Second Annual Tom Yang East Party and NY Trip 2006

Tom's east coast party was on Saturday October 21, in the middle of the fall foliage weather of upper NY state.

This year (as last), I was the guest of Michael and Dorie Greenspan, staying at their apartment in the upper West side. Last year, I made it a whorl-wind trip, flying into NY on Friday and leaving on Monday, spending Saturday with Yale visiting Ferrari shops and the party on Sunday.

This year I added a couple of days so I could do some touristy things in NYC. I arrived late Thursday night and had a most interesting trip in from JFK courtesy of ShuttleExpress. We were all packed in a 14 passenger van. Luckily I was the last to get in and was dropped off about half way through the 13 passengers. Last year, I took the subway both ways, so missed this glorious adventure. The driver was the classic NYC cab driver, jumping lanes here and there to gain a car length or two, moving over into a merge ramp and then forcing his way back into traffic at the end. At one point, we hit a bump so hard, my head hit the roof. But an hour or so later, I did arrive at Michael's in one piece at about half the cost of a cab. However, I did take the subway back to JFK when I left.

Friday, I went down to the Rockefeller Center area, taking in both the center and NBC studio's tours.

Rockefeller Center Ice Rink
Anish Kapoor Sky Mirror	Today Show Plaza

From there, I went down to the World Trade Center area. I ended up walking around the whole construction site. Very sobering.

Saturday morning, Yale picked me up to drive to the party in Stamford, NY, about a three hour drive. After we got out of the city a ways, Yale had me drive, ostensibly to see if the car felt different from last year. Actually, I think it was to minimize his exposure to the local constabulary. He kept telling me that the section I was driving used to never be patrolled and he would always go 90. Now there is quite a bit of activity, so I kept it down to 75 and my eyes peeled (the speed limit is 55). There was a PT Cruiser that followed us a few hundred feet back the whole way I was driving. I was tempted to have Yale make a sign 'You're welcome for the safe and ticket free ride' to put in our window as we went off on our exit.

The directions to Mike Meehan's place for the party was quite explicit except that he didn't mention his dirt/gravel driveway that's about 1/2 mile long. Mike had brought in a bunch of gravel, but there had been a heavy rain the day before, so some of the gravel had disappeared. Luckily nobody drove a 355 or they would have been re-grading it with their front spoiler.

Mike's place is on a number of acres with a main house, guest house and a couple of garages including one with a drive on lift.

My thanks to the other people at the party for the pictures above. As usual, I have lots of car pictures, but hardly any of people unless they were insistent on getting between me and a car.

As usual, I thought that I would have the farthest distance award down pat, but was marginally closer than Tom Wilson. Tom's from LA while I'm from Seattle. However, we were both aced out by Dr. Ian Levy who came all the way from the UK to attend the party. I did get the François Sicard Award for Service to the Ferrari Community. The food was great with Parker Hall sending up some pulled pork BBQ from Mississippi along with hats and catalogs for everybody and some door prizes that were raffled off.

Everybody spent quite a bit of time with various cars on the lift. Yale had mentioned that he was leaking quite a bit of oil, so Mike Meehan and I did some investigative work. Oil leaks are difficult to pinpoint because the oil gets blown all over by the fan and air coming through the engine compartment. We finally decided that it was coming from one of the brown oil hoses that are attached to the bypass oil filter. Michael Greenspan's 330 America looked pretty nice until you noticed the rear mufflers. Both sides had holes and Michael's wife, Dorie, had complained on the noise on the way to the party. So a quick fix was in order, some high temp silicone rubber, sheet aluminum and some screws.

Dorie did report that the car was quieter on the ride home. It got late and most people had quite a drive home, so everybody kind of left in a hurry. My only regret was that I didn't get any dessert. Marie had brought some scrumptious items to last year's party and I was looking forward more this year. Well, next year, I'm going to skip the appetizers and start with the desserts!

Michael had wanted me to drive his car to see how I felt about it, so Yale and Dorie left in his 330 while Michael and I went in the America. I had thought it was just into Stamford to get gas, but Yale didn't need any so he went further along to wait for us. However, when we left the gas station, Yale just took off and I was left chasing him. In case you haven't figured out, Yale is not a slow driver. So I just kept him in sight every once in a while, all along trying to pass the local drivers on the 2-lane highway. I kept things pretty loose for the first few miles as I got used to the America. Once I felt more comfortable with the car and its handling, I picked up the pace and caught up with Yale. I was impressed with Michael's car. It handled well, braked well and had no problems revving to 6000 in second or third as needed.

Yale finally pulled over where the Greenspan's path back to CT and ours to NYC would diverge. Just prior to that, I had noticed that Yale's taillights had gone out. So we stopped at a gas station to change people and check out the problem. It turned out only to be a blown fuse.

But from there on, Yale kept watching his interior lights to see if it blew again. That turned out to be the least of the worries. Traffic was heavy going back into the city. As we approached the George Washington bridge toll plaza, the traffic went to stop and go. Rolling into the toll booth brought a sharp crack from somewhere in the left front. From the toll plaza, traffic merged, merged and merged again with no place to pull over. Finally, just prior to the bridge proper, there was a wide maintenance area. A visual inspection and rocking of each wheel didn't lead anywhere. I first thought that the LF wheel was loose and we were hearing it rock back and forth. The cracking noise kept occurring as we continued on. Yale mentioned that the brakes seemed to be rubbing and the steering didn't feel right. Not long after he had gotten his car, he had a wheel bearing go out and thought it felt the same way. We had plans to visit from Ferrari shops on Monday and thought that I could help in dropping his car off at the mechanic's. However, after he dropped me off and finally got to his garage, the brake rubbing was so bad that he decided that he had better have it towed there. I think that the sharp cracks that we kept hearing was either ball bearings breaking or the weight of the car shifting the bearing cage on some broken bearings.

Sunday was a tourist day for me. I spent most of the day at the Metropolitan Art Museum on the other side of Central Park from Michael's.

On the way back, I took a long walk through Central Park.

That night the Greenspan's and I went out to a local Italian restaurant for dinner. There ended up being a discussion about wine and I mentioned that I only drink white wine. Eventually we decided to get a bottle for the table and left it up to the waiter to select one. He looked at us like we were crazy when he was told that it was to be white. When I mentioned that it was my fault, he just looked at me and said 'Weird'. Anyway, the wine and food were excellent.

The first thing I did Monday morning was to go down to be part of the crowd at the Today Show. I had told my wife to look for me. She ended up taping the show and I was visible in one segment when Al Roker did an interview in front of where I was standing.

Later, Yale picked me up and we headed up to Gaylordsville, CT, up in the northwest corner. There we first stopped at Peter Sweeney's Forza shop. Peter is a one man business mainly dealing in used Ferraris, but handles other makes as well. The nice surprise was that he had a 4HL 330 GT (SN 7023) there. He had gotten it out of VA, needing some re-assembly. He had so many cars in his building that there was no longer any room around it, but we convinced him to get back to work on it.

Peter also had a glass bodied 308 GTB which is a pretty rare version of the 308s.

John Roswell, owner of 330 GT SN 8715, met us at Peter's and took us over to Bill Pollard's SportAuto shop. Bill is a well known Ferrari mechanic and restorer. In particular, he was working on a 166 MM Berlinetta with the target being Cavallino this January in Miami Beach.

After lunch, we went over to John's house to see his 330 GT. It's a 2HL model, with an unusually numbered engine. Ferrari for whatever reason, started stamping the 330 blocks with 209/xxxx right around that period. The first was 0001 on 8687. I've seen a couple of others. John's is stamped 209/0019. This didn't last long with 0024 being the highest known.

By the time we got back from CT, I realized that I had picked up a cold. Michael, Yale and I had planned on steaks at Peter Luger's that night, but I had to beg off. The plane trip home the next day was no fun with my cold. It's not fun being sick, much less away from home.