Yikes Earl! That sounds like a pretty bad fall! Hope you feel better soon and Sarah has learned a lesson.
The weekend was great! The attendance for each event exceeded my expectations and it was so overwhelming and busy that we are still working out the official counts for everything! This was really like no other Northwest meet to date, this is probably more like the Reading meets - people and cars just everywhere, coming and going at different times, so many new people you don't have time to talk to them all! I'm not complaining at all, it was very cool, just suddenly hit me by surprise is all. If this trend continues, I think we really will have crossed over the threshold from the "little NW group", to something bigger.
A few people that had signed up didn't show, but in their place some others did and like I said, we exceeded numbers for each event.
The weather went against the gloom and doom predictions and was just what each event needed!
The maintenance meet, at least while I was there, was dry enough to work outside (although Earl had plenty of room in the garage and house - the museum he set up was AMAZING!).
The drive from there to the show was very rainy (enough to dirty all the cars).
But once we got to the show location, there was never a drop!!! In fact the SUN came out!
The banquet of course was inside, but it never rained all evening anyway there.
Sunday's tour was once again blessed with great weather! Never rained, and the sky was even clear enough to see views of the mountains and everything else at every stop!
So I hope no one stayed home because of the weather.
The maintenance meet was a perfect time for meeting new friends, kicking tires, and doing a few maintenance things. Earl had also set up a great display in his house where people would migrate in small groups to hang out throughout the morning as well. There was donoughts and coffee for everyone too. Earl did a great job. Like I said, still working out the counts, but I think there were
at least 15 members and cars there at some point during the event. Most of these then drove down in one big convoy to the show, wish I could have seen that!
The Winter Classic SVX car show was great fun! It was in the back parking lot of the restaurant and we filled it to the brim (there were 3 or 4 SVXes that had to park in another area even). As you can see from the pictures, it was a pretty official affair with banners, tents, trophies, window cards for the entries, etc. And a whole group of impartial judges ranging from some local Subaru experts to the waitresses at the restaurant! I think there were 15 SVXes registered in the show and a total of 21 there! I think it is safe to say we finally have an undisputed west of Mississippi record! Let's keep the momentum going!
The Awards Banquet was incredible. I had booked the room for 30 people, but I think they had to keep bringing in chairs. Not only that, but we had so many prizes from our sponsors that we put up extra tables to hold it all - the room got pretty small pretty quick! But I think everyone had a blast, talking, eating, drinking... the awards presentation was just a little fun icing on the cake. There was so much stuff to give away, after the awards I just set the crowd loose and everyone walked away with quite a bit I think (I did manage to grab a few things I thought the absent winners would like - you'll be contacted).
Sunday's drive was a whole new kind of tour. Taking place right in Seattle itself was definitely a change from the usual country backroads. But it was just as scenic, and Jim knew some great driving roads that were a lot of fun. And 7 cars ended up doing the tour! Not bad for a Sunday event following 12 hours of activities on Saturday! And the comments of everyone at the end of Sunday leads me to believe there will be more of this in the future. I think for 2005 - at least for the events I put together - most events will be built around segmented activities like this that will take place over an entire weekend.
What a great way to wrap up 2004! Can't wait to start in on 2005!!!!!