NJ/PA Spirited Drive: Sunday November 15th

[Carbuff]

The Lotus Enthusiast's Organization (aka LEO) has firmed up its plans for it's final event of the season, our Spirited Drive on Sunday, November 15.

Once again, LEO supporter William Thomas Roadsters will host the beginning of the Drive. Meet at WTR, 269 Everittsville Rd (Route 513), Frenchtown, NJ, at 10:30 AM for coffee and crumpets. Bill Thomas will show us the latest Sector111 bits for Elises and show off his recently-aquired Caterham.

Then at noon we embark on a twisty backroad journey through western NJ, with a stop at Columcille, the Stonehenge of Pennsylvania. You have to see this to believe it! Our final destination is the Glacier House Restaurant in Saylorsburg, PA, about 3:00 PM, where we will have a nice dinner overlooking the lake, under the watchful eye of Matthew Conrad, eatery and Elise owner.

Feel free to join us for the whole day, or any part of it, as your schedule permits. Just let me know what your intentions are so we can properly plan. Send an PM to me (Atwell) or call 973-927-3765 evenings.

We already have seven cars signed up for the day! :driving:

[Boxologist]

I'll be tenatively in.

[Carbuff]

I'll be tenatively in.

Great, haven't seen you in a while.

If the weather is poor, bring your daily driver. It'll still be fun.

WTR promises us genuine fresh-baked crumpets at the start! :drool: No doubt that's why we have TEN folks intending to join us already! :seeya:

[WTR]

I hope to see many Sevens at this event!! It will be a great drive for sure!

[Croc]

Count me in.

Hopefully it is not as wet as my last drive out in Milford/Frenchtown area!

I also just saw an email from Ron with the vauxhall powered Seven saying he plans to attend.


Can we rustle up Bruce, Jack and Steve (S1) and make a healthy Seven team for this event?

[BruceBowker]

It only rained after the drive. Not my fault!

Wish I could go along on this drive.

Bruce

[S1Steve]

Thanks for the invite, I'll have to see what comes up as it gets closer. WTR would be cool to see. I'll pack the top this time, and I know Croc has his brake lights in working order, LOL. And it would be nice to see everyone.

[Carbuff]

It only rained after the drive. Not my fault!


Bruce

Here's what kept the rain away from NJ Motorsports Park (our Lotus/Audi Clubs' Track Day) this weekend:

Every time I felt a drop, I held my "bumbershoot" up to the Sky and bellowed:

I HAVE AN UMBRELLA!

It worked! The entire east coast from DC up to Boston got 2" + of rain over the weekend...EXCEPT FOR Millville, NJ!!!!


:devil:

(An umbrella is smaller than a Seven top, isn't it? Just don't open it at speeds over 40 MPH...) :willy_nilly:

[Carbuff]

HeadCount:

Always one of our most popular events, this year's Spirited Drive is no exception!

We presently have 30 folks who have RSVPd. That's about 26 cars...Esprits, Elises, Europas, 4 Sevens!...the whole gamut.
:party:

Weather forecast is good: No rain, high temp in the 60s.

See you there!
:hurray:

[S1Steve]

Today we had a blast with the N.J. Lotus club. Big Thanks to Atwell and Bill Thomas Roadsters. Croc, Box, Jen and Jack and myself enjoyed a great day. And Yes, It was Spirited. Not many photo's from me, I drove solo today !!!! No Al ????

[Croc]

It was great to see everybody at the Lotus Enthusiasts Organization (LEO) of NJ and NY Spirited Drive today. Big thanks to Atwell and Bill Thomas (and his lovely wife) for hosting. It was good to see Steve, Jack, Jen, Jon (Box) again. Ron K joined us for his first LEO event with his new Seven. It was great to see Alan and Kathy turn up in their Seven for an appearance. Al was sadly missed!

Box's car decided to misbehave so he was navigator duties with me - a role that was sorely needed after the spirited drive.

Starting off it was at Bill's place to redecorate the lawn and generally accessorize his nice collection of Augusta bikes, Seven, TR2 and TR4 amongst many things.

Seven's left to right, mine, Jack's and Ron K

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a354/mjohnson555/seats/Spirited%20Drive%20Nov%202009/DSC_2786_edited-1.jpg

This is Bill's very nice and new to him anniversary edition.

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a354/mjohnson555/seats/Spirited%20Drive%20Nov%202009/DSC_2788_edited-1.jpg

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a354/mjohnson555/seats/Spirited%20Drive%20Nov%202009/DSC_2798_edited-1.jpg

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a354/mjohnson555/seats/Spirited%20Drive%20Nov%202009/DSC_2797_edited-1.jpg

[Croc]

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a354/mjohnson555/seats/Spirited%20Drive%20Nov%202009/DSC_2791_edited-1.jpg

Engine bay of the Europa
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a354/mjohnson555/seats/Spirited%20Drive%20Nov%202009/DSC_2793_edited-1.jpg
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a354/mjohnson555/seats/Spirited%20Drive%20Nov%202009/DSC_2796_edited-1.jpg

Four DeLorean's came along.
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a354/mjohnson555/seats/Spirited%20Drive%20Nov%202009/DSC_2794_edited-1.jpg

[Carbuff]

No. No Al N, I wish he had stopped by. Not like he lives really far way! :grouphug:

We had over 40 cars at William Thomas Roadsters. Bill's Caterham is a nice one, yes?

It was a monumental task, herding 40 cars through all the little hamlets, but when it was time to open up the throttle, we got going pretty well.

Pictures after I "decompress"

[Croc]

Bill's very nice TR4
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a354/mjohnson555/seats/Spirited%20Drive%20Nov%202009/DSC_2790_edited-1.jpg

Alan and Kathy's nice BRG Seven
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a354/mjohnson555/seats/Spirited%20Drive%20Nov%202009/DSC_2789_edited-1.jpg

There was also a nice smattering of Corvettes, a turbo supra, Porsche, including a very nice GT3.
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a354/mjohnson555/seats/Spirited%20Drive%20Nov%202009/DSC_2787_edited-1.jpg


The drive took us over western NJ into PA and along some great backroads. I will be doing the route again at some point - very scenic. Entertainingly, Steve did not want to follow me because of my brake light failure last time. So he followed Ron who decided to have brake light failure just to liven up Steve's life.

Even more amusing (because it luckily ended without harm) was hearing of Steve arriving over a crest to find a sudden 90 degree left hander. I hear there was more than 1 set of skidmarks left behind - nothing the laundry cannot fix.

We took a break at Columcille Megalith Park http://www.columcille.org/ (http://www.columcille.org/)

This is where Jack and Jen took their leave and headed off to what they thought would be an easy drive home.
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a354/mjohnson555/seats/Spirited%20Drive%20Nov%202009/DSC_2799_edited-1.jpg

We made it to the Glacier House restaurant and thought we would get an early start home....oh dear. We hit I-80 and promptly hit a jam around the Delaware Water Gap. After sitting for 15 mins I decided to call 511 to find that I-80 was fully closed due to a tractor trailer overturned.

At this point Jon appealed to my worst instincts, so it was a U-turn on a muddy track across the median strip to reverse direction on I-80. It was mud everywhere as I did what you do with little traction! Oops. So we found ourselves off I-80 and then got a call from Jack saying don’t go on I-80. He was still stuck on there - maybe 2 miles ahead of where I did my muddy u-turn. So much for him and Jen leaving early.

Then began the second spirited drive of the day - in the dark. The GPS batteries died so we relied on Google maps on my blackberry to navigate. It was back roads to Rt 46 and then finding too much traffic, more back roads to Rt 209. Despite the dark slowing us down the roads were brilliant - I have no idea where we were (and I do not think Jon did either!) but the twisting roads were brilliant. There was even a 5mph limit section! So our driving detour gets us back on to I-80 much further down the road. So who do we see as we enter the highway - a pickup with car trailer that had been next to us when we did the muddy u-turn - go figure!

All thanks to Jon for navigating me home.

[Boxologist]

Lovely weather at the end of the weekend made up for the lousy friday and saturday. Bill Thomas was an excellent host and many thanks to Atwell for organizing today. Great seeing jack, jen, Mike, and Steve again, plus meeting Ron.

The scheduled drive should definitely be fun a second time, and I plan to look and see if i can recreate the detour that Mike and I took. His Crackberry really saved the day with the delay on 80. My GPS' final gesture was to get 3 cars righted correctly northbound on 209!

[BruceBowker]

Sure wish I could have been there.

Bruce

[WTR]

Quite a turnout!! Nice to see 5 Sevens in one place. We couldn't have asked for better weather.

[Al Navarro]

Alas, I think I had mentioned I was tied up with a church fundraiser...I saw Alan & Kathy headed to the event (and a number of Elises/Deloreans) coming over from Clinton area on 513 when I was on my 3rd of 4 runs to Shop-Rite for the weekend. I'll make it to Bill's gathering eventually. As noted, he's about 2 miles from my house as the crow flies, if that. Glad several of the Se7en faithful made it out.

[S1Steve]

Next up on my list to follow is Jack !!!!!! LOL

[Boxologist]

and Snake Bit starts up today and gets driven into work.

unbeleivable.:toetap05:

[DeanG]

Wow, it looks like another great LEO event is in the books.

[Al Navarro]

I look forward to rejoining the hijinks at some point in 2010. That's Bruce Wnuk's blue Europa, right? Great guy and very nice car.

Regarding "spirited drives", I can remember a moment on the Tail of the Dragon following someone and approaching lockup at a very high rate of speed. Fortunately, it was on one of our early AM drives and Laura was not a passenger. FWIW, I have found following Stalkers the easiest...I don't think those guys ever hit the brakes! :-)

Oh, you guys were up that far North?!? There is a great road between that area and New York...the one that goes to Dingman's Ferry. I drove it in the DD enroute to Monticello Motor Club a few weeks ago.

[Boxologist]

Next up on my list to follow is Jack !!!!!! LOL

uh oh. jack won't like knowing he's to be cursed. maybe u follow me instead?

[Kitcat]

Looks like as great event. I love the Anniversary edition Caterham. Great pics of all the other cars too.

Loved the story of the trip home Croc. Reminds me of some of my misadventures in my Se7en. Except you didn't break down in the middle of nowhere. Keep trying, eventually you will get the authentic Se7en experience:). Jon was close, but he broke down before he left!

Mike

[Croc]

Next up on my list to follow is Jack !!!!!! LOL

LOL... How did he end up across the road like that! Looks close to bottoming out - something John and I discovered twice over some humps.


and Snake Bit starts up today and gets driven into work. unbeleivable.

Lucas Prince of Darkness strikes again. I think you need to exorcise the demons that possess your car. Either that or your car is a chick and you need to spend more on her to make her feel wanted and happy again :) Give her a good servicing. I am very lucky the way it turned out on Sunday - I had a very experienced navigator to get me happily lost on great twisting roads at night.

uh oh. jack won't like knowing he's to be cursed. maybe u follow me instead?

LOL...assuming you start? :D

That's Bruce Wnuk's blue Europa, right? Great guy and very nice car. Oh, you guys were up that far North?!? There is a great road between that area and New York...the one that goes to Dingman's Ferry.


Not sure of his last name but I am sure that was him. It was a lovely car :drool:and very nice guy to talk with. I want to have a CD soundtrack of the engine sound.

The drive was a good route - I definitely want to go back and do it again. When Bruce is back in town we can do a Sevens only run along the same roads.

[jlbtrans1]

Next up on my list to follow is Jack !!!!!! LOL

Jack is going to get a rollbar brake light & wire it on a separate fuse & brake switch with all these cursed brake light issues..............LOL

I will post some pics shortly.

[jlbtrans1]

I would like to thank Bill and Atwell for a great gathering and an extremely fun filled drive. It was great seeing Mike, Jon and Steve again as well as meeting Ron. The variety of cars was a beautiful site as well as a great mix. I personally think I'm in love with the Elise now, but my first Lotus love will be Jack's Caterham.

Ron, what a beautiful 7. Hope you enjoy it as much as Jack and I have enjoyed it.


Jen

[11Budlite]

Thanks for all the photos and the write-up, that looked like a fun time!

I picked up a Gerbing jacket liner and temp controller in anticipation of driving to NJ on Sunday morning to check out WTR and go along for part of the drive. Unfortunately as soon as the jacket started heating up, the clutch started acting up and I wasn't able to make it. :banghead:

Oh well, hopefully you'll do it again next year...

[Boxologist]

meeting up in the AM
http://inlinethumb05.webshots.com/29124/2370033290099946657S600x600Q85.jpg (http://rides.webshots.com/photo/2370033290099946657iMtXGR)
steve needs a picture
http://inlinethumb02.webshots.com/25281/2342510320099946657S600x600Q85.jpg (http://rides.webshots.com/photo/2342510320099946657UHvtvL)


how we avoided some traffic
http://inlinethumb07.webshots.com/42950/2513758300099946657S600x600Q85.jpg (http://rides.webshots.com/photo/2513758300099946657ecqFJs)
http://inlinethumb57.webshots.com/23480/2287029630099946657S600x600Q85.jpg (http://rides.webshots.com/photo/2287029630099946657TVWngi)