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NJ/PA Spirited Drive: Sunday November 15th


Carbuff

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The Lotus Enthusiast's Organization (aka LEO) has firmed up its plans for it's final event of the season, our Spirited Drive on Sunday, November 15.

 

Once again, LEO supporter William Thomas Roadsters will host the beginning of the Drive. Meet at WTR, 269 Everittsville Rd (Route 513), Frenchtown, NJ, at 10:30 AM for coffee and crumpets. Bill Thomas will show us the latest Sector111 bits for Elises and show off his recently-aquired Caterham.

 

Then at noon we embark on a twisty backroad journey through western NJ, with a stop at Columcille, the Stonehenge of Pennsylvania. You have to see this to believe it! Our final destination is the Glacier House Restaurant in Saylorsburg, PA, about 3:00 PM, where we will have a nice dinner overlooking the lake, under the watchful eye of Matthew Conrad, eatery and Elise owner.

 

Feel free to join us for the whole day, or any part of it, as your schedule permits. Just let me know what your intentions are so we can properly plan. Send an PM to me (Atwell) or call 973-927-3765 evenings.

 

We already have seven cars signed up for the day! :driving:

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I'll be tenatively in.

 

Great, haven't seen you in a while.

 

If the weather is poor, bring your daily driver. It'll still be fun.

 

WTR promises us genuine fresh-baked crumpets at the start! :drool: No doubt that's why we have TEN folks intending to join us already! :seeya:

Edited by Carbuff
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Count me in.

 

Hopefully it is not as wet as my last drive out in Milford/Frenchtown area!

 

I also just saw an email from Ron with the vauxhall powered Seven saying he plans to attend.

 

 

Can we rustle up Bruce, Jack and Steve (S1) and make a healthy Seven team for this event?

Edited by Croc
getting old - forgot something.
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Thanks for the invite, I'll have to see what comes up as it gets closer. WTR would be cool to see. I'll pack the top this time, and I know Croc has his brake lights in working order, LOL. And it would be nice to see everyone.

Edited by S1Steve
i am not awake yet !!!
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It only rained after the drive. Not my fault!

 

 

Bruce

 

Here's what kept the rain away from NJ Motorsports Park (our Lotus/Audi Clubs' Track Day) this weekend:

 

Every time I felt a drop, I held my "bumbershoot" up to the Sky and bellowed:

 

I HAVE AN UMBRELLA!

 

It worked! The entire east coast from DC up to Boston got 2" + of rain over the weekend...EXCEPT FOR Millville, NJ!!!!

 

 

:devil:

 

(An umbrella is smaller than a Seven top, isn't it? Just don't open it at speeds over 40 MPH...) :willy_nilly:

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  • 3 weeks later...

HeadCount:

 

Always one of our most popular events, this year's Spirited Drive is no exception!

 

We presently have 30 folks who have RSVPd. That's about 26 cars...Esprits, Elises, Europas, 4 Sevens!...the whole gamut.

:party:

 

Weather forecast is good: No rain, high temp in the 60s.

 

See you there!

:hurray:

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Today we had a blast with the N.J. Lotus club. Big Thanks to Atwell and Bill Thomas Roadsters. Croc, Box, Jen and Jack and myself enjoyed a great day. And Yes, It was Spirited. Not many photo's from me, I drove solo today !!!! No Al ????

Frenchtown Lotus run 008.jpg

Frenchtown Lotus run 010.jpg

Frenchtown Lotus run 007.jpg

Edited by S1Steve
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It was great to see everybody at the Lotus Enthusiasts Organization (LEO) of NJ and NY Spirited Drive today. Big thanks to Atwell and Bill Thomas (and his lovely wife) for hosting. It was good to see Steve, Jack, Jen, Jon (Box) again. Ron K joined us for his first LEO event with his new Seven. It was great to see Alan and Kathy turn up in their Seven for an appearance. Al was sadly missed!

 

Box's car decided to misbehave so he was navigator duties with me - a role that was sorely needed after the spirited drive.

 

Starting off it was at Bill's place to redecorate the lawn and generally accessorize his nice collection of Augusta bikes, Seven, TR2 and TR4 amongst many things.

 

Seven's left to right, mine, Jack's and Ron K

 

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a354/mjohnson555/seats/Spirited%20Drive%20Nov%202009/DSC_2786_edited-1.jpg

 

This is Bill's very nice and new to him anniversary edition.

 

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a354/mjohnson555/seats/Spirited%20Drive%20Nov%202009/DSC_2788_edited-1.jpg

 

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a354/mjohnson555/seats/Spirited%20Drive%20Nov%202009/DSC_2798_edited-1.jpg

 

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a354/mjohnson555/seats/Spirited%20Drive%20Nov%202009/DSC_2797_edited-1.jpg

 

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http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a354/mjohnson555/seats/Spirited%20Drive%20Nov%202009/DSC_2791_edited-1.jpg

Engine bay of the Europa

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a354/mjohnson555/seats/Spirited%20Drive%20Nov%202009/DSC_2793_edited-1.jpg

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a354/mjohnson555/seats/Spirited%20Drive%20Nov%202009/DSC_2796_edited-1.jpg

Four DeLorean's came along.

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a354/mjohnson555/seats/Spirited%20Drive%20Nov%202009/DSC_2794_edited-1.jpg

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No. No Al N, I wish he had stopped by. Not like he lives really far way! :grouphug:

 

We had over 40 cars at William Thomas Roadsters. Bill's Caterham is a nice one, yes?

 

It was a monumental task, herding 40 cars through all the little hamlets, but when it was time to open up the throttle, we got going pretty well.

 

Pictures after I "decompress"

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Bill's very nice TR4

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a354/mjohnson555/seats/Spirited%20Drive%20Nov%202009/DSC_2790_edited-1.jpg

 

Alan and Kathy's nice BRG Seven

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a354/mjohnson555/seats/Spirited%20Drive%20Nov%202009/DSC_2789_edited-1.jpg

 

There was also a nice smattering of Corvettes, a turbo supra, Porsche, including a very nice GT3.

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a354/mjohnson555/seats/Spirited%20Drive%20Nov%202009/DSC_2787_edited-1.jpg

 

 

The drive took us over western NJ into PA and along some great backroads. I will be doing the route again at some point - very scenic. Entertainingly, Steve did not want to follow me because of my brake light failure last time. So he followed Ron who decided to have brake light failure just to liven up Steve's life.

 

Even more amusing (because it luckily ended without harm) was hearing of Steve arriving over a crest to find a sudden 90 degree left hander. I hear there was more than 1 set of skidmarks left behind - nothing the laundry cannot fix.

 

We took a break at Columcille Megalith Park http://www.columcille.org/

 

This is where Jack and Jen took their leave and headed off to what they thought would be an easy drive home.

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a354/mjohnson555/seats/Spirited%20Drive%20Nov%202009/DSC_2799_edited-1.jpg

 

We made it to the Glacier House restaurant and thought we would get an early start home....oh dear. We hit I-80 and promptly hit a jam around the Delaware Water Gap. After sitting for 15 mins I decided to call 511 to find that I-80 was fully closed due to a tractor trailer overturned.

 

At this point Jon appealed to my worst instincts, so it was a U-turn on a muddy track across the median strip to reverse direction on I-80. It was mud everywhere as I did what you do with little traction! Oops. So we found ourselves off I-80 and then got a call from Jack saying don’t go on I-80. He was still stuck on there - maybe 2 miles ahead of where I did my muddy u-turn. So much for him and Jen leaving early.

 

Then began the second spirited drive of the day - in the dark. The GPS batteries died so we relied on Google maps on my blackberry to navigate. It was back roads to Rt 46 and then finding too much traffic, more back roads to Rt 209. Despite the dark slowing us down the roads were brilliant - I have no idea where we were (and I do not think Jon did either!) but the twisting roads were brilliant. There was even a 5mph limit section! So our driving detour gets us back on to I-80 much further down the road. So who do we see as we enter the highway - a pickup with car trailer that had been next to us when we did the muddy u-turn - go figure!

 

All thanks to Jon for navigating me home.

Edited by Croc
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Lovely weather at the end of the weekend made up for the lousy friday and saturday. Bill Thomas was an excellent host and many thanks to Atwell for organizing today. Great seeing jack, jen, Mike, and Steve again, plus meeting Ron.

 

The scheduled drive should definitely be fun a second time, and I plan to look and see if i can recreate the detour that Mike and I took. His Crackberry really saved the day with the delay on 80. My GPS' final gesture was to get 3 cars righted correctly northbound on 209!

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Alas, I think I had mentioned I was tied up with a church fundraiser...I saw Alan & Kathy headed to the event (and a number of Elises/Deloreans) coming over from Clinton area on 513 when I was on my 3rd of 4 runs to Shop-Rite for the weekend. I'll make it to Bill's gathering eventually. As noted, he's about 2 miles from my house as the crow flies, if that. Glad several of the Se7en faithful made it out.

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