monterey trip report (potentially long and rambling..)

["Brian Shorey" <bshorey@xxxxxxxxx>]

first, i'd like to thank the delta sierra alfa club, for coming through at
the last minute with a hotel room, and for providing some great
entertainment away from the main events.

i had intentions of bringing the alfetta sedan and entering it in the
midnight concours.  it was a certain winner in at least two categories -
ugliest car in show, and farthest driven.  well, not really on the latter,
although since the midnight concours seemed to be based on bribery i thought
i might be able to convince somebody that the mass plate on the car
indicated i had driven all the way from mass, and not san jose.

but alas, it was not to be.  valiant struggles with last minute paperwork
found me with a delivery of a fedex package containing all that i needed to
properly register the beast, but only three hours in which to hit the
insurance company, the registry, and the airport.  all of which i managed to
do, of course - when there's an alfa involved you somehow find a way.

nope, the snag occurred at the san jose end of things.  i arrived and went
to pick up the keys from the 'friend' i had left them with, only to find
that he had 'inadvertently' taken them to india with him.

rats!

oh well, we had a 24v four cylinder (?) mercury mystique, the perfect
vehicle for route 17 and the upcoming events.

concours italiano was amazing, but what were all those porsches doing there?
lost again?  the factory brought more than the 156, there were some museum
cars there as well.  incredible assortment of privately owned cars as well,
with one superb example winning best of show.  anybody who was disappointed
couldn't have been at the same show i was.  there were too many ferrari's to
mention, some testicle roasters and a gto, other than that not a lot of
early stuff (where were *they* in the 30's?).

what's with all those lambo's with the boy-racer plymouth neon color scheme?
fluorescent colors with goofy letters on the sides, are they marketing $300k
cars to 18 year olds?

skipped the midnight concours (why bother, when your ringer is a hundred
miles away), and attended the whine and cheese event back at the hotel.  got
a good reminder of why a roll bar is important in a spider - one of the
delta sierra club members rolled her spider on the way back from the
concours, blind luck and a ditch allowed her to avoid serious injuries.

took a test drive in michael william's '73 berlina, which brought back a
rush of memories (my first alfa was a berlina).  almost bought it on the
spot, but am holding out for a '69 or a '71.

the historics on saturday were impressive, even if you're not a porsche fan
you had to appreciate the machinery and the show they put on.  it was
awesome seeing those older cars driven on the track - my favorites were the
early alfa's and the testicle roasters.  burnt myself to a crisp under the
sun, but it was worth it.

attended the delta sierra club dinner and concours that evening.  forgot to
get directions for dinner, but as we were heading out of the parking lot we
pulled in behind two alfa's, so we had no worries.  until they took
different exits!

naturally, we followed the wrong one, looping all the way around town,
before finally getting frustrated enough to stop and ask directions.  we
eventually made it, but he never did (and it turns out he was signed up).

would have won the concours, except for two things - first, we didn't have
an actual car, and were unwilling to bastardize our primo rental car with
gaudy alfa badges.  second, we didn't have any useful kids around to make us
any gaudy alfa badges.  plus, everybody (else) was cheating!  i would
*swear* that i saw the same bottle of windex on every car but out own.
nonetheless, we still managed a third, or maybe a fourth place finish, and
took home a wonderful prize (that doesn't fit in my luggage, and i don't
know what it is).  regardless, we're damn proud of it, and will cherish it
forever.

attended the concours de elegance (pronounced 'concours de elegance') on
sunday.  had fun in spite of the fact that both jay leno and jerry seinfeld
passed right by without saying hello.  lots of the same alfa's that were
there on friday, plus many other significant but unimportant cars.  used an
entire roll of film on the accessory wives (question - oem or aftermarket
headlights?).  realized just how much out of my league all of these people
are, wish i had my personality and their credit limit.

heard from my
hollywood-movie-producer-part-time-ferrari-broker-ex-next-door-neighbor that
there was an offer made for the 8c2900 of ten million bucks, which was
turned down.  wow, that's a lot of alfetta's!

didn't make it into the office until almost noon the next day.

overall, met lot's of digesters, experienced complete sensory overload, and
had a great time.  who knows, perhaps there will be some more important
cisco business that will drag me out there again next year ;)

your humble correspondent,

bs

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