Tom: I thought the idea of the tour was to encourage the use of the car? How are they going to do that if there is no insentive to participating? Do you think the tour will eventually die out because the PB participants will not want to go through the hassle of cleaning the car from the drive? Your thoughts are appreciated. I've been attending for the last 5 or so years in a row (not much compared to you and others), but I do enjoy seeing the cars on the tour and then at the lawn at PB. Loosing the tour would be a bad thing. Thanks. Alberto
Pebble Beach intends to continue the tour, best of my knowledge. Because it was a tie breaker in Ferrari, (1 Pt in other classes) it became over subscribed and became difficult for downtown Carmel at the lunch stop, on Ocean Ave to accomodate all the cars and spectators. By removing this bonus, they hoped the tour entrants would diminish somewhat. From the looks of things this year, and I was on Ocean Ave at this time, not hearsay, it was clearly "WISHFUL THINKING"
Make the tour even longer. That might get some people to drop out. The past 3 years, I have made a point to be in Carmel on Thurs by noon, to see the wonderful cars. Last year we stopped in a turnout on Hwy1 to regroup and were treated with the entire tour passing us by. It was such an awesome visual and auditory treat. I was visualizing a time when that road was brand new and so were a lot of those cars. Erich
Thirty years ago when I started going to the "Monterey Weekend" one of the things I enjoyed the most was that a lot of guys would drive their cars there. So it was not uncommon to see a 250 Cal Spyder on the road or a Carrera Speedster or maybe a 300 Sl Gullwing etc... Sadly as things have become more crowded and hectic, issues such as parking your vintage car, have put a real damper on that sort of thing. There are far fewer people willing to drive thier cars and instead have them delivered. I would like to see some of the venues provide special parking for vintage cars and the Concours events award a few points to cars that are driven over that weekend. Otherwise the succes of these events will be its demise. Just my thoughts, Mark
A 100 point Dino (or any 100+ production Ferrari) makes no sense. This car will never be accepted to Pebble. It need only be 95+ to win platinum at an FCA event. A friend spent a week detailing his original 330GTC and won platinum last Aug at Concorso Italiano. He drives and enjoys this car often. It also helped that he had a buddy, who judges the Daytona class, help him take care of things that judges look for! Needless to say, he was very surprised and pleased he did so well. He, like many of us, were under the impression that the cars had to be restored to within an inch of their life to win platinum. So go out there and enjoy the dynamic qualities of your mobile sculptures fer keerist sake! -steve
I know all parties to this. No 'buy' was involved. BTW: many of us still do drive our cars to Monterey. I regularly take my Gullwing and 275 gts with much pleasure. For me its the driving and being with friends that it the true reward. No trophies needed!
