BirkinBernie

This is Dick Brink's race car, though unfinished when this shot was taken. Dubbed the "Wine Sizzler" it had a hot Dunnell engine and a full cage when completed.

During the Las Vegas stop on the USA 2005 Tour, two of the British couples got married - at a drive through wedding chapel! With the bridesmaids and best men in Se7ens behind them!

I think this is somewhere past Moab - where I picked up that mud in a rainstorm. My wife made a skirt kind of thing that you can see velcro'd to the bottom perimeter of my helmet. It extends down below my collar under my jacket and keeps the cold wind out. That and the windebreaker over the jacket kept me warm down into the 30s.

Oct 4, 2005 A group shot. Not everyone attended the track visit. The overseas contingent packed up for home, but three or four of us hung around for a couple more days and did some more exploring. A couple of us left our cars at a business at Sears Point to be picked up by a shipper, and we flew home. A marvelous trip. The level of preparation cannot be exaggerated - these folks left nothing to chance. They even brought a spare Vauxhall engine with them because they knew there would be no parts available here. And they ended up installing that engine when one of their contingent had a major failure just outside of Ruidoso, NM! I read someone suggesting repeating this journey - but I cannot imagine the effort that would take.

Oct 4, 2005 Arrangements had been made with a driving school at Sears Point Raceway (aka Infineon, aka Sonoma Raceway) for the Se7ens to run a couple of laps behind a pace car. We didn't get to go very fast, but it was fun to see the track.

Oct 3, 2005 Cambria Pines to San Francisco Didn't take stills while on the road - to busy steering! Hwy 1 is bags of fun. Incidentally, these pics were taken with a small Nikon point and shoot digital camera, not a cell phone. No aiming - I just held the camera up and pushed the shutter button.

Oct 1, 2005 Las Vegas to Tehachapi, CA

Zion National Park

Sep 29, 2005 Page, AZ to Las Vegas, NV We drove through Zion National Park. Las Vegas held little attraction for me quite honestly. Spent most of the day off there at Hoover Dam.

Sep 28, 2005 Moab to Page, AZ

Sep 28, 2005 Moab to Page, AZ took us through Monument Valley.

Sep 27, 2005 Scenery between Vail and Moab, UT. In Moab, we visited Arches National Park after checking into the motel. I left my helmet at the hotel and used goggles. Big mistake - we got stormed on and driving bare headed in heavy rain was miserable. This was the only significant rain of the whole trip. Overall, the weather was spectacular. The man upstairs must be a Se7ener.

Sep 25, 2005 Durango to Vail provided some spectacular scenery. This shot is a parking area at the "Slumgullion Earthflow".

Sep 23, 2005 Scenery during the Santa Fe to Durango leg. We typically traveled in small groups rather than trying to organize the whole bunch into common start and arrival times. Too many cats to herd!

Sep 22, 2005 Waking up and walking into a parking lot full of Se7ens is just mind boggling. This is in Santa Fe where we had the day off. Driving around town there would be Se7ens at traffic lights, Se7ens in the WalMart parking lot - Se7ens all over the place!

Sep 18, 2005 We drove through San Angelo, TX on our way to Midland, TX. It was hot! The San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts offered the Tour an air conditioned break with snacks and liquid. The local Corvette club stopped by to meet up. A nice break in a hot, hot day.

Sep 18, 2005 Pay no attention to the gauge on the right. All traffic laws were strictly adhered to. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it. While a few of the participants were urged to slow down and behave by various local authorities, I escaped the trip with no "official" conversations. While there was some mechanical mayhem, I know of no contact damage or injuries during the trip. The Tour organizers provided Garmin route files that could be loaded into the appropriate model Garmin GPS. It proved to be faultless - I don't remember deviating from it once. They also provided a file containing a route book with not only detailed route instructions, but extensive lists of things to do in the cities we visited.

Sep 15, 2005 7:30pm The 14th and 15th are a blur. Once cleaned up, the car was, much to my surprise, not seriously damaged. I bought and borrowed the needed parts from friends all over town. A neighbor stripped and painted the roll bar, I cleaned, fabricated, drilled, riveted - and shopped. A buddy helped place the snaps in a new boot cover. Exhausted, on the 15th at dusk, I pushed the car into the garage and stood there looking at it - it was ready to go! I dam near cried - friends can do amazing things and they had come through for me in spades. I had taken lots of pics of the damage, and my classic car insurance company said to call them when I got back from the trip. In the end, they went above and beyond to make everything right. And I was leaving for Austin (the first tour stop after Houston) in the morning!!

Sep 13, 2005 6pm The visitors flying over for the USA Tour were arriving in Houston on the 14th - I was to leave in the morning to join them. Long story short, the ni-cad battery pack for my new lipstick camera (hooks to a digital camcorder) decided to short out and set fire to the contents of the boot while I was in the house. Luckily, a neighbor saw the fire and alerted us. I was able to put the fire out before the fire dept arrived. The car was nosed into the garage. We dodged a bullet - the fuel filler hose was burnt and blistered on the outside, and blistered on the inside. It was about to burn through to 10 gallons of gasoline. Gone was almost everything outside of clothing I needed for the trip. But our house was not damaged.