Watkins Glen Vntage Gran Prix - Sept 8 - 10

Check it out!

http://www.grandprixfestival.com/

Hey you East Coasters and Canucks!!

This is the FINAL Vintage Gran Prix of the 2006 North American Season, AND a terrific end to the Summer Car Season (as we enter the Autumn Car Season)......AND the featured Marque for this year is.....PORSCHE (what else??)

THIS could be "Speedsters Meet Spyders at Watkins Glenn 2006"

Let's start ANOTHER yearly tradition!!!!

See Y'all at "The Glen" this September!!!!

If you're interested, be aware that hotel rooms are going VERY FAST!!

Email me for a complete list of hotels in the Watkins Glen area. The way this event is shaping up, it looks like it'll be bigger than the Rennlist event in 2001.

Don't miss it!!!!

Gordon
One of the "Speedstah Guys" from Massachusetts

"Sure, Porsche made cars after 1960, but who cares??"

Hey Gordon!

Years ago, Camel Tobacco Co. sponsored the GT Series at Laguna Seca Raceway in Monterey , CA (shows you how long ago this was). The PCA arranged for us to take a couple of laps on the course (behind a Pace Car of course - cause, you know all the 911-Turbo guys were itching to go wild!). It was very cool! That was also the year a turbo Renault Le Car R-5(?) was kicking ass on the Porsches and BMW'ers in the GTU class (under 2.5L)!

Wish we could join you folks for this event! Visiting Watkins Glenn is definitely on my "To Do" list.

Peace - Out!

Jim!!

MAKE THE TRIP!!!!!

This year, the Vintage Gran Prix will feature Porsche as the "Host Marque" and it looks like it might be an even better turnout than the Rennlist gathering at Lime Rock in 2001 - Did anybody go to that event from here?? I saw pictures and they blew me away...

Something like over 100 356's were at the Rennlist gathering, and they let them all do a parade lap - one Awesome group.

They are also offering some special adders this year - they're opening up the old, original "road course", the one actually on the road through Watkins Glen and offering a "Tour de Marque" for the first 100 Porsche's who sign up;

From their web site:

http://www.grandprixfestival.com/marque.html

Eligibility: Porsche
Cost: Registration fee of $135 per car includes a visit to the Wings of Eagles, a terrific brunch for driver, and guest at Watkins Glen International followed by two parade laps on the world famous WGI course, two laps of the original 6.6 Mile Grand Prix course through the streets of Watkins Glen, and reserved downtown display parking for the festival. You will also receive 2 Weekend General Admission tickets for the Zippo U.S. Vintage Grand Prix at Watkins Glen International with special Porsche Corral parking while at the track on Saturday and Sunday.
To Enter: For entry form call Watkins Glen Promotions at: 607-535-3003, or print out a copy of the entry form here.

This event is limited to the first 100 registrants

Gordon -

There is nothing I'd enjoy more than attending this event at Watkins Glenn (well, almost nothing). Unable to attend this year because my wife & I will be touring through Western Canada at about that time.To mingle with the Canucks, eh! Hopefully I'll be able to get back across the border into the USA (with my looks, I get stopped a lot).

Will try to schedule a trip in your neck of the woods next year when we visit my wife's relatives in the Allentown/Bethlehem PA area.

"Watkins Glenn" is right up there with "Speed Week at Bonneville Salt Flats" on my places-to-visit list!

Hey Jimbo, I know you MAY get stopped alot but that is usually at the "Other" boarder! my Brutha..

Speedster "D"

Speedster "D" -

Whether it's at the airport, the border (north or south) and even at any event with 'security', I'm usually one of those goons pulled aside by security for that "extra" shakedown!

Even driving my car (particularly when driving whatever Porsche I owned at the time), I've been pulled over by the police (a couple of times with their guns drawn). On one particular stop, the Highway Patrol actually asked my wife (passenger) "M'am, are you OK"? I gave her that "don't-EVEN-try-to-be-funny' look.

I'm always cool, though. In those situations it wouldn't take much of an attitude on my part to land me on a segment of "COPS". I guess I just have that 'look'. It must be the shoes!! - LOL

Sounds like if we're going to be able to get Jim out for the Watkins Glenn hoobeydoo, we'll have to start saving bail money now.
Anybody really want to take a replica to Mecca like that, though? Especially in light of all the recent anti-replica traffic amongst the PCA/Registry folks and the pot-stirring we've been doing on their site?
I'd be up for a road trip and maybe some extra-cirricular tomfoolery in the Watkins Glenn area, but count me out for the race itself.

I went last year (didn't have my Speedster yet) and they have a car show that you can put anything in. There were street rods, muscule cars, sports cars, etc. All the car show entrants get to take 2 or 3 parade laps of the track which is pretty cool. We stayed in my son's camper at the track and plan on doing it again this year.

I hope to have my Speedster completed in time to enter it in the show. It's less than a 2 hour drive for me.

Cory - (slight hi-jack here)

On the first time I was pulled over by cops with their guns drawn (and NO I was not speeding or doing ANYTHING stupid) I almost had to change my shorts because of 'assmemblies' (LOL).

Their reason for that stop was that I matched the description of a suspect in a local liquor store robbery. I asked if the suspect was also described as driving away in a white Porsche (Weissach Edition that I was driving at the time)?

I'm putting Watkins Glenn on next year's travel schedule! Maybe our paths will cross.

Continuing the hijack -- Jim, if YOU'RE coming in 2008, I'll clear my frigging schedule. BYO ski mask?

Back to the Glenn; I might be inclined to go this year if there's significant Club interest here -- and if I ever get this ******* car running under its own steam. I just really don't want to drive (or tow) all the way up there and have something wreck the weekend for me. Carlisle was great, but not being able to stick for the dinner and Sunday's festivities stunk. So did the re-work time on the torsion.

It looks like I'm in. Looking for a place to stay and will be traveling with one 'o my Tellico Village bruthas; he will be driving a C6 Vette. There was something about the featured marque being our "p-cars" that pushed me over the edge. The next time this rolls around, I may be feeding the flowers....;-)
Hoss

Jim, cops are funny that way. When I was a young Airman going through tech school in Denver, my buddies and I were pulled over one night by cops with the same excuse (robbery suspects in a car matching the discription as mine). My ride was a 1948 Mercury Convertible painted yellow on one side and blue on the other (some high school kid's old car). One door was tied shut with a rope and the other side wouldn't open. Spent the next four months looking for that other car but no luck, I wonder if those cops ever found it.

Hey Nolan!

Boy, those were the days. I'd love to have that '48 Merc convertible now!

Funny you should mention that incident. In the late 60's as a young Airman 'ping' at corspman tech school in Wichita Falls, TX, a bunch of us knuckleheads had a similar experience in town. The cop was pretty cool about it afterwards. So no harm, no foul.

Hope your new ride is finished soon!! Send pics asap.

Peace - Out!

Whew! Only a little over a week to go until departure for New York and "the Glen." This is pretty exciting stuff and a trip that had not been in my plans at the beginning of the summer. I will try to get some good photos, that is if I can contain my excitement and hold the camera still.

Cheers!
Hoss

Hoss -

Call it a hunch, but I'm guessing that you'll need a digi-card in your camera that can store several hundred pics. The sights and sounds at an event like this can be a sensory overload causing you to want to take pics of 'everything'!

Peace - Out!

Check out the pictures from last weeks Watkins Glen Vintage Gran Prix at:

http://www.theta.net/~nichols/speedster/watkinsglen/

We finally met a celebrity (of sorts) so we can show something to Vince.....somewhere in there is my son, Chris, with Brock Yates, and another one with Brock, Vic Edelbrock and Sam Posey (I think)!!

There are also a lot of shots of our caravan of 16 original 356's (all being driven) to Watkins Glen from Boston, NH and Maine, and my one Replica - the only car in the caravan on a trailer!! These guys, with their originals, were maintaining a steady 78 mph on I-90/I88, and some of them were grumping that the pace was too slow!!!!

Next year......we're DRIVING!!

Gordon -

Very COOL pics - thanks for sharing them! BTW how did you manage to get that pole-position in that group of P-cars waiting at the gate? Nice move!

I also see in your pics that Hoss was cruising the grounds (probably checking his traps!).

Glad you had a good time and made it home safe!

Peace - Out!

Yep, that was me Jim. What a weekend! I've never had so much fun at a car event....ever! I suspect that Porsche, being the featured marque, had something to do with this. The weather, the cars, the friends, the beer....oops. Paraphrasing Mr. T., "I pity the poor fool that wasn't there to enjoy this magical weekend."

Justice through strength and courage....out
Hoss

It was a tough event to handle - some of the slickest Vintage racing machinery you've ever seen, people walking around who were legends when we all were kids (like Derek Bell - one of the winningest drivers out there, and Vic Edlebrock, of West Coast modified fame) absolutely fabulous weather, laps on both the current Watkins Glen track AND the "old" road course that they used up until the '50's which goes on a bunch of back roads (and the police cruiser pace car was doing well over 60 on most of the course), lunch in the middle of the Vintage Car paddock, surrounded by Bugatti's, Lolas, Ferrarri's, Porsches, Alphas, Minis, you name it.....even the ride to the track from the hotel turned into a race amongst the other members of our group - 2-lanes with a speed limit of about 55, and we were generally running between 60 and 70 (shhhhhh....) with a bunch of 16 original 356's!!

Absolutely, without any doubt, the best car event Chris and I have EVER been to!!!!!!

...for car freaks like us, it's almost sensory overload with all the cool things going on at a show like that!

Glad to hear you guys had a good time - and I'm definitely putting that event on my 2007 SOC Calendar!

Peace - Out!

Gordon
Thank you for the GREAT pictures.
I am so glad to be here in the Midwest!! There is so much going on almost every weekend (sarcastic joke).

Lambros, my brutha!

Maybe you should get together with Cory "paininthebug" Drake and devise a 'Master Plan' to relocate here in SoCal (with the rest of us freaks!).

Sounds great,BUT here is the problem. Here in the midwest I can afford a decent house and low cost of leaving.I do not think I will be able to do the same there. A house that costs here $250,000 for example will cost at least 5x more there. I do not know how you guys can make it there.


Now if anybody is willing to give up a spare bedroom and garage space I will be moving there soon.

Anybody?

...oh, OK, Lambros! Bummer!

I guess I won't bother sending you the RE listing I saved for you for a starter home fixer-upper that needs TLC and some elbow-grease, 1100 sf, 2-BR, 1.5 bath and a paltry $500 monthly association fee, highly motivated seller asking ONLY $895,000 - HURRY, WON'T LAST!!

WTF - Over!

Jim,that's what I am talking about.That is insane.
As much as I want to be around cool car shows,I would rather stay at my NON fixer upper house.
Thanks for the offer.

Sorry for hicjacking this thread.

Back to the regular schedule.

Back to Watkins Glen! I've uploaded a few digi-pix from the unbelievable weekend in New York. Having Porsche as the featured marque definitely made this an already great experience even better. If there were any P-car snobs in the group, they did not make themselves known to any of us. All in all, a weekend to remember with great fondness.
Hoss