Well, I woke up on Saturday 6/14/03, checked the weather forecast for the day, then decided I was up for a road trip.  I even talked my wife Lisa into going with me for this meet!

Well, we left the house at 8am, top down, cool early morning weather, blue skies, things were starting off perfect. After about 1.5 hour of driving, we get just past Orlando and traffic comes to an almost dead stop!  By now, the sun is up pretty high and the temps are climbing, but the heat of the road and from the other cars was becoming unbearable! I say a flashing sign that said there was an accident 3 miles ahead!  

Oh man, I knew we were going to be late to meet up with Chiung for the drive up. I called him several times to let him know my status, as well as to vent! There we many times when if there was a way, I would have crossed over the highway and gone back home. We had just gone a little over two miles and I was searching for a way to get off the highway and go home to avoid that last mile out of the traffic. Just then, a miracle happened, we got past the accident, it was only two miles instead of three like the sign said.  So, it took us an hour and 15 minutes in the hot sun, top down, to go 2 miles!

We finally made it to Caddyshack at about 12:15, so it was a 4 hour, 15 minute trip.  Ugh!  And nobody bought me lunch!  I was able to sneak out after lunch to check out the Vette show that was going on.  There were 100-200 Corvettes there in my guess. I was the only one that wanted to check them out I guess? Hey, what can I say, I like all cars!

What follows is the write up that Shay did to recap the day's events, used by permission : ) ....

-----------------------------------------------------

We had our One Year Anniversary Meet for First Coast S2k today. Not 24 hours ago we had a chance of rain of 65%, turned out to be gorgeous. HOT, but gorgeous. Slight sprinkle on the drive for about 5 minutes but nothing to warrant putting the tops up.

We had an EXCELLENT showing!!! In total we had 20 S2000s and 2 NSXs. The day started with showing off the cars in the parking lot at World Golf Village in St. Augustine. Quite a task to grab so many spots considering the "Vettes at the Village" was going on that apparently had about 300 cars itself. Luckily, my wife Sandy, now known as the "parking lot Nazi" (Seinfeld reference) got there extra early and managed to cone off enough spots to make things work.

After burning up in the parking lot we went in for a nice lunch/presentation at Caddy Shack for a couple hours. Basically covered the "minutes of the meeting" and pigged out.

Following lunch we fueled up, lined up, and drove for a bit. We (actually Sang) decided to line up based on color. Worked out VERY well. Never expected that I would be the lone Black! Who would have thought? Then again we had a loan Monte Carlo too (or is that another black? another story, different thread). Still no GP White!!!!

We don't have any hills or many twisties in the area so the drive consisted of a ton of straight aways but we had views of the St. Johns River, Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway, and the Atlantic Ocean. All in all a decent drive with no mishaps which is a HUGE plus even with the cops boning up seeing so many fancy cars cruising by.

Following the drive we had quite a blast racing go carts despite the tremendous lack of HP at this particular track. Unfortunately, my wife and I played with the camera too much and all the pics we took stink. Hopefully someone else can post some of those. Weak carts but fun all the same. "NO BUMPING" allowed??? Why did I get crushed twice? J, you too! and we're not the only ones. Fun by all. And the couple from Tallahassee were the MASTERS of Blocking. Fun, Fun, Fun.

By the time that was over, we went from 22 cars to 4 for dinner. Our original spot was slammed but luckily the backup was close by (Wei-Shen taught me well about back-up plans! NOTE: check out the July issue of Honda Tuning for a 4-page article on Chin Motorsports and Wei-Shen). Good to have back ups. After that long hot day, cold adult beverages were in order. Again, fun was had by all.

THANKS TO EVERYONE THAT ATTENDED. We had cars from Tallahassee, Gainesville, Tampa, Orlando, Jupiter, Daytona, St. Augustine, Ponte Vedra Beach, Jacksonville Beach, and Jacksonville. To think, a year ago we had just 3! My address book is way over 40 and we're growing. I look forward to future events and we're ALWAYS welcome to suggestions on how to make future events, clinics, etc. more valuable to our members and guests. Special thanks to all of those that traveled so far, Wei-Shen, Chiung, Sang, and my wife Sandy for putting together all of those packets, passing them out, and putting up with my passion for this car and this club. See ya next time!!!!

End  ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- End

Lisa and I left the group after the drive, we didn't do the go carts, had to come home and take care of the dog! On the way home, we say an white S2K on I-4 going in the opposite direction, but I did see a white, so that made my trip complete!  Man, I can't believe that white is so rare in Florida.  Out of 20 cars didn't have one white one!  Doh, you guys need to work on that! We had a white one at our last meet, but no MCB : (

It was a long day.  198 miles up to Caddyshack, 4.25 hours.  96 miles r/t for the drive, to and from the Shell station, a little over two hours?  Then another 198 miles from Caddyshack to our house, 2.75 hours.  Total drive time for the day, 9 hours, covering 492 miles. We got home and were spent! We enjoyed the drive along the river and up the coast via A1A! Had a great time, but no more road trips for a week!  Boca Grande next weekend for the TBA meet! : )

Thanks everyone for providing a fun time!