The thing about being connected to a web of vintage car and bike guys is that on any given day you can get a call summoning you to a compelling event or barn hunt or speculative excursion to find out what is under a blue tarp 60 miles away, or to drink a beer and swap lies. And so it was that I came to go to Pocono International Racetrack. Sometimes, you just forget about one of the many upcoming excursions, and this one snuck up on me after Ed reminded me about it. A group of German car guys were going to have an informal gathering and a meander to Pocono.

A few years ago I had done something similar, and about 14 guys in an interesting array of vehicles had coffee, went for a spirited 3 hour ride, and returned to have lunch and shoot the breeze. It was a great outing, and we vowed to repeat it the following year. The thing is, these things take some time effort and organization in order to be successful, and there has been very little time.

It was a beautiful day, but the beginning was ominous. I had an appointment in the morning, and family committments late in the afternoon. There was a 4 hour block of time in which this excursion would need to occur (cue the mission impossible music). I was going to take the 911 Targa, but I remembered the high speed wobble in the passenger front wheel that I was going to attend to this past winter and didn’t. Then I said great, I’ll take the 911 Coupe.

It had a glowing generator light which I knew about, but worse, it had a dead battery despite being on the trickle charger.

Great, something else to make sure I got around to. That left old faithful my 1972 BMW 2002tii. It started immediately, and I was off having consumed 30 minutes of the window.

The group had met in the morning and then headed to Pocono for the SCCA vintage event. My plan was to meet them at the track and hang out for an hour or so and head back. The tii feels solid as a rock, but it loves to run, and with the urethane bushings, slightly lowered springs, and bilsteins, it handles great too. I needed to make up time getting there, and I did. This may have been a record to the track from the house. Bewildered motorists did a doubletake as I covered great distance relative to time, if you know what I mean. This sedan is amazingly competent even today.

At the event, the eclectic group had an eclectic group of cars. A Triumph TR, a Porsche 911SC, and Porsche 944, an Opel Commander, a Corvette, a BMW 525i, a Mercedes C class. My kind of group. Running at the event though were an equally impressive group of cars. Several Porsche 356s, a flock of lotus open wheel cars, a couple of old Alfa Romeos, A few nice Healeys, a couple of MGs a couple of Minis, a Daimler, a Volvo, and a few cars that I had never seen outside of books and magazines.

The first was a beautiful dove gray HRG with an Offenhauser motor installed. It was almost too nice to flog around a track, but the owner did just that. The second was a Peerless. I had seen one before at Limerock, but this was a 2 liter GT up close, and it looked stunning. The last car was a Morgan with a front mounted twin engine and….wait for it….4 wheels! This one is worth its own post at some point.

It is very easy under these circumstances to lose track of time, and I did. This of course required another blistering run down the back way and back to the house. Once home, I slipped out of my secret agent gear, and sauntered in from the garage as if nothing had happened. Not shaken, but certainly stirred….

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