6-3-06
Sharks In The Mountains '06 Hosted by 928 Specialists' Dave and Jeannie Roberts
What a beautiful start to the day. All the rain was gone and it was clear and sunny all day. Too bad my sunscreen failed to protect. My face and looks like a 'mater, except for that fine white demark where I was wearing my hat. UGH!
To start the day imagine to both of Dan's and my dismay when for the third time we were dressed exactly alike. We took one look at each other, Dan gave out an 'oh sh!t' and since I went over to get him, he changed his shirt. Too funny.
We went to breakfast. Dan had the b-fast buffet; I had 4 pieces of toast. Olivia, the waitress from dinner the night before took care of us. She was yawning just a little bit too...
I have to say that the last two years, people have just been randomly heading up to the picnic. I thought it was better the first couple where they'd hold traffic and let us all go out together. They're were a LOT of cars, so it was probably better anyway and even having a few sharks running together is always a good time.
There was a line of about 10 cars that made it out when we
left with us somewhere in the middle and after the quick couple mile stretch up
the road a few pulled off to get gas and that left us the lead car (once Ariel
and Lisa - first timers - pulled over and back in to give us the point). So Dan
is driving a nice leisurely pace. Some over but not crazy... and I guess it
wasn't good enough for the kid in the GT from
So, we continued the nice relatively straight up pace to the
picnic on
Ariel and Lisa then believed us when we told them the cops were gonna be as thick as flies.
Anyway, the picnic was good. The food was good. The tales and tech talk are always good. The cars were awesome as always. Seems like the talk of the day was blowers. 928 Specialists has their new supercharger kit out with a demo motor on a stand with one. And there had to be around 6 cars or so that had em, including Dave's and Tom Frankenberg’s (prune juice red 91 GT - yes, that's the factory color and it looks a whole lot better than you'd think).
It was also interesting to note that of nearly all the cars with power mods, most of them were roots-type blowers with only one Vortech that I saw and one turbo charged. Seems like a definite shift now that so much time, effort and tuning has been put into the twin-screw as of late.
Car that really stood out to me were the Dark Blue Metallic, Amazon Green, Diamond Blau's and as always, Greg Schickel's black beauty. There was also one car that had some absolutely gorgeous custom ostrich leather interior that the owner hand crafts (I have a couple pics - not great but you'll get the idea of how much was put into this). And one car with custom chrome air tubes for the 16v motors looked really great.
Sorry to say that Wally Plumley didn't make it this year for as much as I wanted to see and talk with him.
Dan and I both won prizes in the raffle. Dan got a very stylish limited edition (I think it was #480 out of 5000) calendar from Porsche N.A. with a bunch of Cayman art. It's a very large format as well, maybe 15x20 or 17x24 something like that. It's very nice.
I won a cylinder leak down whistle which should come in handy working on the mill on the 84 (which I am bound and determined to finish this summer).
After the picnic, it was time to take the ~50mi scenic drive to Little Sienna, the Italian restaurant where we ate last year. The drive was good. We passed the hairpin where the guardrail incident occurred last year, with no problems (of course because there was no idiot hogging a lane and a half coming UP the hairpin). And interestingly enough, the gravel was now replaced with wood chips. Not sure which is better when you take that corner like we did last year, but that gravel is definitely slickery stuff. Luckily, we weren't close enough to see how a 928 would fair in the chips.
Unfortunately there was a bad accident, where the only 928 convertible head firsted into a tree. It looked like just the nose was bent pretty bad but heard later that without the structure of the roof, the car actually bent in the middle. So, who knows if it can be fixed at this point. Shark fin soup (parts car) anyone... We heard that the two people in the car were ok, but I really don't know for sure. I hope so, because it sure looked ugly. Somehow, I think a hammerhead 928 just doesn't work.
Anyway, the cop at the scene waved our group of sharks over, but there were so many of us we couldn't all fit so we all just saddled back up and continued our journey toward the all you can eat prime rib buffet.
The rest of the trip got really fun once we got off the
The buffet at the restaurant was really good. And you think
Italian place buffet? It was no Aurelio's. This was some good eats and I ate
until it was darned near squirting out my ears. I had flame grilled vegetables,
baked tater, some most excellent spaghetti with shrimp in a cajun alfredo sauce and a slab or prime rib. Oh...
And a big ol slice of pecan pie. Wait, I almost
forgot the best part. The fresh loaves of soft yeasty white
bread. Oh man... That stuff was SO SO good. I
couldn't get enough. And after Dan and I had talked about how good the Throwed Rolls are at Lambert's in
I took over the wheel for the drive home. I had really been looking forward to driving the twisty's back but right after dinner with full bellies and bad sunburns it was decided to take the highway back. A lot of people were headed back to Dave and Jeannie's but we decided to head back to the hotel for a swim. There were a couple fun parts on the drive, but for the most part I did pretty close to the limit and chilled all the way back. Oh... and I did smoke the clutch once. Hopefully, it didn't take too much life off it. :-S
The Dan comment of the day - as we were hard accelerating up the mountain - "This is the only time where I can't catch the guy in front of me by hitting the gas. When there's another 928 ahead."
The Miker comment to Lisa after she got through saying she would never come to one of these again since she didn't like driving fast through all the twisty's and that Ariel was mad at her for screaming the whole drive to the restaurant - "The reason the guy crashed was because the guy's wife was yelling at him."
Oh, later that night, I realized I forgot my camera charger
in the car so I headed back out to the car and was stopped by Jessica, the
hotel clerk. She asked if I was part of the 928 group and I said yeah. She said
there was a 928’er stranded up at the gas station with his keys locked in the
car and if I could go up and help him. So, I drove on up and saw Charles Rose,
with his pristine black S (with the custom chrome air tubes) sitting there. We
talked for a minute and he decided to try to pop the rear hatch. Luckily it
worked and in two seconds he was in the car and didn’t really need me anyway…
no problem and always ready to help a 928er in need.
Ok, and on
an extremely sad note. One in which my heart dropped and a little salutary tear
rolled down my cheek... Crabby Bill's has done folded up in Banner Elk. For as
much as we were shocked and awed and delighted by the fact that it came here in
the first place it sure is a letdown to see it go. As we were driving by, I
noticed in front of the building, a sign that said Blackberry's restaurant
opening soon. WHAAA-WHAAA-WHAAAA-AAAAAA! ....... By