RE: Convention?

["Brian Shorey" <bshorey@domain.elided>]

> So how was it? I was not able to attend and am eagerly
> waiting for comments and pictures.

I had a blast!

All in all, a great time.  Couple of snafus at the track on Thursday (in
tech, not out the track), and the parking garage at the hotel kind of
put a damper on the usual parking lot congregations, but otherwise it
was a nice, laid back weekend of pure Alfa fun.

Our (Alfa Owners of New England, AONE) bid to host the 2004 convention
was accepted, so mark your calendars, we've got a great (and growing)
group of volunteers that are already pouring lots of effort into putting
together what should be a great convention!  Watch for a formal
announcement..

As part of our convention bid, I attended the entire BOD meeting at this
convention.  It kind of puts a different perspective on things such as
dues increases, etc.  Having spent most of the day watching the BOD in
action, I'm impressed that they're acting sincerely in a difficult
situation, and doing the best that they can.  They've got my vote of
confidence, that's for sure.

Ian Lomax, Kim <?>, and myself shared my rental Miata for the autocross.
Ian posted a time that I thought was good for "fastest non-Alfa", as it
was faster than John Hoard!  Yes, you heard that correctly, Ian Lomax,
in an automatic Miata, beat John Hoard!

Of course I probably should mention that John had blown a head gasket in
his GTA (first competition non-finish in 31 years), and was running in a
borrowed '91 Automatic Spider, but it was still quite a drive by Ian.

Turns out that Chris Obert turned in a faster time (but not by much) in
his Abarth.

I placed a 'personals' ad for a rally partner, and had the good fortune
to have Keith Kelly, a gent who's won something like three of the last
four national convention rally's, respond.  Russ Neely promised me I
wouldn't end up in a ditch at the side of the road, so I went for it.
In spite of my rally green-ness, Keith was able to chock up another one.
Thanks Keith, I had a blast (and send me your e-mail, I've got pictures
of you tearing up the tarmac!)!

A real nice touch was having all the trophies look like Oscar awards.
I'd like to thank the academy..

At the banquet I had the pleasure of sitting with (among other people)
Brian and Diana Pleet, who drove their Spider all the way down from
Canada.  They were novices in the concours, and were asking questions
about the scoring.  Great job on winning first in class Brian and Diana!

Also, a recent restoration done by Tom Sahines, owned by Joel Ortega,
won the 60's GTV class (also ran the time trials, IIRC).  Looking
underneath this GTV got me seriously thinking about powder coating all
my suspension stuff before I put my GTV back together.

The best part, as usual, was meeting up with digest friends and meeting
some in person for the first time.

Thanks to all in Southern California for all of your efforts, and for a
great weekend!

bs
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