Yes, it was a great day, indeed.
Most of the guys met at my house to caravan up from Fremont: JR and his brother J, Mike, Jimmy and his girlfriend Mari, Travis, and Larry all made it on time, then we had to wait for "Wrong Freeway Exit" Bill. But we all made it together and headed out with me in the lead. The drive up was slow and easy and there was a section of 880 that I apologize for leading everyone onto - what a hot mess of undulations, potholes and bumps! I think most of the drivers forgot about that though, as soon as we drove through the tunnel. The guys really seemed to like that:biggrin:
When we arrived, Justin, the guy who was letting people in at the front gate told me that he wanted to have our special (his word, not mine) cars together but that it was too crowded inside to get people together in a group as large as ours (we still had 3 others on the way who were meeting us there). So he placed us very prominently at the very entrance of the show. Our ending tally of cars equaled: two silvers, two whites, three blacks and three reds. Not bad:wink: We went in to the show and pretty quickly got split up but we all kinda ran into each other throughout the two hours or so that we stayed there.
Roger was looking up, down, left and right for a new 370Z. He wanted to capture a few pics and thought for sure there would be at LEAST one at the show. But we just couldn't spot one... yet. We saw some really cool cars and talked to a lot of people. And whenever we glanced over at our cars near the entrance there were always people checking them out, taking pictures and generally admiring them. NSXs really do capture a lot of attention!
After a couple of hours we were all ready to eat and we'd seen most of the cars there so we decided to go eat since the lines for the hot dogs were super long and the dogs weren't very good anyways. This is not a complaint, as I admire the event organizers for even offering the food.
But before we left the base, we decided we'd snap a few pics next to the U.S.S. Hornet. On the way out, Roger's unicorn (a brand-spanking new 370Z) was driving in. He missed his shot by about ten minutes. Once we got to the Hornet... Wow. What an awe inspiring marvel of engineering! And it was cool to take pictures of them right next to the Hornet!:tongue:
Then Steve led us to a place that most of us had never been to: Sushi House. The place was not very crowded and a lot of us actually got to park right in front of the restaurant; how lucky. The food was really good; not that Mike really got to find out because by the time he got his, we were all at least half-way done or some even finished! He sent it back, saying it was just too late. The servers understood.
From there, Larry led us through Alameda to Oakland and to the freeway. Along the way we passed through a few neighborhoods and past a couple of parks. It always amazes me and puts a grin on my face when I see people completely stop what they're doing and stare at the NSX as it goes by. This time, people were calling to others saying "hey! come check it out!". I'm sure they thought they saw Ferraris or new Corvettes.
On the last stretch of road there were a few antics that some here would frown upon so I'll gloss over them but speeds remained under 60mph and with clear empty roads, 3 lanes wide:smile::redface:
Ryan and Roger went on a nice drive (it was longer than what Roger told me it would be... thanks for the recap, Ryan - I'll be sure to tag along next time). The rest of us headed back south on 880 and peeled off one or two cars at a time as our exits came up.
That day was really a great one. I've really come to appreciate all of the people I've met via the ownership of this amazing car. Summer weather's here again and I'm sure we'll have more gatherings like this all through and I'm looking forward to all of them.
BTW: somehow, we lost track of JR and J between the show and the Hornet photo op. I'm sorry we did, JR.
J
Sorry for the long post... I just felt inspired....