Like bears waking from their hibernation, our sports cars are poking their snouts out of their caves. In the Pacific Northwest, we have actually seen the golden orb several times in the past few weeks. We expect to see much more.
The only reason to own our cranky, expensive and unpredictable cars is to use them. Here are three events coming up that I am excited about.
First, the Alfa Romeo Owners of Oregon is holding its 45th Old Spider Tour on Saturday, May 6. It’s a one-day, four-hour, 140-mile event. It celebrates Alfa Giulietta and Giulia Spiders (the oldest Spiders will lead the pack), but all Alfas are welcome. It starts near Salem and ends at Ona Beach State Park near Newport. Please email tour organizer Bill Gillham at [email protected] for details.
I first started going on this tour 40 years ago. The first time was in my ex-Bob McGill 1964 Giulia Sprint Speciale. McGill, a television journalist, was the founder of AROO and had a picture of Gina Lollobrigida with the same car.
Although this is a one-day tour, several of us will be spending the night at the Best Western Plus Agate Beach Inn. We will plan for a no-host dinner nearby. This is a catch-as-catch-can, so you will need to make your own reservations. The drive home on Sunday is totally unorganized (or disorganized). How lost can we get? If interested in joining us for dinner, email me at [email protected].
Soon after that is the 5th annual SCM 1000, from June 11-16. Based at the Davenport Grand Hotel in Spokane, WA, it offers five nights, four days and 1,000 miles of driving on back roads. It’s an all-inclusive event for pre-1975 sports cars. Our tour director, Sue Counselman, tells me we’ve had a couple of last-minute cancellations so there’s still a chance to join this marvelous driving, dining, sight-seeing and SCM-seminar experience. You can email her at [email protected] if you’d like to join us.
Finally, from August 3-6, AROO is hosting the 34th Annual Northwest Classic in Eugene, OR. There are categories for touring, seat-of-the-pants TSD, and hard-core numerically driven rallyist. The presenting sponsor is Vintage Underground. This year classes are offered for both vintage (pre-1988) and modern (1989-2000) sports cars, and it is open to cars from any marque, not just Alfas.
If you have a favorite event on which you plan to exercise your collector car in the upcoming months, please share it in the comments.
