First, Sharktoberfest, a yearly gathering of Porsche 928 owners in Anaheim California. A few hours drive from Phoenix to Anaheim and to my horror it was actually hotter in California than it had been in Arizona. Really not cool, especially after an Arizona summer. You just want to go somewhere and freeze for awhile.
It's always a bit of a gamble to take a nearly 20 year old high strung super car out on the open highway and cross the desert between here and there. But once again the 928 performed flawlessly, traversing the distance in seemingly a fraction of the normal time. Of coarse it actually took the normal time, because taking less than the normal time would be illegal and wrong. So it only seemed like less than the normal time...something like 4.5 hours instead of the normal 6, funny how the mind plays tricks on you.
Friday night out of town'ers stayed at the Diamond Bar Holiday Inn, where copious drinking and eating were had. I spent a few hours at the bar/ restaurant and met a few fellow 928 owners that I had not met before, it was fun.
Saturday had a slightly lighter than normal turn out, 928 International hosted a lunch, good as usual. Lot of interesting cars to see and folks to chat with. Mark Kibort was there stripping all of the good part off and out of his wrecked 928 race car and replacing them into a new body. For those who don't know, his old car was the 1987 land speed record holder for a production vehicle at Bonniville. Mark has been racing it for a few years and had an unplanned merger with another car at high speed. Now the former land speed record holder is just a big pile of crap. Although there is some hope that it will be restored. More on that in a future blog.
Here are a few pics, if you click on any of the below pics you'll get a larger version for your viewing pleasure.
My Car at Sharktoberfest baking in the sun.
Custom Convertable 928. Nice body work. Not sure that the interior colors are what I'd want to live with, but hey, you pays the dough, you get what you want.
Saturday night dinner was at the Amazon Brazilian restaurant in Fullerton. This place rocks if you like your meat. They start you off with the usual meats, steak, pork and so on and just keep bring more out until you beg them to stop. This usually happens about the time they bringing alligator, chicken hearts and quail.
Sunday there was a fun run which I choose to skip this year in favor of finding cooler weather. So I drove down to the Pacific coast highway and made my way towards San Diego. A bit foggy and 65 degrees along the coast, thank you.
Arriving in San Diego I looked out across the bay and noticed the Navy vessels. I was reminded that the aircraft carrier Midway was now on display so I aimlessly wondered about until I found it. Not really hard to miss.
I was aboard for about 3 hours and barely scratched the surface of what there was to see. This thing is really big. Seats 4500 comfortably, 212,000 horsepower, 1000ft long, 258 feet wide, difficult to park.
928 parked at Midway
Midway Hanger deck
Midway Flight Deck from bow
Midway Flight Deck from stern
I really enjoyed the tour, interesting presentations were given by men who served on board this and other ships. Surprisingly the ship still smelled of kerosene, big time in places. I sat in one of the aircraft cockpits and for the rest of the day my butt smelled like jet fuel, yeah baby, I must go back and see more.
The trip back to Phoenix was uneventful and again seemed faster than it should have been. It had been a few years since I drove the I-8 route between San Diego and Phoenix. I was really surprised by all of the border patrol activity. Much higher than I had seen before. There were a couple of check points were they brought you to a complete stop to ask questions. Are you a US citizen? If a east bound 928 leaves San Diego at 3PM how long should it take to reach the Arizona border? Stuff like that. One check point has dogs sniffing about, not sure if they were trained to sniff for drugs or for Mexicans stashed in wheel wells. I was just glad the smell of kerosene was there to cover up anything the dog might be interested in.
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