[DeTomaso] 2012 Summer Summit Recap 1

Mon Jun 11 14:32:14 EDT 2012

The Summer Summit 2012 was a blast!

Michael did a great job planning the event, thanks.

You can never have a bad time when you're with you Pantera brothers and
sisters, Lov you guys. The look on Bill Lewis' face when he realized which
"Larry" he was talking to was priceless.

Sheila and I got down to the Smokies early and spent time camping and hiking
in the mountains. If you think there not mountains try hiking 5 miles up
one, there mountains! Saw 4 black bears, lots of wild turkeys, (some on the
road) but not a single "still"! 

Put on 600 miles driving in the mountain back roads. Somewhat uneventful
till I was stopped at a large roadblock. The police were spending 5 to 10
minutes with each car. When it was my turn to pull up I informed the State
Trooper that I had a conceal carry license and was armed. He stooped down
and looked me in the eye, then said "that's great, we need more people like
you carrin". He thanked me and waved me right past the road block....gota
love the south!

Took over 800 photos so give me some time...

If you did not come this year you missed it, so start planning for next
year!

Larry (black bear) - Cleveland

-----Original Message-----
From: detomaso-bounces at realbig.com [mailto:detomaso-bounces at realbig.com] On
Behalf Of michael at michaelshortt.com
Sent: Monday, June 11, 2012 11:59 AM
To: DeTomaso Forum
Subject: [DeTomaso] 2012 Summer Summit Recap 1

The 2012 Summer Summit came to a successful end yesterday.

Unfortunately, the herd thinned a bit due to 2 attendees with personal
or familial medical issues
( both with Red Panteras, let that be a warning).

On hand was Michael & Joni Shortt with #1660 (Yellow), Rob & Kathy Dumoulin
#1488 ( Black Cherry),
Dave & Diane McManus #4604 (Yellow) plus Bill & Marilyn Lewis Grand Sport
C-6 Conv (Yellow), Tom
& Dena Shinrock, 86 Porsche 944T ( Silver ) and Larry Homolak & Shelia,
Honda Civic, (White).

We stayed at Fontana Village Resort at the foot of the Fontana Dam, it was
the original work camp for the
WPA workers who built the dam as a part of the TVA effort preceding and
during WW2.  The accommodations
were nice and the staff generally friendly.

Thursday evening Joni and I met Bill & Marilyn for dinner at the
Mountainview Restaurant inside the Lodge,
the next morning, we headed off to breakfast in Bryson City to
the Everett Street Diner, then on to
to Cherokee, NC to tour the Cherokee Museum and later that afternoon,
the Cherokee Indian village.
Bill does a mean war dance and I have it on video! After a brief stop at
the T-Shirt, Fudge and T-Shirt
strip of stores, we headed back to the Lodge.  The weather and clear and
sunny, if not a tad hot, we drove Joni's
MB 350 SLK so as to match Bill's Corvette soft top and went styling with
the tops down all day, it was great fun.

We headed back to the lodge and met everyone else, then had dinner at the
Fontana Grill, also on the property.
The next morning, we changed the schedule due to the reduced number of
participants ( we were scheduled to have
a private breakfast in Robbinsville, but I cancelled it because we
originally forecast 25 guests, then it was 16 and finally
12, not enough to warrnt the 2 hour drive or to put the restaurant staff to
a special effort and expense ). After a quick buffet
breakfast at the Lodge, we headed off to US 129, the "Tail of the Dragon",
after a couple of fun ( accident and citation free )
runs, although it was close, I was saved by a slow motorcycle who held us
up, one turn before the next turn hiding an marked
State Highway Patrol SUV who was lying in wait, ready to pounce.

 I did get an opportunity to take Tom Shinrock for a ride up the Dragon, it
was fun until we ran upon a flock of clueless
mini vans who's sole mission in life seemed to be ruining other people fun
and seeing how slow you could go while
maintaining forward movement. Finally, we headed on to Pigeon Forge, TN via
a long winding drive to Floyd Garrett's
Muscle Car Museum.  Inside were over 90 classic cars, some of
my personal favorite where the Gran Torino King Cobra
( 1 of 3 ), a perfect Sunbean Tiger Mk 1, with a rich SCCA racing history (
including being National Champion ), a Calypso
Orange Boss 429 and a Competition Orange Camaro ZL1 ( 1 of 69 ).
Pigeon Ford is a sprawling tourist mecca (trap) and traffic is miserable, I
couldn't wait to get out of there, neither could
my car, it was hotter sitting in traffic than being thrashed on the dragon.

On the way back, there was some excitement in that Rob, Bill and Dave were
witness to a car accident, a man in what
appeared to be in later 70's dropped a wheel off a newly
paved section of asphalt with a 7" shoulder drop and like most people,
braked with one set of tires on gravel and the other set on pavement, then
hit a wooded railing and rode that straight into a
rock bridge, the entire right side of the car was sheered off.  Joni and I
and Tom and Dena pulled up right after it happened,
Rob was first on scene and checked on the folks, then Joni gave them a
nurse's quick check up and I called 911 since
Verizon was the only signal that worked ( barely ) and directed traffic (
Tourist can be real jerks BTW ).
 Rob has photos, perhaps he will share.  After the US Park Rangers arrived,
we took off andf continued on our journey to dinner at
Naber's Drive Inn.  It is one of those iconic drive in places with a
corrugated metal cover with menus and curb service and an eat
inside area, the whole place perched on a river bank with flowing
water passing behind it.  We ate ( pickle flavored milkshake,
deep fried Indian corn on the cob and Hot Fudge Sundaes with TWO brownies )
and we took a nice leisurely drive back to the Lodge.
If I had one complaint it was the outrageous prices of the food, 1.55 hot
dogs, 1.95 cheeseburgers and 3.00 double fudge sundaes. ;-)

The next morning brought rain ( LOTS of Rain ) and we decided to call an
early end to the fun and had breakfast at the lodge.
Bill Lewis was awarded the "long Distance Award for driving all the way
from Hockley, Texas, his award was a Detomaso Grill
Emblem on a business card stand custom made and donated by by Gary Walker,
gow2 at rc-tech.net.  Get yours TODAY.
I bought one, put my original grill emblem on his supplied stand and now
have his emblem installed on the grill of my car, it is BELLA!!!!

The long drive home was wet and somewhat eventful with an road
raging aggressive driver and a last minute part failure 2 miles
from home ( stories to come later ), made it home safely after an 8 hour
tense day of driving mostly all downhill, in monsoon
like rain storm.

It was another Summer Summit, next year will be the 3rd one and we hope to
see more of you participate, the location is
subject to change.

Our Photos will be posted in the next few days.

Meanwhile, commercial photographers work several stations on the Dragon and
have our photos posted,
check the times between 10 a.m. and noon.

http://www.killboy.com/

http://www.dragonslayerphotos.com/

http://www.moonshinephoto.com/

http://www.zeefoto.com/

http://us129photos.com/

Michael Shortt

-- 

Michael L. Shortt
Savannah, Georgia
www.michaelshortt.com
michael at michaelshortt.com
912-232-9390

This email is protected by the Electronic Communications Privacy
Act, 18 U.S.C. Sec. 2510-2521, is confidential and may be legally
privileged.  If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified
that any retention, dissemination, distribution or copying of this
communication is strictly prohibited.  Please reply to the sender that you
have received this message in error, then delete it.  Thank you
_______________________________________________

Detomaso Forum Managed by POCA

Archive Search Engine Now Available at http://www.realbig.com/detomaso/

DeTomaso mailing list
DeTomaso at list.realbig.com
http://list.realbig.com/mailman/listinfo/detomaso