The Vintage 2012
Day Two- Friday May 25th, 2012.
I awoke as late as I could to shower and make it down to the caravan to the drag strip. Its really cool to see this in your rearview mirror:
Greg and Alison had once again joined me on the Rallye this year and we had a great time.
We all pulled in the lot around 9:15 or so and got ready for the drivers' meeting.
As usual Scott did a wonderful job organizing the event. He explained how to run the drag strip for those of us who had never done it before.
I couldn't pass up this opportunity so I decided to run a few times. Greg rode with me and Alison stayed behind to capture some images of us. Truth be told I was a little nervous about running Heinz on the strip but he did just fine. Greg tried to give me pointers but I was probably too scared to really hit it hard plus I was uncertain where the end of the track was so I was stopping too early- plus on my third and final run I hopped the wheels a little and it started to worry me as I need my rear end to get back to Ohio! Maybe I'll try out the strip near my house in my E90- sounds like a safer proposition to me.
Gary Beck and his beautiful tuned ///M5 ran more times than I could count...
And Andrew and his wife Cindy ran their 3.0CSi on
battery power as their alternator had gone out at this point...
And I have no idea who ran the Sprinter but it was interesting to see...
Greg and I tried our hand at the Shade Tree Mechanic Challenge, but a medal was not to be had this year...
After that we went to the winery. I must admit I was paying close attention to the car to make sure I didn't throw out a center support bearing or guibo, but thankfully Heinz was still as tight as a brick craphouse. Please don't tell Ed Locke I ran his car on the drag strip...
The winery was a great time and Scott's wife did a fantastic job managing the food. I must admit that the sweet tea was a nice touch and I may have consumed and entire jug on my own. And I made a huge sandwich. I may have robbed someone of their lunch and if so my bad!
After procuring a few bottles of wine to take home to my wife I decided to let Greg have a turn at the wheel...
He says he flogged the car but was actually very gentle. We returned to the hotel and I was considering getting in the pool but the parking lot just kept calling my name... and sure enough in rolls Sherman and his wife Jackie in from the long trip from Texas...
And Skip was trying to keep the dirt off his car as well...
Hunter had made it in the night before and decided to polish up his Z4 M Coupe which looks awesome and I need to drive it...
And I had the chance to see the purpose built E30 drag car up close- with an M90 head and a turbo.
Not too long after that Brian and his beautiful wife arrived in their E9x coupe...
We hung out for a while...
...talked cars for a bit...
... and I was even able to get an aerial view of the lot at The Hawthorne.
As the libations continued I captured more images and even saw Brett from the Pittsburgh area roll in with his 2002...
Of course I was checking out the other ///M5s and Mario's engine bay is incredibly clean...
I think Pete (KillerPM) got a free bowl of soup with this hat...
I even managed to go upstairs and register, and the cake was really cool...
However I sat down my first Spaten ever while I was taking that picture and I turned around and *poof* it was gone! I was robbed! (I haven't been drinking at the main events because I had to drive after so I usually miss out on the free beer). Well I got my goodie bag...
And then did what I should have done- returned to the parking lot for more photos and beer!
Of course one of the biggest entrances of the night was Ali Jonny on his bike which we were informed now had a leaky front brake line- ugh!
A taco truck arrived and I pigged out there...
And when I returned to the parking lot I found this team tuning a 2002's carbs...
And the beer continued to flow...
And I stayed up as late as I could keeping in mind that I wanted to be coherent in the morning...
And sometime between 1am and 2am I conquered this hallway to make it to my room...
)