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As you read through this journal, be sure to click the images to not only view larger photos but also to read the captions below these enlargements. The captions contain many important, interesting and humorous parts of the story being told!
GoF West 2008
July 6-10, 2008, Monterey, California
Page Four of Five
Day Five
The morning started out with the flea market where just like the auction, many good deals and a few bad ones were found. After that came the funkhana. Always fun and always strange, this year was no different. At the time of this writing I can’t recall exactly how it went but I do remember the basics. Lets see, there was a big circle. You had to drive around it. Don’t stop, gotta keep moving. Now have your passenger throw fruit into a basket in the center of the circle. Don’t miss! Don’t fall out of the car, either! Oh yeah, don’t drive over the lines and watch out for all the knuckleheads standing in your way taking pictures. Wait, I resemble that remark.
Ok, now move on to the ring toss, which turned out to be too easy because the cars were allowed to drive too close to the wine bottles you were throwing the rings onto. If the passengers leaned out enough, they could just set the ring on the bottle!
Now it’s whale watching time. Stop your car and pick up the binoculars. Count how many whales you see in the bushes (whales in bushes?) while being squirted in the face with a water bottle. Careful, dolphins aren’t whales!
Ok, here is where the young folks shine. Back your car up to a wooden post. The closer you get without hitting it, the better your score. The catch is, once you stop that’s it. No inching back again. Being young and limber, my navigator crawled up onto the back of the car and guided me right up to within an inch of the post.
Once parked, get out and hit a golf ball into a target. What this has to do with M.G.s I don’t know, but then again I’ve never gone whale watching from my car either!
In addition to the funkhana, this year introduced a “car-less” funkhana. This was a test of skill and knowledge, identifying parts, answering questions and some really silly stuff like rolling a tire through a slalom course. Although I set a record time with the tire, I did embarrassingly bad on the table sections so I’m going to blame Al Moss for being so intimidating as the “what model M.G. did this part come off of” segment judge.
We attended a couple of early tech sessions, and then with the rest of the afternoon free we decided to go for a tour of the famous 17-Mile Drive. It was a beautiful day, perfect for touring the coast in an old M.G.
Upon our return to the hotel, and uncharacteristically on time for the awards banquet, we found an unscheduled line-up of T-Series cars at the entrance to the hotel. Apparently the hotel wanted to take advantage of all the beautiful vintage cars so they hired a professional photographer to take some publicity shots for their brochures. The more the merrier apparently, as I was waved into the line of cars. I overheard the photographer saying he wished the bright red one had parked up front, and to his luck I was the only driver still standing there since all the smart people were already preparing for the banquet. He placed our car front and center as the main focal point for the photo, of which I never received a copy. At least I got a snapshot of my own before wandering off! Apart from the staged line-up of cars, the parking lot itself was an impressive line-up as well!
The awards dinner turned into quite an experience. As the awards were announced we relaxed because we knew how poorly we had done in some of the events. The funkhana and car-less funkhana went by, no surprise there. Arts and crafts, well, the only thing we entered were a couple of photographs. Wait, why did the MC just say this category was a “war of the roses”? Would you believe it, Linda and I placed first and second. To my great pride Linda was first, beating my own entry! Now on to the rally. And the winner is… then a photo of us and our car blasts up on the big screen. Oops, someone must have made a mistake. Nope, somehow we had won the rally! We would never understand how it happened but it did. Chalk up two more awards – one for driver and one for navigator.
Next was the car show awards. Our car is no show winner but then in the honorable mention category there we were! Another award, and still no room in the car for spare luggage. Now came time for the big one, the high point award. Guess what happened next. You probably guessed right – we won! That’s another award plus a huge trophy and the big wooden box it travels in. This would have to be tied to the hood of the car or something. It was a bit embarrassing making all those trips to the stage and collecting such a huge pile of awards but it was fun laughing about it. A friend carried the trophy home for us in his modern car and we gave away our framed photographs. The rest of the awards went into every nook and cranny of the TC that we could squeeze them into!
After the banquet, one of our clubs held its traditional party, part of which includes bringing everyone’s awards. We had a lot of them in that room this time! There was one thing that beat all the awards though, and that was the announcement that two of our own were engaged! After a long night, everyone retired to their rooms to rest for the journey home.
