If you went to the Coronado Speed Festival, you got a pretty good indication. The Porsche parking corral was so dominant that it made the other car clubs look puny in comparison. John Straub, who has been organizing the PCA-SDR presence at Coronado for several years, tells me that he gave out 275 corral parking passes to club members. And our parking corral was not only the biggest, but it also had the best location—right up by the track’s start-finish line. And our hospitality tent? It put the Ferrari Club, and all the other car clubs, to shame. PCA-SDR had a great location, nice seating, and free refreshments—outstanding in every way. Great job John!
2012 Club Officers and Board
The election results are in and our new Board members are Beverly Gould, Araceli Lopez, and Don Middleton. They will join Greg Phillips, Leigh Rayner, Terry Barnum, and Cathy Young on the 2012 Board. At their initial meeting, next year’s board members selected the 2012 officers: Greg Phillips will take over as President, Beverly Gould will become Vice President, Don Middleton will be the club Treasurer, and Araceli Lopez steps in as Secretary. My congratulations, best wishes, and thanks go out to all of them.
New Year’s Eve and the SD Auto Show
The planning continues for the PCA-SDR exhibit at the San Diego Auto Show (Dec. 29– Jan. 1). We still need a few volunteers to help out at the exhibit. You will be expected to man the exhibit for at least one 4–hour shift during the auto show, to answer questions about the cars and the club (don’t worry, we’ll give you a cheat sheet with all the answers). Volunteers will receive free admission to the SD Auto Show, a nice volunteer shirt identifying you as a PCA-SDR member, and the opportunity to help your club and meet some enthusiastic Porsche folks. To volunteer, contact Keith Verlaque at keithv@rsamerica.net or 619-938-2697.
This is the last month to grab one of the discounted rooms at the Marriott for New Year’s Eve. We have a block of rooms at the special price of $196 that is being held for PCA-SDR until the end of November. After that, the price will jump up to around $250 or more as New Year’s Eve approaches (and they are expected to sell out). Contact the Marriott at 619-234-1500 and mention that you are with PCA-SDR.
The New Year’s Eve Party will be a truly unique affair. Our members will gain private access to the SD Auto Show on New Year’s Eve after the public has been shooed out. We will enjoy a cocktail reception with light hors d’oeuvres while we check out all the Porsches and other fine automobiles on display at the Auto Show. After our private viewing of the cars, we will go upstairs to the ballroom for a three-course sit-down dinner. After dessert, the party really gets rolling as we hit the dance floor to the live music of the Blues Doctors—a great local band featuring PCA members Jack Miller on lead guitar and Robert Baizer on percussion. At midnight, we will have the traditional champagne toast and enjoy the fireworks display over San Diego Bay. It’s going to be a great evening, so make your reservations now.
A Mixed Marriage
When someone mentions a “mixed-marriage,” I usually think of a couple from different ethnic, religious, cultural backgrounds, etc. In my case, I married a woman who totally lacks the “speed gene.” She actually prefers driving slowly just so that she has more time to look at the scenery. She thinks of cars as an unpleasant form of transportation made necessary only because our government has failed to invest sufficient resources in public transportation systems. Fortunately, she recognizes that I come from a car culture and she tolerates my interest in performance vehicles.
When I was a young lad, I learned that sex, politics, and religion were the three hot topics to be avoided during polite conversation. But my wife has added a fourth topic to the list: “tire-talk.” I am forever searching for the magic combination of tires and car set-up and I’ve found that tires similarly fascinate most of my fellow drivers. My wife Patt is a lovely woman, but she just doesn’t understand the desire for increased performance and definitely is not interested in tires. She has been known to suddenly, and without warning, turn on our friends during dinner conversation and admonish them for excessive “tire-talk.” Merely asking how I like my new Hoosiers can get you black-flagged and sent to the pits without dessert. She’s convinced that she learned all the important aspects of automobile tires from her father when he first taught her to drive. Tires are “round and they’re black,” and any further details are probably irrelevant and certainly uninteresting. So if you see a group of guys outside our house, huddled around the barbeque in eager conversation, they’re probably not exchanging off-color jokes or politically incorrect comments. More likely, they’re hiding from my wife so that they can exchange opinions about their latest set of tires.
Patt once bet me that I could not go an entire week without mentioning tires. Of course I had to rise to the challenge and accept the wager. I figured that it would be pretty easy to avoid tire-talk since I was scheduled to be out-of-town for several days on business that week, and even I was unlikely to mention tires during our evening phone conversations. There was one problem however; without telling her, I had already ordered a new set of Toyo’s, which were being shipped to our house. Then one day that week, she returned from work to find a big stack of tires blocking the front door. Our evening phone conversation went something like this: Patt: “Guess what’s sitting on the front porch.” Carl: “uhh, I have no idea.” Patt: “Well, they’re round and they’re black!” I won the bet, but didn’t earn too many brownie points.
