8th ANNUAL
ROLLING BRITISH CAR DAY
SATURDAY, APRIL 19
Wow!! For years (as in like from the beginning!) my goal has been to (ummm . . . honestly say) that we had 100 cars attend this event.
Rolling British Car Day began as a “dream” of mine about ten years ago. The first few years were pretty light (around 35 cars), but there was always lots of enthusiasm for the event “once it happened”, and lots of encouragement for the following year. Each year, we’d pick up a few more folks, a few more names on the mailing list, a few more folks on the e-mail list. Three years ago, when our (then) computer totally crashed/fried/burned and we lost all that accumulated hard work . . . we were pretty discouraged. Fortunately, that happened AFTER we had mailed out that year’s invitations, so we began the “process” of “data recovery”. One word we learned as a result of that experience – backup, backup, backup, backup, backup, backup.
Anyway, the last few years, we’ve had around 70 to 80 cars . . . and that counted anything with wheels—modern, semi-modern, Japanese, Norwegian, Swedish, German.
Seemed like we had a “bit more” “e-mail activity” and phone calls this year than other years, but I didn’t want to get overly optimistic that this increased activity was going to relate to achieving our goal of 100 cars.
Remember the weather? In the weeks and days coming up to the event, we had drizzle and rain. People were e-mailing and phoning wanting to know if it was going to rain the day of the event! “Of course not!” we heartily replied. On Saturday, we weren’t so sure, as we had one more day of drizzle and showers. The weather folks seemed to be saying the iffy weather was leaving, but I’ve never had much faith in weather folks! Our prayers were answered when we woke up Sunday morning to beautiful blue skies and bright sun! Thank you!!
We packed our 100 sets of instructions, cameras and other gear and headed to Milton’s Deli, our meeting point. Although we were a good hour early, we were pleased to already see at least 30 cars in place. Maybe this was the year!
A large number of folks were inside Milton’s having breakfast. All seemed to be having a good time . . . and a good breakfast. I settled for coconut Macaroons and headed out for the impromptu car show, lies and tire kickin’. A tremendous variety of cars were assembling. A 1955 Daimler that had been presented to Queen Elizabeth.
Ed Gehringer had his awesome 1924 3-liter boat tailed Bentley (which has been on world tours, Monterey, etc – quite a pedigree)
There was also an awesome 1953 Bentley Continental.
They’ve been saying they were coming for years, and this year they came in force! At least 11 beautiful DeLoreans. They were quite a sight. I’ve never seen more than one or two DeLoreans at a time, so this was a real treat for all of us.
We also had a significant number of Jensens. A great group of folks, and really a beautiful car with a neat history.
How about Lotus? I did not count, but I believe there were about seven or eight incredible Lotus’s (or is it a Loti????). The cars included several Europas and a Lotus 7.
Minis/MINIs—this group first made their “appearance” last year, and are another great group of people. Last year in Coronado, they made quite an impression by parking 12 Minis in 5 parking spots, and this year they did the same thing. There was about an equal number of “real” vintage Minis and new MINIs. Hey, I love ‘em both!
I kept counting, and began to realize we just might “make” 100 actual British cars. As I started gathering the folks together for our “instructions”, we were in the “mid” 90’s. Before we were done “assembling”, we had easily surpassed 100 British cars!!! Yeah!!!! Those 100 instruction sheets—long gone! Please share! Other years, we’ve taken home a stack of unused instruction booklets.
Diane had organized a fun raffle with plastic Easter eggs, and people were having a lot of fun wondering what was going to happen with those!
At 10:00 we headed out of three different exits for a leisurely tour through the (remaining) back roads around Rancho Santa Fe, Fairbanks Ranch, Del Mar and other scenic areas. The event is not designed to be a “rallye” or involve points or judging, etc. Rather, just a fun day designed to get to know each other—different clubs and different marques all getting a chance to make new friends and admire each others cars.
Several parts of the drive were designed to provide “waving” opportunities”, as
we passed each other several times.
Since we knew the route, we cheated several times and just found a
perfect spot and just had fun waving at all the different cars and getting some
neat “photo ops”.
We wound up heading towards San Marcos and the wonderful Penny Lane Pub around 11:30. Forty one miles after leaving Milton’s, a few more British cars joined us at Penny Lane. The final count by me was 131 British cars, although someone else officially counted 135 – so, it was somewhere in there!
Diane, with help from several other club members, held the raffle. Penny Lane generously donated a few shirts, so together with the other neat prizes that we had, it was a fun way to end a wonderful day.
Oh yeah, it was my 37th birthday, and my wonderful, witty, intelligent and beautiful wife had somehow bought a birthday cake, and conspired to get it into the fridge at Penny Lane the day before without my knowledge. So, on top of everything else, we were treated to one of my favorite meals—chocolate cake and beer . . . ummmmmmmm, good. Maybe not as good as donuts and beer, but a darn close second!!!!
Perhaps my favorite comment of the day came from SDMGC member Mark Fowler and his girlfriend. Mark told me it was “The best thing we’ve ever done!” My comment back to them was “Maybe you need to get out more!!!!!!!!!”
