Scions,
Our club just had a great event last weekend that some of you might be
interested in adding to your club's list of events. What we had was a take
off on the progressive dinner but made it a little more fun. Not that dining
with your members is not a gratifying experience but driving TR's that what
it's all about. We had the first of many to come (private) Garage
Rallye/Tour.
Quite a few people attend meetings but you never see the car project or
their other rides. The idea is to get to travel around to members garages
and look at their projects, cool stuff, hang around, scratch, spit etc.. I
found 6 garages that volunteered and mailed out a flyer to all members. The
flyer had the named the location and provided the hosts phone number and an
amusing blurb as to what you might see. In addition to the host number my
cell number was posted to call at any time to find out where the tour is and
where to meet up.
We met at 9am on a Saturday and proceeded to the first stop to check
out a few Harleys, a TR8, a Pantera and a few dozen donuts and coffee at the
first stop. We had 5 cars at the beginning and picked up up one more there.
The next stop we saw a real project of two TR6 tubs that were merging into
one final car. It was a great opportunity to get all kinds of advice and
find out who has welding skills to help out on another scheduled club
workday. A few more cars joined in at this stop.
3rd stop we checked out a MGA project and discovered he also had a
wirefeed welder. Perfect for the TR6 tub merging project at the previous
stop. Several more cars join in.
Our 4th stop provided a grat lunch and a break from the weather. Did I
mention it was raining and we still had a fantastic turnout? We checked out
a really nice TR4 with a new paint job. The last of the late comers joined
up and off we were to the 5th stop with the freshly painted TR4 joining in.
Now part of a cool tour is to introduce people to some really fine roads
that they might not know about. Everybody knows TR's are made for cornering
so pull out your list of favorite roads when planning your rout.
The 5th stop was out at a nearby lake and we checked out the TR3 racecar
and many other stalls filled with TR250's, TR3's, TR6's, frames and stuff.
You might have guessed by now it was Bob Kramers. At this time we had a
total of 13 cars in the tour.
The 6th and final stop (around 4pm) was for checking out the toys,
Spitfire project, car lift at my house, eating Chile and drinking massive
quantities of beer while reliving the day.
The most frequent comment was how great of an event it was and the big
turnout, as you could join in any time. People could complete the honey do
list, go to soccer practice, and still get out and join the tour. The cell
phone rang the whole time with people wanting to know the location. So you
really need a good phone like a Motorola (plug for my employer) to keep in
touch. It was pretty cool to look back in the mirror and watch a line of 11
Triumphs and a couple of other cars rounding the bend with the lights on,
wipers going, and mist flying.
A total of 75 miles were driven and of course none of the Hill Country
cars died. But if any would have a garage and plenty of mechanics were
always close at hand.
Keep on driving,
Richard Ceraldi
71 GT6 MKIII KF166L
71 Spitfire MKIV FK9365L
Austin, TX
http://www.exact.com/~gt6mk3
p.s. A copy of the mailer can be emailed on request for an example.
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