Skip to main content

Closed75 replies

Recollections from the road to Carlisle and home

Gordon NicholsGordon NicholsMassachusetts 1993 CMC Supporting Member
We met up with Nolan and his clan (Jenn, his wife, Graham, his nephew, and HIS wife Pat) in Beaufort where we showed them around the waterfront and took them to dinner. The next day we headed towards Christiansburg and finally hit the foothills of the Smokey mountains (Graham and Pat had never been North of Florida - they live in England). I totally forgot that he wasn't pulling his car/trailer with a diesel and just kept the cruise set at 68 and hummed right along on those long, STEEP uphills on I-81N. Later, at the lunch stop, Graham told me Nolan's Dodge SUV was practically redlined a few gears down trying to keep up.

Sorry Nolan.....

After Carlisle, the Nolan clan was headed to Memphis so Pat could go to the home of her Idol, Elvis and see Graceland. How cool is THAT?

We actually had an extra distance award at the dinner, because ALL of the Spyder owners towed or trailered their cars to the meet. Teresa recommended we give it to the person without a car who had come the farthest to get to the meet, and that turned out to be....Graham, from Cambridge, England! He looked tickled pink, believe me!

The roads around Carlisle just keep getting better and better, especially after seeing nothing but straight roads near Beaufort all Winter. The rides to dinner were amazing....winding roads through some of the most beautiful farmland imaginable. We left the lunch-time 50's diner on Friday after everyone else because Bill Drayer wanted Kathy, an avid quilter, to meet his Mom, an equally avid, if just a bit older, quilter, too. So we took a left out of the parking lot when everyone else took a right. We had gone a few blocks when I noticed Nolan's car, with Graham driving (he's from England, so the steering wheel is on the wrong side for him. too) trailing us at a short distance. Bill didn't notice, so he just kept going at his usual spirited pace. We headed down into this gorge, went through a couple of sweeping "S" turns (where Kathy was beating on me to not keep up with Bill's pace) and eventually found ourselves at Bill's Mom's house. Graham pulls up and shouts out the window; "This doesn't look like the show field!!"

On the ride to dinner on Friday, Bill was leading the cruise when he started to pull out of a stop sign and his throttle cable broke. He pulled over and everyone kept on the cruise so I stopped (I was in the middle) to help. We had the old cable out and the new one in installed in under ten minutes, including clean-up. Thank God for Leatherman multi-tools and the wire cutter provided!! Then we took a short cut to dinner to meet everyone as they pulled in.

Whew!

Original Post

Replies sorted oldest to newest

Gordon NicholsGordon NicholsMassachusetts 1993 CMC Supporting Member
We met up with Nolan and his clan (Jenn, his wife, Graham, his nephew, and HIS wife Pat) in Beaufort where we showed them around the waterfront and took them to dinner. The next day we headed towards Christiansburg and finally hit the foothills of the Smokey mountains (Graham and Pat had never been North of Florida - they live in England). I totally forgot that he wasn't pulling his car/trailer with a diesel and just kept the cruise set at 68 and hummed right along on those long, STEEP uphills on I-81N. Later, at the lunch stop, Graham told me Nolan's Dodge SUV was practically redlined a few gears down trying to keep up.

Sorry Nolan.....

After Carlisle, the Nolan clan was headed to Memphis so Pat could go to the home of her Idol, Elvis and see Graceland. How cool is THAT?

We actually had an extra distance award at the dinner, because ALL of the Spyder owners towed or trailered their cars to the meet. Teresa recommended we give it to the person without a car who had come the farthest to get to the meet, and that turned out to be....Graham, from Cambridge, England! He looked tickled pink, believe me!

The roads around Carlisle just keep getting better and better, especially after seeing nothing but straight roads near Beaufort all Winter. The rides to dinner were amazing....winding roads through some of the most beautiful farmland imaginable. We left the lunch-time 50's diner on Friday after everyone else because Bill Drayer wanted Kathy, an avid quilter, to meet his Mom, an equally avid, if just a bit older, quilter, too. So we took a left out of the parking lot when everyone else took a right. We had gone a few blocks when I noticed Nolan's car, with Graham driving (he's from England, so the steering wheel is on the wrong side for him. too) trailing us at a short distance. Bill didn't notice, so he just kept going at his usual spirited pace. We headed down into this gorge, went through a couple of sweeping "S" turns (where Kathy was beating on me to not keep up with Bill's pace) and eventually found ourselves at Bill's Mom's house. Graham pulls up and shouts out the window; "This doesn't look like the show field!!"

On the ride to dinner on Friday, Bill was leading the cruise when he started to pull out of a stop sign and his throttle cable broke. He pulled over and everyone kept on the cruise so I stopped (I was in the middle) to help. We had the old cable out and the new one in installed in under ten minutes, including clean-up. Thank God for Leatherman multi-tools and the wire cutter provided!! Then we took a short cut to dinner to meet everyone as they pulled in.

Whew!

Gordon NicholsGordon NicholsMassachusetts 1993 CMC Supporting Member
Leaving Carlisle this year, we headed home via a different route; I-81 through Wilkes-Barre, PA and then east on I-84 into Connecticut. Riding along the top of the mountain ridges Northeast towards Wilkes-Barre I noticed a line of HUGE wind turbine windmills off to our West. We rode by them for over 20 miles. There must have been over 150 - 200 of them, easily. Wind power is here, friends.

We also overtook a pair of Hot Rodders coming from a different meet - both beautiful examples of "Rat Rods" (flat black, slammed and nostalgic) one was a 32 Roadster pulling one of these:

http://www.azteardrops.com/images/hot_rod.jpg

and the other a '48 Ford pickup pulling a restored, '50's vintage Rat-Rod Shasta! Way cool....like this:

http://www.tincantourists.com/classified/data/3/1051Campers_pictures_00130.jpg

The drivers got WAY more nutty from Hartford North - the nuttiest being from New Jersey. Had some nut in a brand-new (still had the temp plate on) Saab Wagon try to cut me off to get into a toll booth EZ-lane first. Are these people stupid or have they just never heard of the Law of Gross Tonnage?? I hit the throttle, pulled up so they were amidships (they sped up, too), all the while with the left turn signal on (everything blinks on the side of the truck) and then simply pulled into the left lane (I had no other place to go). They got the message, but then blasted by me giving me dirty looks and THEN cut off three other cars in front of me. Truckers saw this, blocked them in coming out of the toll booths and called on the CB for us to pull out and pass them all. Thanks to the truckers......

Thanks also to the Truckers who took care of us elsewhere with RADAR alerts, accident alerts, rest area info, route info and nutty driver alerts. Saved our cookies several times, for sure. Plus, I answered a LOT of queries from them about the long line of Speedsters and Spyders on the trip to Carlisle. At one point we had a Cabriolet and a Speedster, both on trailers with Lane the lone driver of his Speedster. One trucker told me that they "all looked beautiful, but that guy in the middle (Lane) was the only one doing it right".

Too true.

Gordon
J JohnWeyand
It certainly makes the 500 km trip to Ohio uneventful. Andy ate dinner with us and then mounted his BMW K100 and rode to Terre Haute. Arriving home at about 11:30. He opted for the speedy route and took I 70 most of the way. Sore shoulders were the main side effect. Now he can start packing for his move to D.C. in two weeks. Bill, it seems that the closer one lives to Carlisle, the higher the risk (Alan had the fuel leak). Sorta like the seat belt phrase, most accidents happen within 25 miles of home. Maybe it's better that I don't live so close.
Gordon NicholsGordon NicholsMassachusetts 1993 CMC Supporting Member
Holy Hop-Along, Wild Bill!!

That reallY SUCKS...

Glad that you're safe, at least, and that you've already got fiberglass experience to buff that out.

;>)

Distances traveled to Carlisle:

You've heard about Jack and Alice doing 1200 miles one-way or so, Nolan trailered even farther than that by a little, I was about 800 miles, trailered, and according to my database, we went from 25 miles for Wild Bill, to around 500 for the Gallos from Cape Cod, 560 for Carey and Kevin Hines, 761 for the Gardners from Georgia and about the same for Leon Chupp (660), 2300 for MUSBJIM in Newport Beach (flew), 2600 for the Lanes from Oregon (flew), 3000 for Henry Reisner (flew), and just over 3400 miles for Graham and Pat from the UK (still flying).

Drivers? 25 for Wild Bill, 250 for Howard and Matt Bobrow, 550 for Hoss, 750 for Lane and, once again, Jack Crosby got the award for the farthest driven at 1,200 miles, each way! I think Next year I'll swing down to Ft. Lauderdale to pick up Nolan and the clan and finally get a distance award!!

BTW: Bruce Meyers really got a kick out of the fact that so many had been driven great distances to get to this meet.

BTW II: When Bruce was starting his dune buggy business he needed a cash infusion so he sold his 356 daily driver to help finance the new business.....

Anybody got pictures of the cars at the Soda Jerk??
chines1chines1
We had an interesting ride home to say the least.
As many of you saw, I bought a car in Philly this weekend, so I was leaving Carlisle with one more car than we had room for. That left dad driving the rig and me having to drive something home. Since I didn't want to put the miles on customer cars, I opted to drive the GT Silver/Brown speedster that was on display. Only problem was that we "slapped" a Raby built 1600cc in it on Thursday morning and hadn't so much as fired it up yet. The car itself was on it's 3rd engine swap (LONG story) so I knew it was aligned and fairly well sorted... fingers crossed on the engine.
In a nutshell, it fired right up and ran absolutely flawlessly for the 600 mile trek back to the shop. Literally, never missed a beat. I was very pleased. AND... running 65-70 the entire time, I AVERAGED 36.5 MPG for the trip! Can't complain about that.

The irony of the whole thing is that I chose a car that had J tubes instead of heater boxes and I hadn't bothered to pack the side curtains, so I froze my A$$ off as soon as the sun went down. I think it was 45 when I pulled into my driveway. I was wearing just about every t-shirt in my suitcase, under the 1 light jacket I had packed. :)

Now... dad's trip wasn't as fun. Trailer lost a wheel bearing a few hundred miles into the trip. Pulled over to realize that the 4 way was on the parts bench at the shop. DAMN. So we decided all we could do was push forward to the next town and see if we could scrounge one up. Got about 10 miles from our next exit and I see the bearing cap, what looked like a race, and some balls go bouncing down the highway. Flagged dad over to the side and sure enough, all that was left was the hub bouncing around the spindle, all being kept from running away by the castle nut. A leatherman and a little roadside ingenuity to remove the castle nut and the wheel (drum and all) were off the trailer. He limped home on 3 wheels...
chines1chines1
"Bearings don't grease themselves :-)!!!

Damn, and the guy who sold me the muffler bearings told me the wheel bearing were the grease-less kind. ;)

Seriously though, you are right. I need a check list for the truck and trailer. That way I KNOW who did and didn't do their job. I honestly don't recall who I told to service the trailer (my fault) and all the shop guys just looked at me like I was an alien when I mentioned it at the Monday morning meeting. But, that's exactly why the cars here have a check sheet that gets signed off twice for EVERY nut, bolt, screw and fluid that goes into the build. Plus, I check the torque on everything and mark 'em with torque mark paint after the final test drive... leave nothing to chance.
Oh well, dad said it ran as smooth as it does with 4 wheels. Hahaha
FM Former Member
Roger that on DVD/CD photos.
Long-ish thread, lean in the imagery department ...

Here's a photo from my end -- I got this cool shirt in the mail. Neat, huh? Teresa sent it to me before the show, and we took the photo last week. She also tells me that the award drawings went over well. True, yes?
Quoting Borat, "Great success!"

Attachments

Hide
Images (1)
  • chef
Lane AndersonLane AndersonMt. Pleasant, SC Supporting Member
Ok, here are some pics. I took 246, but I didn't think Theron would want them all posted here. I can email or make a CD if anybody wants copies.

C2009_0001 - Best pic of my car of the bunch. Yeah, you're probably sick of seeing it.

C2009_0009 - John Weyand's "The Hunny", finally completed. Gorgeous!

C2009_0030 - The largest gathering of SAS cars yet.

Attachments

Hide
Images (3)
  • C2009_0001
  • C2009_0009
  • C2009_0030
Next
Post Content
Remove This Ad

Membership Required

We're sorry. You must be signed in to continue. Sign In or Register
×
Are you sure you want to remove from your Block List?
×
Loading...
×
When you block a person, they can no longer invite you to a private message or post to your profile wall. Replies and comments they make will be collapsed/hidden by default. Finally, you'll never receive email notifications about content they create or likes they designate for your content.
Note: if you proceed, you will no longer be following .
×
Link copied to your clipboard.
×

Access to this requires a premium membership.

Supporting Member

Please help keep us running!

Supporting members have donated about $4.00 a month ($49.00 US per year) paid annually.

  • Priority support
  • Removal of inter-page (between thread) advertisements.
  • Access to Build Manuals
  • Access to Knowledge Base
  • Access to Supporting Members events.
  • Access to Leveraged Group Buying from site Merchants.

AUTO RENEW: You membership will auto-renew after 12 months. If you prefer not to auto-renew, you can cancel your premium membership at any time and it will remain in effect until the end of the 12 months. To cancel, sign in at SpeedsterOwners.com and navigate to: (Your User Name)  > Premium Membership.

PLEASE NOTE: Your credit card will receive a charge from CROWDSTACK PAY, the payment processor, not SpeedsterOwners.com.

$49.00 per 12 Months (plus tax if applicable)
×