feature: (Continued from Page 9) Speedster Hill Climb = Driving Speedster in an HSR Hillclimb in Escondido, early ‘80s I didn’t get any money for the damage (long story) and the lowest bid I got for new windshield pieces (in 1972) was $1,500 per side! I gave up on being able to afford to fix the car and it is now in Northern California. I recently got to visit it in its fully restored condition and meet the current owner who drives it regularly. <strong>In</strong> 1990, I acquired my 4th Porsche. A 1968 912. It looked beautiful, outside and in. I got it from a co-worker at a new job and thought I was getting a great deal. When I got it home (I finally had a decent 5-car garage), I found that it was a disaster underneath. After a major tuneup, the engine was great and I put a lot of miles on it. For a while, I commuted 300 miles every weekend and used it as a daily driver for almost ten years. I had dropped out of PCA in the mid ‘70s, but in 1997, the stepson who had driven the Speedster in El Toro gave me a new PCA membership for Christmas. It was nice to see the new (to me) and glossy Pano. I had just moved from Oxnard Shores to Morongo Valley (from a 5-car garage to a 0-car garage), so I became a member of Riverside Region. Full of newbie vigor and enthusiasm, I started driving to PCA meetings, even to the board meetings 60+ miles away, because they usually had free food of some sort. <strong>In</strong> November of ‘00 the very capable president was re-elected. <strong>In</strong> January ‘01, he announced a transfer to the east coast. As per the by-laws the remaining months of his term were to be filled by someone appointed to the job by the Board. <strong>In</strong> a fashion that seems even more implausible today than it did then, I, who had never even served on the Board, was appointed President. I found myself enthusiastic about this new challenge and very stimulated by the Zone 8 Presidents’ Meetings and the great people I encountered there. I acquired an ‘86 Targa which became my Sundays and PCA meetings car. I got turned on by the torquey engine (compared to the 4-banger Porsches I had been driving for decades) and stopped autocrossing the 912 and ran the 911 instead. <strong>In</strong> 2003 I became Zone 8 Autocross champion for the Carrera 3.2 class in that car. When I could not find a volunteer to replace the retiring newsletter editor I took on the job of editing Unsere Gedanken. There is a synergy in being both President and Editor, which I feel leads to great, current and focused, newsletters. During my tenure as president, Riverside held its 30th anniversary celebration. We still had a couple of founders available to participate and the Press-Enterprise gave us a nice write-up, led off by a picture of me in my VARA Speedster. Though I’m not a Concours type, I had been performing the scoring function for the Concours at the Festival of Speed. <strong>In</strong> 1993 I got roped in by a friend to help with the Porsche Timeline at Lake Arrowhead and was head-honcho of that for about 5 years. About 3 years ago, I somehow got involved in writing ‘Book Reviews for Porschephiles”, a monthly column in Grand Prix Region’s The Circuit. That column is now also being printed in Pandemonium and in <strong>2013</strong>, it will also appear in Going Places, the Arizona Region monthly. While serving as President of Riverside, I had my arm twisted to buy a 924S that had been the property of two previous Riverside Region Presidents. For about 6 years starting in High School, I had been a sports car nut bumming rides with friends with MGs (TCs, TDs and eventually Bs) Trimphs (TR2, TR3 and mostly TR3A), an XK120-C and an XK140-MC. One thing all these cars had in common was a large transmission tunnel and a deep, narrow foot well. The 924S, being front engined, has a large transmission tunnel. As soon as I slipped into the cockpit I felt at home! All these decades in 4 cyl air-cooled Porsches I’d never realized that I missed the snugness of the cockpits of front engine sports cars. The bulk of my current fleet of Porsches in my garage Having added front-engine water pumpers to my collection, I became interested in the whole genre of Porsches – rear engine, front engine, mid-engine, air-cooled, water-cooled, 4 and 6 cylinder. I now have examples of every configuration (except for 4WD and 4 door). <strong>In</strong> a stroke of luck I managed to acquire a very slightly used, Thunder Ranch RSK replica at a bargain price. It is a real thrill to look at, just like I used to drool over Penske’s and Holbert’s at The Glenn. And I now have a garage (which I built all by myself), in which I have parked as many as 7 Porsches at once, but prefer to just have 3 project cars in it at a time. 20
<strong>JANUARY</strong> <strong>2013</strong> 21
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