and too cheap to ship it out-but I'm working on it- Anyhow, I drove up quite a ways with Chris O and I think they were all driving a little too fast but I reasoned that hey, these guys are mature, they have allot of money tied up in these cars, we're not gonna crash... well, that part was right with the grace of God.
Were these guys in trouble, I was the navigator! First stop was to find coffee; truth was that I needed a smoke and there was no way that was going to happen in the coupe so as luck would have it I navigated us off the highway to a very nice shopping center where we parked the cars in the sunshine and got out to stretch our legs. Chris' coupe had a little mis-fire that developed into a rather harsh one but after poking around he determined that it must have been a spark plug wire coming off the cap since he was in there jacking around earlier. Yay, we're back on the road???
Chris' A's CSL was one I wanted to ride in and he had a little issue with the trunk lock which we were able to figure out in short order and the look of relief on his face- since he could now reach his libations- was very touching, I asked him if I could ride with him and he handed me the keys... oooh pinch me! Not you Chris, her. I was a little nervous, first because I know how dear the car is to Chris but more importantly because these guys drive a little fast, we passed the Porsche Club, the Viper Club, and the Shelby Club, I mean really passed them! so I figured that I was expected to keep pace and as mentioned above I'm a bit of a sissy. I looked at the speed and said to Chris, "I think your speedo is off, there's no way we're doing 190 miles per hour, he said that's kilometers ..idiot, ...oh, sorry..
When I got out of Chris' car (at the next stop) Doug, should we tell everybody what YOU did??? I asked Wayne for a ride which was a little less nutty but just as fast. Well, we had a little mishap with Wayne's Voltage regulator before reaching one of the "retreats" but things were pretty smooth after that.
Next favorite memories; the Alpha model (Christine) and the Beechcraft hostess (Heather). All-in-all a superior trip!!! Thank you all and Mr. McCall, you throw a great "gathering"!!!
