vinyards....
I have to agree with Phil 100%.
When I invited Murray (blumax) to come and join us, I told him "this aint Pebble Beach, but its more fun." As one of the 02faq guys said, this is about cars, but more importantly, its about people. Not about pomp and pretense.
When I was a (younger..) kid, my folks let us play football and baseball in our back yard (yes, I got my butt whipped for using the laundry detergent to stripe off the baseball diamond..). The yard was always trashed, and we tracked dirt inside to the water closet, but they wanted us to have a place to play other than the street, and the other parents didn't want their lawns ruined. Dad always re-seeded every spring, Mom always had lemonade and PB$J's. And Band-aids. All the kids thanked my folks for everything...I want to thank Scott and Patty Sturdy, Westbend, the 02 Group volunteers, and Tim Creef (Friday's cook out at his house, simple but free..) for allowing us to trash their yard, and soil their washrooms. The PB$J's will continue to improve.
Scott got screwed by his food vendors, and because of the lousy weather (blue sky, 82 degrees, fluffy white clouds..) everyone that should have been home watching the Indy parade, came out. (Sort of like Yasgur's Farm and Woodstock. Except less mud and a more Teutonic musical theme). What do you do? Similar with the jazz bar; more people than the fire marshall would allow. State law, 150 patrons. We sat outside with others, had cocktails, told lies, and Neal and Chris smuggled a wrist band out so that I could make food runs. Finally, some jerk came in and blew Scott out for blah, blah, blah. Patty comes out in near-tears, and they let everyone in. they left soon there-after, probably tired from a "no good deed goes unpunished" day and evening. They did a wonderful job.
Anyway...I enjoyed meeting Phil and Dorothee and the red menace (wow), my Polaris brethern Dr. Terry Semchshyn(yes Terry, I had to look it up), John Jacobs, Randy Rhoad; Neal and Chris with Agave? coupe and t-rusty Baur, respectively, et.al. And especially the time that Murray gave me/us. He's something special. Sorry my dog drew blood, Murray..We did have a grand time.
How many people want to come to my house to watch John Jacobs upgrade my window lifts? Maybe a pay-per-view? They were the most amazing thing I've seen in a long time. Faster than my Volvo. John, if you'll pack up a turn-key kit with instructions, I'll take the first one. Then I can do the McDonalds drive thru again, with out fear of road-rage from behind for having glacial speed windows.
Roger, I hope you'll come back. We all enjoyed having you and the CSL at the event. Since I was parked in front of you, I considered putting a "before" sign on Lumpy, the Polaris Polecat, and an "after" on yours, but thought better of it. It was a special car.
(sorry so long a post); I only have two regrets from the Vinyards; One, that there was so little time, and so many great people and cars, and Two, that I didn't win the "patina award" for my interior-in-progress. Thought it was a lock....
Dave V. in western NC
