[DeTomaso] Pocono trip report

[Mark McWhinney]

I know that this is a little late, well, especially since this is the 2005
trip report.  I had it about 90% finished then well... anyway.

I had the good fortune that year to be able to attend both Pocono events as
well as the big Ford event at Carlyle.  I heartily recommend that everyone
in the area attend both Pocono events.  There are world class people and
cars all around.



With a 4 AM wakeup call Saturday morning, I stumbled out of bed and headed
up the well-worn path from DC to the Poconos in the northern part of
Pennsylvania.  I arrived at the Skytop Lodge at 9:30 just as the concorso
was getting under way.  Like the concorso in Monterey, they were running on
Italian time.

I headed over to the registration and I got a two-day pass and tickets for
some very nice meals for the reasonable price of $95.  With the tickets
safely tucked away, I headed up the hill to checkout the Panteras.

I found 20 Panteras including a 1975 Euro GTS and some nicely preserved
stockers.  There were no geese or other DeTomaso models.  Due to the schism,
the numbers were down from what they used to be according to the veterans.
(BTW, everyone including the instigators told me they thought the schism was
stupid, but like a high school dance, no one was brave enough to cross the
floor to talk to the girls/boys on the other side.)

I got to see a number of people that I had met at the other Pantera events
and well as some new faces.  Las Vegas regulars, Bob Reid and Jay Curreri
were there.  This is Bob Reid and me checking out the cars.

www.portata.com/panteraadventure/images/pocono_bob_mark.jpg

Jay brought his yellow Pantera still with the scrape from the Las Vegas
ballroom.  Jay's wife brought an Alfa Graduate.  EPA president Zack Lembo,
now in better health, was able to bring his black Pantera.  Pocono
crossovers Rick Carrol and Mark Evens were there.  Mark had won the award
for best stocker last month at Pocono (again) and would win again this
weekend.  Ken Brown and his son were who I had met last month at the EPA
dyno day were there with their aqua colored "stocker" that put better than
300 HP on the ground.  Ken had just purchased his fifteenth Pantera last
week.  Yup, 15th.

www.portata.com/panteraadventure/images/pocono_panteras.jpg

Due to my inability to run and hide quickly enough among the reeds, I was
nabbed to be one of the judges.  So, with Zack, Ken, Jay, and a couple
others, I went from car to car trying to compare apples and oranges.  With
Ferraris, it would have been easy to spot and deduct points for non-original
items, but with Panteras, it was a guessing game.  What do you do if someone
makes a change that makes it better than original?  What is someone makes it
better but aesthetically tackier?  Also, even with the laidback Pantera
owners, there were too many delicate egos.  "No really, 98 is a good score.
You should be happy."  "It wasn't 100 points when it left the factory."

Besides the Panteras, there were the usual suspects: Lambos, Ferraris,
Maseratis, Lancias, Fiats, and Alfas.  (My quest to be able to spell
"Lamborghini" without having to look it has not met with success so far.)
There was also a prototype Shelby Sports Car (no relation to Carroll) as
well as some Ducatis and Moto Guzzis.  

My favorite was this 1967 Alfa Tipo 33/2.

www.portata.com/panteraadventure/images/pocono_alfa.jpg

Later in 2005 Mike Drew reported seeing this same Alfa driving on the street
in Monterey late at night.

I also loved this Bizzarrini 5300 Spyder SI prototype.

www.portata.com/panteraadventure/images/pocono_biz.jpg

Notice the headers in the Bizzarrini's front wheel well.  (BTW, why is it
that Lambo owners, like this guy in the background, drive $300,000 cars,
sport $600 shoes, and wear wife beater shirts?)

The highlight of the show was annual return of the flock of Maserati
Birdcages.  The owner of a nearby two-deck hauler was kind enough to put me
up on the lift to get a set of aerial pictures.  One of the cars ran on the
track the following day.

www.portata.com/panteraadventure/images/birdcage_flock.jpg

This is why they are called Birdcages.

www.portata.com/panteraadventure/images/birdcage_inside.jpg

Tom Tjaarda was supposed to be at the event but could not travel at the last
minute due to a health problem.

After a wonderful day of looking at Italian metal art and listening to 17
renditions of Hey Mambo over the PA, I headed over to my hotel for a quick
shower and change into formal clothes.  (The Skytop runs more than $300 per
night, so the curry-redolent Days Inn looked like the better deal.)

Back at the Skytop, we were treated to another nice meal with a display of
the best of show cars on the lawn.  This was followed by an interminable set
of speeches thanking the sponsors, every Lambo dealer in the country, and
everyone in the room individually.  The one funny moment in the evening was
when they thanked one of the event sponsors, Michelin, who is widely blamed
for the debacle at Indy the prior week.  The crowd erupted into boos then
laughter as they thought about the silliness of booing their own sponsor.

Side note: I met a woman there who is a pilot for JetBlue (like Mike Drew
but in heals) that brought an award winning Alfa 164 to both Pocono events
(How does one win first place in the Alfa Closed Car category with a 164
daily driver?)  She had taken her Ferrari to Indy last week for some 90 mph
"parade laps."  While there, she saw the Formula 1 race.  She said it was
even worse than reported.  She had to go to the top of the stands to avoid
being hit by errant beer bottles being thrown onto the track.  Track workers
were having to run onto the track to fetch the bottles during the race!  Now
there's a reality show: F-1 Dodge Ball -- pick up track debris while trying
to outrun F-1 cars on foot.

After the sponsor thank-yous, Valentino Balboni and Piero Rivolta gave short
speeches.  Valentino did his classic bit: "Lamborghini, its ah nice car.
You like it."  Piero talked about his frustration with the
design-by-committee in the automotive business as the reason that he is now
designing his own boats.

As the lengthy awards presentations started, I slipped out to the Tap Room
down the hall.  After downing a glass of Chardonnay at prices airport
bartenders could only dream about, I headed out for the night.  On the way,
I gave Piero Rivolta a ride in my Ford Taurus.  "The Taurus, its ah nice
car."  It was a strange and somewhat unsettling feeling to have the designer
of such beautiful cars ferried about in my pleasant but rather common rental
car.

After a short night at Days Inn, I headed out on the back roads to the
Pocono race track.  After winding through 20 miles of dense countryside
where I started expecting to see Ned Beatty and hear banjo music, I came
upon outstanding race complex with a huge 5/8 mile long grandstand with
countless garages and a wide track with high-banked turns and a tight
infield.

As many Lambos and Ferraris that had been at the concorso, there were that
many more at the track.  It was heartening to see these owners do more than
drive their cars onto transports.

There were a number of Panteras there, but only a fraction of the numbers
that had been there in past years.  The drivers varied from the novice to
the more serious weekend warriors.  There were no hard-core racers of the
likes of Puckett, Qualla, MD, etc. that we get a Las Vegas  To their credit,
though, they were not too far behind the 360s and the Gallardos on the
track.

Interestingly, I did not see anyone wearing a coolsuit with their Nomex
suits despite the 90+ degree heat and humidity that was killing me in shorts
and a tee-shirt.

I spent the morning wandering up and down the pits speaking with the various
Pantera owners.

Just before lunch, I hopped into (well, folded myself into) a Lamborghini
Murciélago for some hot laps with Valentino Balboni at the wheel.  Just
before I got in, Valentino expressed some concerns about the tires but
decided to go out anyway.  Despite visions of the Space Shuttle o-rings and
heat tiles in the back of my mind, I got in, after all this was the
Valentino Balboni.

www.portata.com/panteraadventure/images/balboni_tire.jpg

Valentino does not like to wear a helmet despite his wild, high-speed
driving style, so they had his head examined.  If you look closely, you can
see a blue inspection sticker on the side of his face, which he actually
wore all day.  He also sported red, white, and blue arm bands -- he knows
his audience.

Even with a helmet, I was able to squeeze into the Murciélago then buckle up
with the center-mounted seatbelts with not too much trouble.  

While we were waiting for the hand signal to go, Valentino checked out the
curves ahead as any good Italian driver would.

www.portata.com/panteraadventure/images/balboni_curves.jpg

We rolled through the pits and queued up in a long line to get on the track.
This gave us a chance to talk about the Murciélago and about Panteras (Ah,
they are ah nice ah car.)

When we got the signal, we effortlessly rollout onto the track at 100 mph
and into a high banked turn.  While other cars got high up on the bank,
Valentino actually just apexed the turn as is if were a gentle sweeper.
After hitting 170 on the back straight, we unexpectedly (at least to me)
came to a chicane with a 90-degree turn that abruptly took us from the very
wide oval track onto what looked like a golf cart road in the infield.

If you have seen Balboni in person or on the Top Gear episode, you know that
he likes to drift the corners.  The scary part is not the drifting.  It's
not the drifting at insane speeds.  It's the passing cars in the corner at
insane speeds with all four tires disconnected from the pavement.

After surviving that ride, I headed through the pits to talk to the various
Pantera drivers and to see Ed Bielski's close encounter of the concrete
kind. (Note that the passenger side mirror actual passed above the wall
unscathed.)

www.portata.com/panteraadventure/images/ed_bielski.jpg

With this California boy wilting in the heat and humidity in the pits, Bob
Reid and Forest Majors suggested that we retreat back to the hospitality
suite for some cold beers and tall tales.

Ah, Pocono, its ah nice ah event.