[urq] UPG 05 Report (long)

[Brandon Rogers]

Guys-
Well I must say- it was incredible to meet all you guys.  Worth every mile! 

Dennis and I hit the road Thursday morning about 6:30 AM.  In Kansas we hit _very_ thick fog.  Reminded me of when I arrived in Monterey '99 for the Auto Union Historics...The fog lasted about an hour.  Eventually, at about midnight Denver time we stopped in Indianapolis for the night, 1179 miles.  I called Nathan Englebert when we checked in because he said call anytime.  Oops it was 1:40 AM his time.

Wednesday - we hit the road and met up with Nathan in Dayton.  Ohio cops were everywhere and the roads were horrible.  There was clearly a Trans Am/ Camaro event happening as we saw quite a few old-school cars - including what looked like a mint black Firebird Trans Am complete with all the gold decals.  We joked how it would be funny to show up at UPG with vinyl (removable) eagle graphics and such on the hood of the urq.  After a slow start we started making some time in PA.  I-80 was a beautiful drive.  Poor Nathan, who was following, had to put up with my erratic slow fast faster slow driving.  Sorry Nathan.  We finally hit CT around 11 PM and went straight to the self storage to pick up Dennis' car - but they were closed.

Saturday morning - Christmas! - we went straight to p/u the new '83.  The door rolled up and she looked great.  A few minutes later the engine was burbling and our little caravan of three left for the House of Felix.  What a great spread - perfect venue.

We were basically the first to arrive.  It was _so_cool_ standing there talking to people and _hearing_ all the urquattros come up the drive.  And then they'd pop out of the trees.  It was awesome meeting all the guys who were there. So great to put faces with all these names on the List.  Totally awesome.  And then to look at all the cool machinery - damn it was great.  And of course Gary made some excellent, I mean excellent food.

The "caravan" to SFest was a bit of a "CF" - but oh well we all made it there in one piece.  Luckily it was Martin who got pulled over - being from Canada it was too much of a paperwork hassle to write up the ticket.  

SFest was cool - was fun pulling in en masse.  Plus there were a few more urq guys there that were not at UPG earlier.

Sunday we were planning on going back to Sfest , if we could find it, but it was raining and we ended up doing some pre-trip prep on the cars under cover by the hotel.  By the time we finished it was about noon and we figured we'd hit the road.  We knew a lot of the urq guys had already left town.  Pretty uneventful night - we made it to Youngstown OH.  I-80 was great again, and luckily we didn't get caught up in stand still jams in two places where lanes went down to one wide.  Both out and back the opposite direction traffic came to a standstill while we flew by.  I'll take that luck.

Monday we took a quick detour up to Cleveland  for breakfast with my dad.  We eventually ended up in Columbia MO for the night.

Tuesday we hit the road somewhat early and made it to Denver around 6:30 PM.  4305 miles in six days.  The car ran perfect the whole trip.  The cruise control was crucial.  And the a/c, well it was sufficient.  It wasn't great but it really was nice - it was worth the struggle I went through to get it working.  Without the trip would have been that much harder - windows down at 80+ mph for 13 hours a day sucks.  And of course I have to thank my Valentine One - which paid for itself over the last few days.

Again- it was great to meet all you guys-

Brandon
'84 ur