Napa CIA Anniversary Tour
September 13 tour this year brought an amazing group of unique opportunities, challenges and celebrations to be had; PCA’s 70th Anniversary, a joint celebration with Redwood Region, a stunning venue at Culinary Institute of America, a birthday ( mine ). What a better way to celebrate than to be with friends, drive one of our favorite West Marin routes and gather with our Redwood Region friends. Best Birthdays EVER!
To begin, I was GGR’s designated liaison with Redwood Regions special emissary Pat Burke to create, organize and deliver an event for an eventual crowd of 200 PCA members. Some of our early challenges were organizing a drive to coincide with the days event at CIA. Since this was to me a “ special “ celebration of PCA’s anniversary, our normal tour protocols would have to be adjusted to accommodate the larger than usual member signups. Hence for the tour portion getting 64 cars from San Rafael to St Helena in time for box lunch, socializing and presentations by Pat. Therefor we would need to accommodate more and larger groupings of drivers than normal. This required us leaving a bit later than our norm to allow early and late groups to not exceed the 12:30 latest arrival at CIA. By the way, not our first time moving a larger than normal group point A to B, just this time with an expected ETA not to exceed.
As usual even the best laid plans can go awry quickly. On this day MSR was not our friend ( waivers missed, double booking, Redwood Region drivers arriving for the GGR Tour, etc. etc ). Yet our experienced volunteers ( Kurt Kruger, Soah Hsu, JB Ellis, Heather Kornberg, Jamal Boudi, Gilbert Bouzied, Krish K, Ottmar Stubler, Ken Varner, Birgit Heinz ) covered our PCA compliance requirements, had cars placed in their assigned groups.
Our first group out was a bit later than planned, yet with the larger group than planned and Sign In challenges overcome, away we went. This routing is one we have done several times and can have absolutely stunning views and fun pavement. Although, moving groups of 12+ cars brings in some unique challenges that are not our norm. Also we had a bit more time on 4 lane ( CA Hwy 101, CA Hwy 12, etc ) byways than we would normally encounter. Hence todays drive was more Tour than Run. Again, a day for celebration verse our usual back road spirited drives in only 4 groups. We had over 11 new drivers for their first outing with GGR Touring. Hopefully we will see them return and cut us some slack for this day’s unusual large crowd and a longer departure process.
Some amazing highlights enjoyed by all, 200 people singing happy birthday to me (wow!), Redwood Regions Pat Burke’s MC and presentation, CIA venue, lots of new members on their first drive, San Rafael to Tomales routing, etc.
As I have presented before, the cars we have are terrific machines, yet the people who support our events and tours are more amazing. A note of gratitude to our Team Leads, Sweeps and Safety Car! Again, none of this day’s special event would have been possible without the PCA Golden Gate Region Team.
Closing, Happy Anniversary Porsche Club of America, so grateful we share the same birthday. Looking forward to our October outing. Please join us. Never Stop Driving.
Cheryl A Spott / Motoring Director
If you have not had the opportunity, please check out GGR Tour veteran Jamal Boudi’s story in the September Issue of Hargerty’s Driver Club. A fun read of Jamal and Sarah’s passion for Porsche and roads less traveled.
