[s-cars] //SFest '04 recap - longish

[Krasusky Paul (WQQ2PXK)]

Morning-

Seems a post //SFest reality-check-Monday is upon us once again...  a time
to reflect upon yet another successful weekend of silliness.  A weekend that
seems to somehow have topped both the last years' events, combined I'd say.
Not from things I did, but from you who came.  You who came not only from
all of New England, but from New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Virginia,
Ohio, Illinois, Michigan... and you who came from Toronto, Montreal, and
Quebec City.  You're all beyond INSANE!!!  I love it.

Summer hadn't really hit here in CT yet this year.  Whatever hotness had
accumulated from not happening all year certainly came all at once for
Saturday's //SFest 2004.  Sunny & humid was better than rain, and provided
more thirst for the fine barrels we had yet again this year.  Hmmm...  now I
realize a good thing to have would have been a slip and slide down the front
field.  

Jeff Postupack & Son arrived @ my place 9 p.m. Friday, and Car-azzzzzzzy
Keith Maddock landed at 11:30...  all the way from Michigan.  Midnight?
Time for car washes!  We departed first thing a.m. and began the 40 mile
blast over to the //SFest site, tight patterned fighterplane style
butofcourse.  Early morning drive, little traffic, and twisty roads.
Halfway there Super Keith Maddock managed to drag his belly pan by one Dzus
fastener... at 130 d'oh.  Then I mulched a squirrel upon approaching the
//SFest driveway.  We arrive to find Silly Billy Baloney Mahoney installing
an //SFest sign to mark the driveway.  HA!  That red Avant DOES exist
afterall!  He'd driven all the way from Chicago to his sister's in CT and
retrieved one of the signs he ganked from last years' event.  Score!
Seconds later, Zolie from CT and Jim Pasqualoni from Maine streamed in to
help out, Zolie with pounds of coffee for us to brew and donuts, Jim with
beans to ensure sufficient outhouse usage.

//SFest 2004 has officially begun.  

Bys and Rossato were ready and waiting, and Jeff began to dispense this
year's //SFest trinket, a stopwatch with the event logo screened on it for
the first 50 arrivals.  We tackled set up and parked the first cars.  Within
an hour there were a good dozen sprawled around.  

11:00, kick off time, off to a manageable start.  Boy did that change by
noon, starting with WHAT THE Farque is THAT I hear ripping through the
atmosphere!????!  Ah ha...  Rossato and his local friend Steve had headed 1
mi. to Steve's place and picked up his pair of matching Coupe GT FULL track
cars (after he'd already brought over his purty '60 MGA).  All I know is I
heard them banging simultaneous downshifts into the driveway (over 1/4 mile
away) as I was PARKING a car.  Awesome.  Like a pair of very pissed off
bees, certainly a highlight of the day for me.

By 1:00 the roof blew off the place!  I managed to park the cars as they
came and log jams were averted.  But I never calculated we'd hit ~ 35 UrS
cars, holy crap!  Ran out of room to park them contiguously, oh well.  At
1:00 the party was firmly established.  The 16 acre site accommodated the
layout in perfect manner, the display was quite the spectacle to behold.
The grille was fired up and lunch was enjoyed where ever one could muster
some much needed shade.  Spaten and Dogfish Head 60 minute IPA were the beer
menu for this year...  along with so very many individual coolers full of
spectacular Belgian ales you all brought.  YUMMY!

Pizzo finally shows up...  in his EVO!  Ah ha, it too does exist, and
looking damn good at that.  Taka is soon there too, but again sans Audi.
His dad's V70R added some nice diversity, but you're now last to prove you
actually HAVE a car Taka.  Dave Brown opts not to bring his pretty red S6 in
favor of arriving in his ohsosexy E36 ///M3 cabriolet.  Damn I love that
car, thanks for making the right decision Dave.

2:00 comes and gee, what is that alluring buzz???  That my friends would be
the sound of 32 Italian cylinders creeping up the driveway...  my client Bob
Rohrs was generous enough for him & his wife and son to drive over his F550
Maranello, F355 Spider Fiorano, and his 250GTL Lusso for the Festers to
optically violate.  Schwing!  The two 12's and the V8 took front and center
field for all to soak in.  

The day is growing nuttier as we speak, and appears to take on an aurora of
"//S Stock"...  lots of love going on here, such cool people, such cool
machinery, such demented, warped, and twisted individuals!  Getting sillier.
Lots of new faces, and most of the typical fools.  Excellent.

By 2:00, Pizzo had enough beers (2.5?) to make the mistake of letting others
(who had not yet beer'd it up of course) flog that race car Evo of his.
Including yours truly.  WHOAMOMMA is that thing stupidly sinister.  Looks
like the Batmobile...  I'd call Pizzo "Batman" if I didn't know that that
head of his would never fit into the Batmask.  Best part was hearing others
take off down the road in it, a finely tuned race car to say the least, did
everything including SOUND perfect.  I'm told the Festers could hear it
during 'most' of my outing in it, and we were gone a good 10 minutes
muwhahahahahahaa.  If Pizzo is the Listbitch than his Evo was SFestbitch as
that thing saw more turns than a door knob...  a regular WRC amusement ride
methinks...

The raffle began ~ 4:00 with some generous and enticing prizes this year.
Mihnea Cotet donated a personal tuning session, Ronal Wheels USA a $500 gift
certificate, Stromung a $250 gift certificate, a sport steering wheel from
Shokan, some Euro tail light corners and 6 spd knob from Alexander Van
Gerbig of Europrice fame, a set of RS2 badges from Jim Pasqualoni, a pollen
filter from Jeff Posto, some beautiful poster prints from the Speed GT RS6
race @ Lime Rock from Memorial Day from Neil Swanson, and the boobie prize
was a pair of my Homo Cheapo Frankenliner supplies.  Rossato had won the
Stromung prize and was generous enough to allow a redraw as he already has
one (artistically mounted above his couch on his wall at home), Rich
Assarabowski's son Adam won the redraw.  Little does Tom Pollock realize but
he won the sport wheel soon after his early departure.  Rich A. won the knob
and a Frankenliner (sucker), beyond that the rest is a blur and others can
embellish maybe.

Ah, all the 'work' is done, time for me to have more than my 3rd beer and
enjoy myself.  The sun finally set a bit and provided some relief.  Getting
dark, time for Xenon light displays.  Briefly though, as my car is then
whisked away by Serge Filanovsky.  Comes back after being beaten to within 2
inches of it's life...  lifters ticking, clutch smoking (literally), and
manifold glowing brighter than the sun had been earlier.  Gee thanks!  I'm
not mad as I acknowledge such abuse is made obligatory by the nature of the
setup, yes of course.  And it's payback I suppose for me knocking Pizzo's
dipstick out and covering his engine in oil during my flog.

Nightfall arrives...  time for a raging bonfire!  Thank Posto's boyscout son
and friend, and my ex-boyscout-current-pyromaniac brother for lighting and
maintaining a solid 6 footer.  Too bad the barrels were faaaaar to heavy and
far away to bother moving to the fire.  9:30 and so very many people still
Festing.  Fire up the grille again boys.  Nice.  11:00, still tons of
people, things getting foggy.  12:30...  damn, look around, tons of people.
Sweet!  And what better time to oh, fire up the grille.  1:00...  who is
that passed out in his chair with a hotdog balanced on his upper lip
anyway?!?!??!???  OK, I do know...  others will certainly be more exposing.


It's 2:30, and there have got to be a dozen cars around.  And lots 'o tents!
The last bunch of us pull the plug.

I'm awoken Sun. 6:30 not only to sunrise, but to lots of voices...  most are
already awake.  Those who weren't were then awaken to the VERY loud sound of
a roll of packaging tape being rapidly unwound and adhered all around the
outhouse...  and to the subsequent pleas from Pizzo begging for them to stop
and to free him.  Hilarity at it's best.  7:30 and the garbage is organized.
Super Keith, Baloney, and Uncle Bob Pastore hit the road, with Bob going
straight to Watkins Glen for today's event (bastage).  Make sure you rub it
in to that schlep Tomlinson when you get there eh?  We tear down the tents,
pack the cars, and witness a true "leave no trace" party scene.  Bys is
thrilled at the respect paid to the venue.  Paul Dooley hits the road to
Pittsburg, Tim Leonard to Michigan, Vincent Fregeac to Quebec City, James
Murray to Montreal, Posto to NH, and the NY trio of fools stream out.  Well,
the NY fools depart AFTER Emre popstarts his car, guess HID x3 isn't
designed to be left ON all night???  

Suddenly there's silence.  Bys & Rossato comment that the silence evokes a
bizarre and sudden feeling of loneliness...  the Festing had become
addictive.  I nod and agree, yes, it is truly a weird phenomena...  //SFest
provides a Euphoria that has officially departed, and the work week is back
staring us in the face.

Please join me with a gigantic THANK YOU to Orest Bystrianyk for hosting.
Thanks also to Jeff Posto and Bob Rossato for being my left and right hands
and working their tails off before, during, and after this event.  Doing so
allowed me to circulate a bit more, though still wish I got to talk to more
of you in greater detail, oh well.  We're also hugely thankful to all of the
donors to our raffle, very much appreciated.  Also thanks to Rich
Assarabowski & Tom Mullane for shooting so many good pics.  Oh, and don't
forget the man that fed us all...  my father in law Bill Weingartner manned
that hot grille during outrageous heat!  My apologies if I'm forgetting
ANYone else here?

Oddly enough, Bys was commenting by 5:00 Sat. that "next year you guys can
do this and this and this".  As always, I retort "NEXT YEAR!?!??!???"...
again...  who knows.  I said last year it would be hard to top that.  After
birthing now 3 of these, it's time for my wife to birth our 2nd... and 3rd
kids, due in December.  Complicates things just a tad for me.  But now
whoops look what we went and did, //SFest '04 by all accounts so far was an
enormous hit.  

I leave you with last year's parting words...  stay tuned to //S-cars.org
and the //S-list for further info.  You never know...

-Paul going to be a bit blurry for at least a few more days K.
CT home of //S Stock
'95 //S6 rolling parts hoar