Well, after reading Teriann's comments on the Palo Alto British car meet I
feel that someone should supply a counter-viewpoint. Let me start with a
disclamer: I've never been to the Portland meet and I have no idea what its
like. To me the point isn't whether or not the Portland meet has more stuff
going on, but whether the Palo Alto meet is fun. I think it is.
The Palo Alto meet seems to be run with fun in mind. There is no concourse,
no autocross, funkanna, or rally. In other words, no competition. (And
unfortunatly no british ale :-( ) Just a friendly show-off meet. Looked
at that way Palo Alto was very successful. It was worth going just to see
downtown Palo Alto overrun with british cars shortly before 10. We must
have outnumbered the non-british cars.
To me the biggest drawback was there were too many cars. I overdosed after
a few hours, and had only seen about half the lot. Besides the large doses
of Jags, Triumphs, and MGs there were a surprising number of Loti and
Rootes group cars. One of my personal favorites was a 1939 Wolsley, since
my in-laws owned a Wolsley for many years. Don't see too many of those
around anymore. This was a large saloon with a big badge on front
proclaiming "25 Horsepower". :-)
I missed everyone at lunch. My wife overheated shortly before noon after
staring at Jag Mark IXs, so we went in search of shade. I found Foocar
around 12:30, but didn't see anyone around. I did see several of the Fizball
cars, so at least I know my car wasn't the dirtiest one there :-). Only
one other TR-8, which surprised me. One of my complaints was that the
Triumphs were packed in like sardines, with noticably less space between cars
than most of the other marques.
In summary, I thought it was alot of fun. Next year I hope to meet more of
you local SOL-ers, and hopefully the porta-potties will show up. (Teriann,
I spoke to one of the organizers who told me that they had arranged for
more toilets, but they never showed up. Thats one complaint that I strongly
agree with. You knows its bad when the men's room has a long line...)
-Barry
PS I almost didn't make it since the Triumph wouldn't let me put gas in it
come sunday morning. I really had to kludge the filler neck to make it
work; more info and a bunch of questions to follow shortly.
|