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Montery (part 1 of 3)

I am sorry this post is coming so late but until recently I had not realized
that it had been rejected from the digest for being too long. Yesterday I
tried to post it in 2 parts but part one was still too long so I am reposting
it in 3 parts. I hope it works and sorry for the bandwidth.    -Juan Bruce

Well it has been a  few weeks now and I am finaly recovering from the
atomotive sensory overload at the Montery Historic races.
Since I attended almost every single event (and thus got little sleep) I
thougt I would try and give the digest a complete summary of the weekend from
my perspective. 

Wed:
I left Orange County at about 10:30 with a carvan of 3 other BMWs. We agreed
among us to cruise at a leasurely 75mph but that lasted for about a half an
hour. We arrived in Montery at about 5pm and headed for the registration and
reception at MY BMW. Driving from the 101 into Montery exotic cars were
already apparent foreshadowing the weekend to come. Their were probably
already 30 BMWs the parking lot, not including the cars on the dealer's lot.
We registered and picked up our bags of godies (brochures, very tasteful
black Tshirts,and a nice hardback Motorsport book). The show room of My BMW
was open and a large buffet table was well stocked. The night was spent
meeting with other BMW enthusiasts and getting reaquainted with old friends.

Thurs:
The Driving Tour: I arrived at the starting point for the driving tour by
7:30am and meet up with my tour partner Eric Sharp. I decided to navigate in
his Dinan stroker 325 instead of driving so I could keep the M3 clean for the
Clean Car contest. I had done this tour three years ago before OktoberFest
and it was just as I remembered it. It starts off inocently enough. Ken
Robertson gave the standard disclaimer "we don't condone breaking any laws"
etc. But the fact that the organizers had sent out a highly modifided
 Porsche 944 to "clear the route" should have been warning to the
unsuspecting. An hour later Eric would comment "110mph now that's not
breaking any laws." For those of you that have never been on this tour it has
some of the twistiest, most chalenging and senic roads you will ever
encounter. Their are also many blind and unpredictable (dangerous) corners.
Non the less it is lots of fun. We started the tour amongst several vintage
BMWs. Behind us was a 2000CS, in front a couple in a beautiful 3.0CS and
farther in front a couple in a (1930s) 328. It was great seeing the vintage
328 in action, actually beeing driven. Highlights of the first part of the
tour included an unmaked (except for skid marks) hapin turn that the 2000CS
behind us almost didn't make. I can still remember the sound of the the
2000CS squeling tires as it locked up the breaks into the corner and narowly
avoided oncoming trafic on the other side of the road. The 3.0CS also almost
lost it one another turn. We were driving along on a relatively straight
(fast) streach of road when crested a hill to find a cattle grate in the
middle of a sharp off camber left hand turn. Now metal catle grates don't
provide the same kind of traction as pavement and the demolished fence post
on the outside of the turn can testify to that. Fortunately nobody on our
tour met with that fence but the 3.0CS sure got squirly trying to avoid it.
Later in the tour after a rest stop we found ourselves in the faster company
of M3s and M5s. As we headed throuht grape vinyards we saw a replay of an
incident I wittnessed 3 years ago. A bright red E36 M3 went into a turn too
fast which had water at the Apex. He went spining off the road and into the
vinyards. Luckly the car only recieved a dust bath and suffered no damage.
Had it not come to a rest where it did it might have ended up shiny side down
in an irrigation ditch. Fortunately that was the only incident. We continued
over the mountains toward the coast. When you emerge on the western side of
the mountoain ridge you are treated to an amazing view of the ocean bellow.
The narow road winds it's way down to Highway 1 and at times the combination
of drop off and curves makes it appear as though you are going to drive
straight off the mountain into the sea. The tour ended anticlimacticly with a
drive up hiway 1 into montery. Hiway 1 seemed straight compared withthe first
part of the tour.

Car Cleaning: After the tour it was back to My BMW to wash up the cars. All I
can say is avoid washing you car in the Montery area. The water is so hard it
will leave terible water spots in a short time.

Part 2 &3 to follow...