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Judy and I decided on New Year's Eve (over pizza and champagne) to try to participate in one of the multiple-make, open
attendance fun runs being held on New Year's Day this year. Folks in our club, the
SoCal MINI Maniacs, had posted info and expressed interest in a couple
of them: one starting in North Hollywood, and the other starting in Crystal Cove (between Newport Beach and Laguna Beach).
We ended up going with the Crystal Cove event mainly because the scheduled start time was an hour later, and that gave us a
little more time to wake up. | We made really good time getting to the event, as traffic on PCH early New Year's Day was almost entirely non-existent. The only real traffic we encountered was a huge cluster of around 200 bicyclists taking up 2 of 3 travel lanes near Huntington Beach! We didn't get a lot of pictures this time, as we only brought my camera. But Judy did manage to snag a few shots to share with folks. This run was very informal, and lots of fun. The directions and map were clear and easy to follow, and it was great to find new twisty roads and see new sights. We had about 10 MINIs show up to represent among the many Porsches, BMWs, Ferraris, Corvettes, Mustangs, mid-50's Chevys, Miatas, Hondas, assorted muscle cars, and others. There was also a DeTomaso Pantera, a funky luxurious Citroen, and three Herbie Love Bug replicas. It was great seeing all the nice cars and their enthusiastic caretakers. Thanks to the organizers at Bench-Racing.com! We're ready to go again next year! (Click on any thumbnail for a larger image.) |