SVT2888
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Registered: 16th Nov 09
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Monterey Car Week Recap: Day Three
Sleepless, we got ready in haste and headed back to the Pebble Beach resort for Dawn Patrol! For those of you that aren’t in the know, Dawn Patrol is a Pebble Beach tradition for the hard core car guys. Everyone arrives at around 5am for free coffee and donuts and a free hat so you can brag to your car guy friends about how hard core you are. You then wait in the frigid cold for all the Concours participants to roll in one by one.
We got lucky and each managed to get a hat before they ran out and got there in time for plenty of free coffee and donuts. As I stood there waiting for the cars to roll in who else but Wayne Carrini came along and took a spot right next to me with his entourage. It was cool having the man stand next to me as he was discussing various facts about the cars and some of his adventures.
After all the cars were done rolling in I called up my friend Frank Filipponio who I knew was also doing Dawn Patrol. Frank, unfortunately was not lucky enough to get a hat even though he arrived before me. First thing Frank did was ask us were we parked, we told him how we had found our own way around, since everyone was getting sent way far and then shuttled in, and we managed to park right in front of the resort. He told us to quickly go check on our car because we probably weren’t allowed to park there, that his friend almost got towed. We quickly went to check on our car and luckily they had set up a shuttle stop right in back of it so there was no way to even get it out until the show was over. Sweet!
We weren’t planning on leaving early anyways.
We then went to the McLaren tent to check out the new MP4-12C Spider and Can Am before anyone else even got in. This was all thanks to Erik’s great relationship with McLaren. By the time we got out the Pebble Beach Concours was already super active. There were people EVERYWHERE. We got to taking pics as quickly as we could before the crowds got even bigger. The whole day we would go take pics, then take a break at the McLaren booth were we would drink some champagne, eat a few snacks and chat with Hong Yeo the designer of the X-1. Inside the McLaren booth we would run into all sorts of important people in the car world. We even got to see the president of Lamborghini and the president of Ferrari North America both checking out the 12C Spider at the same time. The highlight for the Star Wars fans in the booth was seeing George Lucas come in the booth. It was no big deal to me as I’m not a Star Wars geek, so meeting him was like meeting anyone else, but to my friends it was something truly special. While hanging out on the porch of the McLaren tent I got to see the 1910 Brooke Swan Car drive by and come to a stop in front of Jay Leno and Horacio Pagani. The car then proceeded to first barf and then poop in front of them. Much to their amusement. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, back in 1910 someone had the money to not only make their car look like a swan but to make it barf and poop. Must have been quite something to see this car driving around India of all places
When we got back to the show field I ran into Bruce Meyer and finally got to tell him my story about his Shelby Cobra. You see Bruce owns the very first Shelby Cobra and shows it all over the place. This year he had it at the Beverly Hills Father’s Day Concours. I was checking it out at that show when the gentleman, if you can even call him that, next to me proclaimed to his friend that it was stupid that they would put a replica in such a show. He laughed at how everyone was taking pics of it as if it were real when it was really a cheap knock off. I turned and told him he was mistaken, it was in fact a real one and I told him a brief story on the car.
The guy absolutely blew up in my face and pointed out that the badge was wrong, the hood pins were wrong and besides “real Cobras don’t have wipers! You don’t need wipers on a race car!” The guy kept going on about him being a collector and how he has bought dozens of real Cobras, blah, blah, blah. I just quietly walked away in bewilderment that someone would react like that. He could have simply said all of that in a kind manner. No need to scream at me and berate me. Bruce laughed at my story and told me that in fact, when he bought the Cobra he too thought it was a replica. It wasn’t until they broke it down to restore it that they found that it was the real deal and found out how special it was.
I took a relaxed approach to Pebble, I didn’t rush through the show as I usually do. Never really got frustrated with the huge crowd, in fact I enjoyed it since it made for great people watching. Seeing some of the stuff the ultra-rich wear is quite amusing, chrome orange gator shoes anyone? I just took my time, chatted with some friends and soaked it all in. After all, it was my first Pebble experience. When it came time to announce the winners I quickly rushed to that area and tried to guess which car would win. To everyone’s surprise the winner was a 1928 Mercedes-Benz 680S Saoutchik Torpedo. We all expected a Duesenberg or Alfa Romeo to win. This one shocked us because it didn’t seem to possess the elegance the others did. The fireworks went off and the car disappeared in the smoke. It was quite the sight. We then went back to the McLaren booth to chill for a bit and let the crowds dissipate before leaving. We chatted with Frank Stephenson the designer of the MP4-12C, P1, Ferrari FXX, Ferrari 599, BMW X5, Mini Cooper, and a bunch of other iconic designs. He’s a truly great guy and he even signed a bunch of posters for us fans. He wrote mine in Spanish since he noticed my accent. As soon as he spoke to him he switched the conversation to Spanish, which frankly was not very easy for me since I’m not very fluent anymore. Being part Spaniard he recognized my last name and actually gave me a brief history of my family’s last name. Which was pretty neat since I really don’t know much about my ancestry.
Now it was time to go but instead of going home we headed back to the Gooding tent because we wanted to see the 540k sell as well as the California Spider prototype. While we were there we got to see a Toyota 2000GT sell for an extra ordinary $640,000. The amount of money being thrown around was just insane. I highly recommend attending one of these auctions as it’s a surreal experience. It might sound weird but you become accustomed to hearing million dollar bids after a while.
We came, we saw, we conquered? Now it was time to go home, exhausted. My feet were pulsating and my eyes were burning, but it was time to head home since we had to work on Monday. The drive was pretty sketchy since we lacked so much sleep. At one point I started hallucinating seeing things on the road that weren’t there. Unicorns, Elephants, dogs, cats, collapsing bridges, heck the road even seemed to be moving. It was quite scary. We took a short break, drank to Monster Energy drinks and soldiered on. Somewhere along the way I ran over a skunk which made for a huge stink and almost made Dilan barf.
I couldn’t stop laughing which helped in keeping me awake. Dilan eventually fell asleep. I dropped him off then drove the remaining 45 minutes of my journey by myself doing what I could to stay awake. I got home, threw my stuff down and knocked out. I had been awake for 29hrs and slept for a good 14hrs straight. Would I do it again? Hell yes! Will we plan better next time? Maybe!
Highly recommended car week galleries:
http://www.cncpics.com/2012/August
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