New England Coastal Village Run

I'm thinking seriously of hosting a Southeast New england Coastal Village run sometime in either late August or September.

The thought is, meet in Fall River, Mass, for coffee/Brunch at a Dunkin Donuts just off of Rt. 24 around 10am, then head over to a loop through Bristol, RI, with a possible stop at the Hereshoff Yacht museum, then on to the Coastal Village Trail (check it out at: www.coastalvillages.com ) through Tiverton, RI, stopping at the Four Corners for the galleries and shops (and Gray's Ice Cream!) and on into Little Compton, RI to stop at the Sakonnet Winery. Then on to the Commons, through Adamsville (stopping at Gray's Grist Mill) then departing from the formal route to take one of the windiest, Speedster-friendly roads near the coast (Cornell Road) on down to Westport Point, past Horseneck Beach (bring a kite!) and up Horseneck Road to Russells Mills (or we can detour to the Buzzard's Bay Brewing Company if we get enough votes), then on to Padanaram for an early dinner at Emily's Restaurant (sailing or Speedster clothes and topsiders welcome! and a secure parking area).

From Emily's, it's a short trip North to I-195 and back to civilization for early evening.

Anyone interested? It's easy to set up, and we could do it either on Saturday or Sunday anytime after August 21'st.

OK, my wife gave me hell for not coming up with a specific date, so how does Saturday, August 28 sound, with a fallback to September 4'th if it rains?

Gordon

Gordon,

I am just back from my trip. 8/28 sounds fine. I am pretty sure I can make it!

Andreas

LAST CALL, FOLKS!

If the weather is good this weekend we're still going on the Rhode Island Coastal Village Tour.

So far we have two Speedsters (me and Andreas Eisinger from Boston), a possible third and a potential fourth if I can get my non-SOC-member neighbor to come along.

It would be nice to have a few more, so how about it?

We're thinking about changing the route so we end up closer to Tiverton for lunch and I may host a BBQ at my place here on the shore. Maybe we can get George to come along and we'll diagnose his faulty Tach during the day!

Anyway, time is growing short, so let me know by Thursday if you want to come along..........

Gordon
One of the three Speedstah Guys from Rhode Island

Gordon, I probably cannot make it, but I'll let you know if my plans change.

George:

Too bad if you can't - looks like we'll have four cars thus far, with yours as a possible fifth and maybe even a sixth if I can find my retired neighbor (he travels as much as Jim-Bob Ward!) Fresh fish and sweet corn BBQ'd here by the Salt Marsh.........Boy! I'm even getting excited!!

Anyway, glad to have you if you can, but we can certainly get together this Fall or maybe out in Grafton for a Tech Session sometime.

Keep us posted if your plans change, and I'll save you a map.

Watch this post for the meeting place and time.

Coming:
John Estes - Matunuck, RI
Andreas Eizinger - Belmont, MA
Kari Evans - Newton, MA
Gordon Nichols - Tiverton, RI
Sal - Barrington, RI

Gordon

See our pictures under nichols1 in Photos!

What a terrific day we had! The New England weather, typically un-predictable, turned out to be absolutely beautiful, if just a little muggy, and perfect for Speedster cruising. Sal, my neighbor with a VS, couldn't make it, but everyone else arrived just after 10am: Andreas Eizinger with his VS, and a newbie to the forum, Kari Evans with her stunningly new IM (just arrived in July and still in break-in) - both of them live in Newton, Mass, about 1 1/2 hours North of us here in Rhode Island. Kari bought her car as a daily driver with both soft and hard tops.

John and Jane Estes came up from Matunuck, RI, on the lower coast, with his IM. Even made it through the Summer Newport, RI, traffic without a hitch!

I began to feel a little deprived, as my CMC was the ONLY car there NOT equipped with A/C!! (or heaters, either, for that matter)

Kari's new IM is absolutely beautiful - Henry and his guys did their typical top-notch job of assembly and detail work and the placement of everything in the engine compartment makes service comparatively easy (especially with the added A/C). Kari has been around cars for most of her life, having driven a 356C for many years, including a lot of Florida-to-New England runs in it, and she pit-crewed for her father and brothers' racing efforts on the West Coast years ago.

We cruised around Bristol, RI, swung by Island Park at the head of the East Passage, then made a run down to the Ocean at the end of Sakonnet Point and made quite a commotion when we stopped at a small roadside farm stand for sweet corn for lunch!

Returned through Little Compton on windy back roads to a cook-out at Gordon and Kathy's. Later, we caused ANOTHER commotion when we went to Gray's Ice Cream for dessert - probably the most Speedsters Gray's has seen at the same time, ever!

We all had a great time, and now I'm looking forward to doing more of these runs, maybe in other areas of New England so we can get more/other SOC members to come along to have a ball with us! Besides, I now have a collection of left-over micro-brews to last me for a couple of weeks (Thanks, Kari, for that Stone India Pale Ale - unbelievble!)

Now starting to plan for the upcoming Porsche Fest in Boston in September, and an Autumn ramble of leaf-peeping Speedsters.

Gordon and Kathy and the rest of the Coastal Gang

Gordon,

Sounds like a great time was had by all and the tropical storms gave you a nice window. Hope we can duplicate your good fortune with our SOT, Southern Oregon Tour in about a month. Am going to prerun the tour on Tuesday to check road conditions and directions, also check the wineries out, ahem!

Gordon, side note about a potential trip for you next June for the Parts Obsolete shindig. I ran into a guy from the Portland area on my walk a couple of days ago. He mentioned Banks, OR where your friends live. I asked him how far Banks was from McMineville, (Parts Obsolete), and he said only about 30 miles. Sounds like something to put on your calender for next June!

West Coast Bruce

Bruce:

ABSOLUTELY!!!!! We've been to McMinnville - went there for lunch, as a matter of fact. Nice ride from Banks, with a combination of straights and nice twisties. Be absolutely great to make the trip in a Speedster, but, alas, all we'll have is either a rental car or a Subaru Forester, which, for a Forester, handles pretty well on the twisties ;>)

Shouldn't be hard to get out there for the Parts Obsolete shin-dig. Too bad this Autumn's date was abandoned, but more important needs prevailed.

Of course, if Jim-Bob decides that he could use a navigator for his Speedy Delivery Service, we may see you sooner than that!

gn

Gordon,

I got a deal for you. We'll talk John Leader into flying up for the SOT and then You and Jim Bob can deliver his new JPS Carrera GT up here. John's car gets broken in and he gets to see all his warped Speedster Buddies again, don't mean you Jim Bob! We get to see his awesome new wheels. Everybody wins!!!

West Coast Bruce

Finally, found the time to upload some pictures from our terrific tour. (2 more in my folder)

Andreas

You know, I have a pretty short driveway - room to fit Kathy's Honda and my F150 Pickup end-to-end and that's about it.

Still, in the picture above on the left, we could have easily fit six Speedters out there with room to spare... It takes getting a bunch of them in one place before you realize how small they really are!

Gordon
One of the "Speedstah Guys" from the Coastal Tour!