Weekend's Agenda

Here's a brief timeline of the events of the weekend: Friday Evening: Arrival, check into hotels. Meet and hang out at Snappers Saloon & Raw Bar. This place is owned by Robyn and her husband (organized previous East Coast Gatherings). We met there for while, then after we had a bunch of people, decided to go to Mulligans for some dinner. Went over there for a while. Saturday Morning: 9:00am - ~3:00pm Met at Hooters at 123rd Street. Packed the parking lot! Completely! Signed in, hung around, checked out all the cars, met people, chatted, at lunch, wandered around and took pictures, voted for favorite cars, etc. Saturday Afternoon: 3:00pm - 5:00pm Afternoon cruise around the area. Regrouped at Hooters at 3:00. All (all that were there) drove out to the boat launch we've taken over the past few years, and once again took it over. Big group shots. I did individual owner shots. Smoke shows. Hung out and chatted some more, took more pictures. Saturday Evening: 7:00pm - The Embers Restaurant That humongulicious all-you-can-eat buffet! Blew me away when I walked in late to find the entire dining room we had was full! Awesome! Ate, did door prizes, and awards. Congratulations to all winners! After dinner, people went their own ways, some went out, some just hung out, whatever. Sunday Morning: ~9:30am - 11:00am - Halls Restaurant. Another all-you-can-eat buffet place. Bunch of us met for breakfast. Some arrived that weren't able to make it Saturday. Next year perhaps I should also make special arrangements with them... Good big breakfast before the long, but very easy-going, day ahead. Sunday Afternoon: Cruise through Assateague Park As in the past, we caravaned out to the big park on the beach for a few last pictures. Have over 20 cars there this year. Cool! Good time recollecting the good times of the weekend had by all. Many laughs, changing a lightbulb before the trek home, and bid farewells. Stories: SEND ME YOURS!!! Below I hope to accumulate some stories, memories, thoughts, etc, from the weekend. I've written my detailed account to start things off and give folks an idea of the fun that was had. Send me your thoughts to be added here!!

Viewpoint of Eric Bowden, organizer

We Came. We Saw. We Conquered Ocean City!!!! And the SUN was there all the way! WOO-HOO!!! Well, folks, I finally dug out the ole laptop and did a final tally of who came and who didn't (ya bums! :-) We topped 80+ cars and about 150 people! Not to mention a special showing of a Ferarri 512 Testarosa, Red Viper, and Yellow Prowler. But enough about those little cars.... From my standpoint as organizer, I had a totaly blast! The ride up and back down (I went up to NYC and then down with the New England Caravan, wouldn't miss the blaze down the Jersey Turnpike!) was awesome. I topped a buck thirty at one point on the Pike. But I didn't say that... :-) And we, well Brad did anyway, got a "warning" from a trooper when we stopped at the southern rest stop - he said we couldn't travel in packs. Yeah right. Show me that one on paper..... Anyway, we continued on, and stopped to regroup at the toll booth. I double-checked the map and saw we were to get off at 13 south, right after the Delaware Mem Bridge. Weeeeeelllll.... Despite my completely emphasizing the exit, out of the 11 cars in the NE Caravan, a grand total of FOUR made the exit off of 95 onto 13 south. Hellooooo?!?! I still had radio contact with a couple cars so I whipped the map back out and radio'd the next exit to hook back up with the road we were on. Last I knew, the directions were received. Well, Jimmy had his GPS so those with him would be alright. Ultimately, we actually ended up in 3 groups. The 4 of us drove about 15-20 miles and pulled off for a pit stop. We were there about 15 minutes, and when I came out of the store, I saw that Honda Accord Wagon I had been looking for way back at Vince Lombardi. Thus we met Hal. He said he was driving by and saw the cars lined up and pulled in. Good call! We were just about to pack up and keep going with 3 more of us pulled in. Cool! So we waited a few more minutes then headed back out into the REALLY thick traffic headed south on what seemed to be the only road going that direction. We drove along for about another half hour or so, and I started hearing voices over the radio. "Max! Is that you!?" Not sure what route they took, but Max and the other 3 cars with him managed to rendezvous with us, so we slowed down a bit and let them catch up. Wow! FINALLY all back together. Somewhere through this stretch, a Ferarri 512 Testarossa hooked up with us for a few miles. Max made a jump and nearly took the guy off the road! Oops! Had a Bronco try to screw with us all on the highway. Get a life! Rest of the trip was pretty uineventful, the usual antics of driving in a big group of 3S's   :-o   Anyway, we crossed Nav's favorite bridge - the [big] Assawoman Bay Bridge (hahaha). That one always makes me laugh. Everyone got checked into their hotels. Turns out most of us were in the Hampton. Man, that lot had a lot of cars! Then we headed down to Snappers to greet everyone down there and grab a beer. Ran into a bunch of people, including (holy surprise) Chuck Monfradi! (folks from previous gatherings might remember him, had a red 92 VR-4). He was just in town on vacation and had no idea it was Gathering weekend! Was great to see him again. Some folks were hungry so we rounded everyone up and headed over to Mulligans to get some dinner. Took over their back room, probably about 30+ of us in there. I met Victor there. He is a VR-4 owner but brought his Mirage - with an Eclipse GS-T engine in it! Kinda funny! We swapped cars and I drove that back to Snappers afterwards, and he drove my car. Man that little thing flew! But it desperately needed springs, shifting between 1st and 2nd on a punch-it-launch, you'd crack your teeth on the steering wheel! Funny! But fun to drive. Not a VR-4, but fun. We went up to Snappers, swapped cars back, and it was way late (early) so I just headed back to the hotel. I couldn't believe when I pulled into the parking lot and got a first look at the number of cars that were there! There must have been at least 50 in the Hampton lot alone!! Stood around and chatted with a few folks then headed up to the room. So the next morning I got up, readied, and headed down to Hooters. A couple other's pulled in the same time I did. I managed to get in and find someone and get a couple tables to set up so I had a place for signing people in. Then everyone started showing up. I spent pretty much the whole morning signing people in, telling everyone about their pasket they were getting, and spent most of my time trying to find that damn mouse pointer on the screen! Talk about driving blind! Next year I'll bring a box cut out to shield the screen from the sun... By the time I got the chance to look up and around, the parking lot was chock full of cars and people! Wow!! What a turnout! Well, it was getting close to time to go to the wedding at noon. Lotter had stopped by and reminded me of the time, and told me where the church was - 4th street. I was still signing people in. Hal took a couple people down there, and said he'd come back to give me a ride down - my car was totally blocked in. Next thing I know, it's noon! And no Hal! They left me!! Kash says he'll watch my stuff while I go down there. Great! Only thing is I have no way of getting down there - can I use your car? SO Kash let me use his "F117A" Yellow 94 Twin Turbo to get down there. Man that's a fun car! Outside of official vehicles I probably made it down that 120 streets faster than anyone else in history! Glad I didn't encounter any cops! That car sounds awesome with it's exhuast! Anyway, made it, but they had already started so I snuck in. Great little ceremony! Congratulations Eric and Melissa! After the wedding, we all headed back up to Hooters. Bout that time, people we heading in for lunch. Some people were getting their cars out and going elsewhere. People started asking what was next on the agenda. Well, be here at 3:00 and we'll go for a cruise. I wandered around a little, took some pictures, then went in and ate. Came back out, took some more pictures. Once 3:00 rolled around, we all grouped together, and those that were there, all headed out to the boat launch we had taken over in previous years. Some 45 cars trained out there and all lined up in formation. Wow, had to take a bunch of pics just to get them all in! I took individual shots of each owner and their cars. Max and Mark put on a little smoke show. I spared my tires this year, as they aren't ready to retire just yet.... People started leaving the boat launch for other things. About 7 or 8 cars were left just hanging around talking, cars were all parked, when a cop pulls in and tells us to leave. Oh well, we were leaving anyway. I headed back to the hotel. Had lots of votes to tally. Jimmy, Andy, Nav, and myself spent two solid hours tallying scores! WOW! That took longer that I had anticipated! Thanks guys! Once we got those done, we headed down to The Embers - over an hour late! Unloaded all thedoor prize stuff, trophies, etc, and headed in. When I first walked in to the dining room we were supposed to be in, I just kinda stopped, and my jaw hit the floor! I looked around, thinking 'oh my god, is this really all us?' I was looking for familiar faces - and saw many! I actually asked some people - "Is this really all us?" I couldn't believe it! We FILLED the ENTIRE dining room! We only HALF filled it the previous year! Holy smokes!!! Still in a state of almost shock, found a table I could use for putting trophies and stuff on, and got set up. It was then that I found out how the payments were going to work... Oh boy... Made a few announcements, and started doing the door prizes and awards. That probably took 45 minutes or so. Then had to collect all the money to cover our dinner. Almost $3000! We actually came out a little biut short of what thet said we owed them, but I sat down with Pat McArdle and we worked things out. Awesome! After that, the few of us that came in really late, sat down and ate something outselves. Thanks Pat for everything!!! After dinner, the bunch of us that were together were pretty exhuasted. I was toasted from sitting in the sun for 5 hours, and drained from the same, plus a whole day of fun! So bunch of us just gathered in our room and chilled out, got some beers and watch the tube and chatted, recanting the day we'd just experienced. Very relaxing just hanging out with friends. Sunday morning we met at Halls Restaurant for their breakfast buffet at about 9:30. More good food! Some folks left from Halls for a track in NJ. Hope y'all whooped some ass! :-) We headed outta there at about 11:00 for a cruise out to Assateague Park. Hung out there for about an hour or so, then it was time to bid farewells and hit the highways home. I ended up driving thru to VA with the Bells, and realized that my driver front strut was shot. I've ordered two front ones and they go on tomorrow. All in all, it was an awesome weekend, and as far as I'm concerened, a tremendous success. The weather held out for us, we got a record number of cars (again), and people seemed to have had a great time. Thanks everyone for coming!!! Next year we HAVE to break 100 cars! It'll be bigger and better than ever! Until then....... Eric "SUTHNR" Bowden

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Send me your thoughts, stories, memories, suggestions, whatever, from the weekend! Send me your thoughts to be added here!!

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