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Driving up tomorrow. Showing the old guy and possibly bring the Smurf.
Rosenbergendo, That was me you blew past on A1A Saturday afternoon down past the Talbot Island State Park - Looked like you were chasing a Ferrari. NOPDK sounded AWESOME btw! Visibility on those long stretches were great to open er up.
The events were spectacular. Weather was fantastic. Porschephiles are the BEST. So glad I got to enjoy this with friends, and meeting new ones. Was especially surprised to get 3rd place in the 993/964 group. Guess the 4 coats of CeramicPro 9H, 2coats CPro Hydrophobic Light, and literally all the coatings on every other inch of my car, did the trick. It's never looked this good. Back barrels, engine bay, interior, calipers & all. Well worth the effort & cost.
Having recently purchased a 2016 Porsche Cayman S (from Porsche of Towson by way of European Delivery), I felt compelled to attend the inaugural Porsche Werks event at Amelia Island. As long as I was down there, might as well stick around for the Sebring 12 hour race.
Took off from the Baltimore area in my enclosed and heated Porsche in nice warm weather. When I did this same trip three years ago in my Factory Five cobra replica open roadster, there was six inches of snow on the ground and temperatures were in the teens. Quite a different experience. Made it to the Charlotte NC area by mid-afternoon, and spent the night at friends Mark and Joan’s house. They live in the ritzy Lake Norman area. We took a 50 mph ride on Mark’s bass boat, and cruised by NASCAR driver Denny Hamlin’s 25,000 square foot home, which includes an indoor basketball court. Interestingly, last fall my son had scored some VIP tickets for the Charlotte race, and we were in the FedEx skybox. “Coach” Joe Gibbs spent some time with us delivering his well-practiced anecdotes. He recounted how he was leaving a restaurant in Manassas about a decade ago, and a young kid approached him to shake his hand, then said “Mr. Gibbs, some day I’m going to drive for you on your race team.” Mr. Gibbs continued his story in a very humorous manner “what Denny didn’t tell me was that I would be paying him millions of dollars to drive while I had to pay for the hundreds of folks and infrastructure necessary for him to win races!” Very amusing.
The next day, made it down to the Amelia Island area. When traveling alone, am a big fan of really cheap hotels, using interstate coupon books or Expedia. This usually results in staying at older structures in their third life, often owned and managed by those of Indian descent (it’s interesting how they’ve monopolized this niche). Thus, I spent only $180 for three nights in Kingsland, Georgia; whereas rooms at the high end Amelia Island hotels could easily cost $600 and more per night. Showed up at the well-organized Porsche Werks event at the Omni early the next morning. For some inexplicable reason, I had been offered the opportunity to be a PCA Werks concours judge. It was great fun working with the several folks on our team. One of my judging teammates was coincidentally the son of my former boss when working in Melbourne Florida two decades ago. Another was PCA Chesapeake’s Tech guru Jim Earlbeck. Porsche “Urban Outlaw” Magnus Walker came walking by, and we got a picture with him and Jim in front of Jim’s 911. We had a great time reviewing the several cars we were assigned to assess. We judges had been told not to do the typical concours “white glove and Q-tip” type of judging, but rather to be more casual and look for those cars with a story. Accordingly, both Jim and I would have chosen as our winner this interesting yellow 911 that had been spec’d and ordered by Hurley Haywood, and was now owned by this eclectic older gal who had, among other things, taken it over to France and participated in some touring laps around the 24 Heures de Le Mans as part of pre-race festivities. However, Jim and I were outvoted by our teammates, who selected a typical concours winning type car (over a decade old with only several thousand miles on the odometer-in other words, a trailer queen). I’d suggest that the PCA really accentuate the “backstory” criteria to the judges for the next time they do this. By the way, Manny Alban did a great job as one of the several Emcees of the event.
Due to a forecast of bad weather for Sunday, the Amelia Island Concours organizers had made the bold last minute decision to move the concours up a day to Saturday. Accordingly, after the Friday Porsche Werks event was over, went into the Ritz Carlton to get a ticket. Had to pay only $95 vs. $120 at the gate. Score! Also took the time to look at all the auction cars staged on the back lawn facing the beach. There were a lot of great looking vehicles of all different generations. Not wanting to have to park at the airport three miles away and be shuttled in to the concours on a school bus, arrived the next morning at 6:30AM and was able to park along the road only an eighth of a mile away. Walked onto the concours grounds right through the open gate while a guard was busy directing traffic. So, didn’t even have to use my ticket. While pondering whether I had saved $25 or wasted $95, consoled myself that the funds were for charity. Meanwhile, was able to wander the uncrowded field as cars were being driven into place, while scarfing down free coffee and donuts provided by one of the classic insurance houses. It is really a much more enjoyable experience to wander the relatively uncrowded display field prior to the formal event opening at 9AM. Within a few short hours, the pristine fairways become a teeming mass of humanity, somewhat difficult to navigate. By 9:30 AM, I’d already been there for three hours and was done. So, I walked across the street to see the ongoing Cars & Coffee event. Hundreds of nice cars parked on some more pristine fairways. At this point it became obvious that I was “car’s out”. I’d been exposed to so much interesting car beauty over the last several days that just couldn’t absorb anymore.
No problem. Remembering that the Tico Airshow in Titusville was usually the same weekend as Amelia Island, googled it to verify, and then headed immediately down A1A to 295 to 95 (where traffic really whips) towards Titusville. Great airshow, with the highlights being WWII warbirds, an F-18, and the USAF Thunderbirds. Returning North to my hotel meant another 400 mile day, in total.
The next day proved to be cool and rainy, justifying moving forward the concours. Drove down through Amelia Island on the way South, and the entire automotive infrastructure had been disassembled and had vacated the region in anticipation of foul weather, an amazing one day transformation. Thus began my efforts to kill several days prior to going down to Sebring on Friday. This included a drive down the coast and a brief visit to Daytona Speedway where bike week was underway, a day spent exploring Ocala Forest and taking a swim at Alexander Spring, a day at Disney’s Animal Kingdom, a day at Kennedy Space Center (awesome new space shuttle Atlantis exhibit) and Canaveral National Seashore, and a full day at Daytona Speedway taking motorcycle demo rides, visiting Main Street downtown to see all the crazies, and attending the night time flat track racing back at the speedway.
The weather at Sebring was absolutely perfect this year, with solid sunshine and moderate temperatures in the 70s. Porsche put in a great effort this year, with a trackside “Porscheplatz” tent staffed by PCA volunteers, stocked with free drinks, included lectures by Porsche USA management, and various raffle prizes, including much desired hot pit visits. As always, the race is preceded by the Fan walk, wherein the cars are staged in the pits and fans are allowed to wander through and photograph them. It quickly becomes another literal wall to wall mass of teeming humanity. I made my way to the end of the pits, and sat down in an inviting looking chair in the shade behind someone’s pit. Pulled some reading material out of my backpack and relaxed for a while. An hour later, looked up, and the cars were moving off the grid for the warmup lap. Schwing! - I’m in the hot pits! Watched the cars blast into the sweeping turn 1 at incredible speeds for about a quarter of an hour, then slowly ambled down the entire hot pit lane while looking totally unworried as if I belonged there, and was unmolested by the ever present security. “Winning!” The best part of Sebring for many, including me, is the last several hours of the race when nighttime falls. The track cools off and is faster, some of the competitors have been weeded out through attrition, and the cars look beautiful with their colorful LED lighting. Several years ago the sports car series mandated that cars have panels with LED numerals indicating place in class. It really enhances the viewing experience as the trackside viewer can tell what’s going on. It was a great race this year, with several closely fought battles in the different classes.
Packed up my tent and headed off on the last leg of my Florida tour. Met up with Blair, a fellow cobra buddy (I built my Factory Five Racing AC Cobra replica in 2012, and ended up meeting a number of builders through the associated forum) in St. Augustine, where we stayed at the house of one of his childhood friends. The next morning we made our way back up to Amelia Island, where the SVRA was holding a vintage race at the airport. It ended up being a very breezy day, and a number of the racers had already pulled up stakes after several days of racing and were long gone before these Sunday races. Nevertheless, it was cheap good fun with the highlight for us being a race which contained an original 427 Shelby Cobra and several Porsche 911s. I didn’t know who to root for, but in the end the Cobra kicked ***, even after overcooking a turn while in the lead and going for a spin on the grass. It quickly caught back up to the leading Porsche and blew by it.
That evening, we returned to Blair’s home in Beaufort SC where he put me up for the night after a steak dinner out with him and his wife Linda. The next morning I took off for an uneventful journey up 95 back to Baltimore.
Overall assessment: an EXCELLENT 13 day journey!
03-19-2017, 06:53 PM
