Monterey 2006 Events

I flew down this year.  Maybe one of these days, I will get the PF Coupe done and drive it.  My wife actually said that she would come to Monterey if I drive down in the coupe.

This year, I flew into San Jose airport and rented a car there.  On the way to Monterey, I stopped at Keith Milne's house to look at his 330 GT (7137GT).  I found it with its front paws in the air and the interior gutted.

Keith is working on the suspension while the interior is being redone.

I met up with Tom Yang and Yale Evelev for dinner Wednesday evening.

Thursday is the Pebble Beach Tour of most of the cars in the Concours on Sunday.  I helped out in the sign crew, so we drive the course twice, once before the cars, putting up the direction arrows at each turn and then at the end, taking them all down.  At least this year, the course was the same, so we knew where the signs needed to go and exactly which post to put them on.

Checkpoint 1 is up in the hills in a gated community partially owned by Clint Eastwood.  Here are some pictures of some cars leaving there.  There were a couple of test and prototype cars, including a new European model 599 GTB.

And here's one getting a little help getting going again.

Part of the course takes the cars down Highway 1 for 18 miles to Point Sur Naval Air Station and then back.  Since there are no turns except where the checkpoint is, we don't have to put up any signs.  Instead, there's a nice shady place to watch the cars returning north.

Unhappily, the Ferraris were in the first group, so had already passed by the time we got there.  However, all of the cars have a lunch stop in Carmel where they are on view for everyone to see.  Of course, the area is mobbed with people, so it's hard to get good pictures.

I talked to a number of owners.  Here from left to right is George Nagata (8591), me (8755) and Howard Pigdon (7837).  Howard was over from Australia.

The engine from 6225 was also there, but installed in Europa 0847GT.  I'm pointing out the location of the internal motor number to the owner.  The best shot I could get of 6225 was a picture of a picture.  It now has the Chevy V8/transmission that was originally in the Europa.

After CI, I called Tom Shaughnessy to see when I could pick up my PF Coupe belly pan.  Tom promised this to me a couple of years ago, but first he had to retrieve it from Arizona.  Then he was coming up to Oregon early this summer where we could meet, but that fell through.  Since he was bringing a trailer with a chassis (0202A), a working (until they ran out of gas) Lampredi engine on a stand and lots of other stuff, I asked him to bring the belly pan along.  I had made arrangements with someone from Seattle who was trailering a Delahaye down for the Pebble Beach Concours to bring the belly pan back to Seattle.  I ran out to The Quail and picked it up after first stopping by Home Depot for a tarp and tape to wrap it in as it had to go in my rental car and Tom said it was quite dirty.  Being 2' x 6.5', it doesn't fit in the trunk, but the back seats folded letting it fit in.

Little did I know that the Delahaye didn't get finished, so the ride home wasn't there.  I found that out Saturday morning.  In thinking of someone else who would be returning a car to Seattle, I thought of Jon Shirley.  I sent off an email as a long shot since I wasn't really expecting him to read it with everything else going on.  However he did and we made arrangements for me to drop it off at the track on Sunday after the Concours.

Saturday was a day of rest for me.  First I did go to the Ferrari 599 showing out by Pebble Beach.  Very nice presentation with a numbered lithograph to boot.

Then I spent about 4 hours under an umbrella by the pool reading a book.  The GTE party started in the late afternoon, so I stopped by there for a while.  I guess that Yale was tuckered out by then as TomY was there alone.  Many other people were there so there were always a number of interesting conversations to chime in on.

Sunday was up early as I had to be at the Pebble Beach Concours by 5:30 for my volunteer duties.  I did get assigned to the host stand between the two Ferrari classes.  This stand was the first one on the field, so all of the cars in the Concours drove by on one side of the other.  Here we are toting the chairs, umbrella, etc. out to the field around 6 AM.  Look closely, I'm on the right in a coat and tie!

Here's a smattering of the Ferraris as they are being spiffed up for the Concours.

There are always a few cars that need help.  This one couldn't make the hill, but at least we didn't have to worry about mosquitoes for a while.

Notice the almost complete absence of people around.  A far cry from later in the day.  By the time judging occurs, there are lots more people on the field.  I asked Ferrari class judges, Parker Hall and David Seielstad to pose for a picture.  I pity the poor car owner who may have thought that they were pointing out some flaw to each other.  Actually, I thought that the door paint in that area was a little weak!

Here is the other Ferrari judging team intently looking over the owner's documentation.  That's Keith Bluemel in the center.

Of course, Jay Leno always helps out during the auction and raffle.  Here he is inspecting the Glen Alpine Stage shown above.  Notice that there are a few more people around than in the earlier picture.

After it is all said and done, the top three cars from each class are driven back to the staging area.  Then as each class is announced, the three are pulled in a line.  As the third in class award is being announced, that car is pointed to and goes over the ramp.  The second in class is then announced and the driver of the remaining car has a big smile on his or her face.

Of course, the smoky car in the Preservation Class who couldn't make it up the hill was one of the three called for awards.  So a couple of us 'helped' it into the staging area.  This is a picture of my better side.  Worse, the exhaust was on my side of the car.

Here's Jon Shirley's first in class winner 250 Testa Rossa Scaglietti Spyder heading up to the staging area.

I had talked to Jon earlier in the day about my belly pan.  Once he found out that it wasn't very thick (<1"), he said that it could go in the show trailer that was at Pebble Beach.  That saved me a trip out to Laguna Seca and back.  So right now, my belly pan is almost part of a Pebble Beach Concours first in class winner as it rides under the TR on the way back north.

And I got home just in time for my wife's birthday the following day!

So another hectic Monterey car week is over for the year.  And I am wondering if it will be worth doing it next year.  But I think it must be like having a baby, everything bad fades and one decides to do it again.