Committee Member's Perspective - Part I & II

[cbutler32]

Everyone,
Where to start?
Once again thanks to ALL!
The volunteers were my personal saviors.
Without you parking, directing, working the registration booth we would have never been able to have it run so smooth…
THANKS to ALL of the VOLUNTEERS!!!
You were simply amazing…
I apologize in advance if I forgot or left you out of the following story from this past weekend…

Day 1 – Friday 3/24/06
Am – still in prison (work)…
Getting phone calls from “DanRealtor”…
“So how’s the convoy Dan”…
Uh, fun…
There are a couple who will run with us…
cool more potential "SRT Flight" graduates...
“ffimo” rings around lunch and we coordinate car wash, wax at Shell station…
We spent the next two hours doing the finite detail on the cars at my house in the garage waiting for the westbound AZ, NM "train" to arrive in San Diego…
Dan finally rings me around 3:30pm – we are stuck in traffic and guys need gas…
30 minutes later as “ffimo” (Mo) and I are standing in the front of my development…
Dan and 10 others go blowing by north on the separated 4-lane road… (Dan forgetting where I live obviously)…
So as not to make the whole group turn around…
Mo and I take off and catch them…
Problem is they are already turned around and coming southbound now… (Well 4 cars so far as I approach the light and slid into the group…)
When I cut my way into the u-turners only to have “1bad4dr” completely bust out the rear end and point his nose at 8 o’clock blocking both lanes of traffic with me making my u-turn coming at him…
Needless to say, the whites of his eyes were visible beyond his sunglasses… hehehehe
Not to mention his dad’s…
Good thing for my brembo’s huh 1bad4dr?
So we rally very briefly in my development…
And have all the people in the small little business complexes come out, neighbors…
My wife drives up and is blown away from “how cool” some of the cars were…
And my 2 girls were like Dad – “this rocks!”
So we get on the road…
I learn the finer things of organized traffic control by the "AZ Train" and keeping the group together…
Nice job everyone on that!
And I take them through the “Ranch” (Rancho Santa Fe) for an abbreviated version of spirited driving…
And proceeded to let them experience the "Roller Coaster"... (hey Meister remember? the one we went on that one night? and bbsrt8 knows it as well…
Needless to say the "AZ Train" wanted to do that over and over again…
Rolling through north county coastal San Diego on El Camino Real and staying off of the freeway as long as possible (as traffic was moving at 10-14mph)
We finally got everyone together after being subjected to metered on-ramps… (See picture somewhere in the 300+ I have seen from the show about freeway traffic)
And we hit Camp Pendleton…
Now for those that know me…
As soon as I hit this area…
My brain goes to attack mode and my thought process is speed limit is 100 if traffic allows just for cruising speed…
Well something told me to hang and work our way into it…
Good thing…
As a couple of CHP motors appeared out of nowhere…
Which is very rare for them to be on this stretch…
THANK GOD FOR THE RADIO COMMUNICATIONS WE ALL HAD!!!
Well they were providing cover for a blacked out Suburban, blacked out Tahoe and Crown Vic and here comes two more motors…
Only thing I could think of was the Governor or Lt. Gov. or some senator visiting camp Pendleton…
We did the rest stop thing as one of the boys had a fan issue – sounded like a bearing…
And “bobb” got some video of us rolling out of there…
And well, we then had some open road a couple of times…
Thanks to those that got to experience about one of the only places you can run in So. Cal when traffic allows…
It was a very limited version of "spirited driving"…
as we only touched the bottom of a buck and a 2 quarters...
We roll into the OC around 5:30pm and started meeting and greeting!
Met the entire Canadian contingent – both left and right coasts and in between with Rambit heading all the way down from Ontario, Canada...
Bernie I am still in disbelief you did that...
you deserved the present you got from Ralph... (see story for that later)
It was good to see old friends and meet the new faces with their sigs. That have been around and who I have not had the pleasure of meeting yet.
vvv90-Matt, DanRealtor-Dan, Cory and I proceeded to have a couple of drinks…
We did the dinner thing at D&B and had Dan stripe the entry into the parking space…
Avoided the $3.00 cover to have dinner due to DanRealtor smooth talking abilities…
Thanks Dan…
So we had a little fun in the NASCAR race…
Then more drinking till 2:45am…
Thanks Cory – my new drinking equal…

Day 2 – 3/25/06 – THE DAY
6am wake up call…
Are you kidding me???
Not to mention going and getting vvv90 from the Homestead…
Well I was the one that suggested and told everyone that I would lead them down to Crystal Cove to see the automotive spectacle…
So off to Hemstead to get vvv90 at 6:15am...
Most of us were there at 6:30am…
Heck even Ralph, Adam and Scott were there at o’ my goodness it’s early…
The good thing about NR, Resumespeed and Goddardzilla taking forever was that we could wipe the cars down from the evening dew…
especially after spending so much time on them on Friday...
Ah, the luxuries of garages… (Yeah I saw it, after the event though Bruno… striped that too…hehehe)
So once we got the Canadians with their manana' time… (That’s whenever I feel like getting around to it - found on either bordering country)…
We were off and rearing to go…
Some more than others…
As we were still on good behavior mode…
We turn into the parking area for Crystal Cove…
And the first several words out of Drew-rps232 and vvv90’s mouth were are you kidding me!
You weren’t kidding!
Well, we park and it took us 15 minutes to just get to the roped off area of cars…
Sometimes the stuff outside in the general area doesn’t make it in time and has to park with the rest of the folks and there is stuff that is sometimes better than what is inside the ropes…
Well needless to say – they were a lot of pictures taken…
And I have even seen one of the 2 - $725,000 Ferrari F40’s that were there –outside the main area in the photos…
vvv90 ran out of memory in his card from the one parking lot and 4 out of the 5 rows inside the ropes…
Ralph, Adam and Scott cruised and mingled and talked to us about cars several times…
All of us holding off and not wanting to ruin face time with them later and honestly to let them enjoy the cars like we were…
Rallied the troops to get back to the hotel to get ready…
And some silver Charger being rented by some Canadian kept trying to fill my rear window with his windshield…
Not the best thing to do as I told him later the cops just love to write tickets in and around this event… Sorry NR, I really would have loved to have done some “spirited” driving with you sir…
Heck we didn’t even do the Crystal Cove burn out now that I think about it…
9am – the crowd gathers at the DTree…
I look across at the DCX building and see cars already there…
I got to get over there is all I’m thinking at this point – fats blessing to get the guys to Crystal Cove or not was way cool…
Tmagnum, Sweeper6, fats and hemeee have it handled already though once I get there 20 minutes later…
We got everything done and handled by 10am…
And we started staging cars…
This is about the only time I saw most of you if you attended…
Sorry if I missed you or didn’t have time to chat…
Really wild rides!!!
(I haven’t heard one person say anything about not seeing enough pics since the first batch hit on Saturday night… Thanks to everyone for taking pics!!!)
John W, Dupie24, mighty noid, vvv90, whoever was working with johnw parking the 300’s and magnums on the north side out in the main drive in area – THANKS!!!!
And to all the volunteers that worked the registration desk and everywhere else during the event -THANKS!!!
I’m beat!!!
This car weekend is sucking the life out of me…
I want to make sure though that you all get a flavor for the weekend…
The Sat. afternoon edition is coming up over the next couple of days…
Stay tuned…
The one-liners really start then…
and the butter really starts to churn...

[DanRealtor]

Originally Posted by cbutler32

Everyone,
Were to start?
Once again thanks to ALL!
The volunteers were my personal saviors.
Without you parking, directing, working the registration booth we would have never been able to have it run so smooth…
THANKS to ALL of the VOLUNTEERS!!!
You were simply amazing…
I apologize in advance if I forgot or left you out of the following story from this past weekend…

Day 1 – Friday 3/24/06
Am – still in prison (work)…
Getting phone calls from “DanRealtor”…
“So how’s the convoy Dan”…
Uh, fun…
There are a couple who will run with us…
cool more potential "SRT Flight" graduates...
“ffimo” rings around lunch and we coordinate car wash, wax at Shell station…
We spent the next two hours doing the finite detail on the cars at my house in the garage waiting for the westbound AZ, NM "train" to arrive in San Diego…
Dan finally rings me around 3:30pm – we are stuck in traffic and guys need gas…
30 minutes later as “ffimo” (Mo) and I are standing in the front of my development…
Dan and 10 others go blowing by north on the separated 4-lane road… (Dan forgetting where I live obviously)…
So as not to make the whole group turn around…
Mo and I take off and catch them…
Problem is they are already turned around and coming southbound now… (Well 4 cars so far as I approach the light and slid into the group…)
When I cut my way into the u-turners only to have “1bad4dr” completely bust out the rear end and point his nose at 8 o’clock blocking both lanes of traffic with me making my u-turn coming at him…
Needless to say, the whites of his eyes were visible beyond his sunglasses… hehehehe
Not to mention his dad’s…
Good thing for my brembo’s huh 1bad4dr?
So we rally very briefly in my development…
And have all the people in the small little business complexes come out, neighbors…
My wife drives up and is blown away from “how cool” some of the cars were…
And my 2 girls were like Dad – “this rocks!”
So we get on the road…
I learn the finer things of organized traffic control by the "AZ Train" and keeping the group together…
Nice job everyone on that!
And I take them through the “Ranch” (Rancho Santa Fe) for an abbreviated version of spirited driving…
And proceeded to let them experience the "Roller Coaster"... (hey Meister remember? the one we went on that one night? and bbsrt8 knows it as well…
Needless to say the "AZ Train" wanted to do that over and over again…
Rolling through north county coastal San Diego on El Camino Real and staying off of the freeway as long as possible (as traffic was moving at 10-14mph)
We finally got everyone together after being subjected to metered on-ramps… (See picture somewhere in the 300+ I have seen from the show about freeway traffic)
And we hit Camp Pendleton…
Now for those that know me…
As soon as I hit this area…
My brain goes to attack mode and my thought process is speed limit is 100 if traffic allows just for cruising speed…
Well something told me to hang and work our way into it…
Good thing…
As a couple of CHP motors appeared out of nowhere…
Which is very rare for them to be on this stretch…
THANK GOD FOR THE RADIO COMMUNICATIONS WE ALL HAD!!!
Well they were providing cover for a blacked out Suburban, blacked out Tahoe and Crown Vic and here comes two more motors…
Only thing I could think of was the Governor or Lt. Gov. or some senator visiting camp Pendleton…
We did the rest stop thing as one of the boys had a fan issue – sounded like a bearing…
And “bobb” got some video of us rolling out of there…
And well, we then had some open road a couple of times…
Thanks to those that got to experience about one of the only places you can run in So. Cal when traffic allows…
It was a very limited version of "spirited driving"…
as we only touched the bottom of a buck and a 2 quarters...
We roll into the OC around 5:30pm and started meeting and greeting!
Met the entire Canadian contingent – both left and right coasts and in between with Rambit heading all the way down from Ontario, Canada...
Bernie I am still in disbelief you did that...
you deserved the present you got from Ralph... (see story for that later)
It was good to see old friends and meet the new faces with their sigs. That have been around and who I have not had the pleasure of meeting yet.
vvv90-Matt, DanRealtor-Dan, Cory and I proceeded to have a couple of drinks…
We did the dinner thing at D&B and had Dan stripe the entry into the parking space…
Avoided the $3.00 cover to have dinner due to DanRealtor smooth talking abilities…
Thanks Dan…
So we had a little fun in the NASCAR race…
Then more drinking till 2:45am…
Thanks Cory – my new drinking equal…

Day 2 – 3/25/06 – THE DAY
6am wake up call…
Are you kidding me???
Not to mention going and getting vvv90 from the Homestead…
Well I was the one that suggested and told everyone that I would lead them down to Crystal Cove to see the automotive spectacle…
So off to Hemstead to get vvv90 at 6:15am...
Most of us were there at 6:30am…
Heck even Ralph, Adam and Scott were there at o’ my goodness it’s early…
The good thing about NR, Resumespeed and Goddardzilla taking forever was that we could wipe the cars down from the evening dew…
especially after spending so much time on them on Friday...
Ah, the luxuries of garages… (Yeah I saw it, after the event though Bruno… striped that too…hehehe)
So once we got the Canadians with their manana' time… (That’s whenever I feel like getting around to it - found on either bordering country)…
We were off and rearing to go…
Some more than others…
As we were still on good behavior mode…
We turn into the parking area for Crystal Cove…
And the first several words out of Drew-rps232 and vvv90’s mouth were are you kidding me!
You weren’t kidding!
Well, we park and it took us 15 minutes to just get to the roped off area of cars…
Sometimes the stuff outside in the general area doesn’t make it in time and has to park with the rest of the folks and there is stuff that is sometimes better than what is inside the ropes…
Well needless to say – they were a lot of pictures taken…
And I have even seen one of the 2 - $725,000 Ferrari F40’s that were there –outside the main area in the photos…
vvv90 ran out of memory in his card from the one parking lot and 4 out of the 5 rows inside the ropes…
Ralph, Adam and Scott cruised and mingled and talked to us about cars several times…
All of us holding off and not wanting to ruin face time with them later and honestly to let them enjoy the cars like we were…
Rallied the troops to get back to the hotel to get ready…
And some silver Charger being rented by some Canadian kept trying to fill my rear window with his windshield…
Not the best thing to do as I told him later the cops just love to write tickets in and around this event… Sorry NR, I really would have loved to have done some “spirited” driving with you sir…
Heck we didn’t even do the Crystal Cove burn out now that I think about it…
9am – the crowd gathers at the DTree…
I look across at the DCX building and see cars already there…
I got to get over there is all I’m thinking at this point – fats blessing to get the guys to Crystal Cove or not was way cool…
Tmagnum, Sweeper6, fats and hemeee have it handled already though once I get there 20 minutes later…
We got everything done and handled by 10am…
And we started staging cars…
This is about the only time I saw most of you if you attended…
Sorry if I missed you or didn’t have time to chat…
Really wild rides!!!
(I haven’t heard one person say anything about not seeing enough pics since the first batch hit on Saturday night… Thanks to everyone for taking pics!!!)
John W, Dupie24, mighty noid, vvv90, whoever was working with johnw parking the 300’s and magnums on the north side out in the main drive in area – THANKS!!!!
And to all the volunteers that worked the registration desk and everywhere else during the event -THANKS!!!
I’m beat!!!
This car weekend is sucking the life out of me…
I want to make sure though that you all get a flavor for the weekend…
The Sat. afternoon edition is coming up over the next couple of days…
Stay tuned…
The one-liners really start then…
and the butter really starts to churn...

IT WASN'T ME!

DanRealtor

[Ahbizmal]

Great write up.

[bruno]

Originally Posted by Ahbizmal

Great write up.

And, every bit of it is true....no elaboration! Dang Chris, what a memory you have. I thought it woud be befuddled after all the partying but you definitely know how to overcome. You have left me some 'burning' memories, much like those from Dan.

bruno

p.s. Sorry I somehow failed to mention to you and Dan the covered parking area that kept our vehicles free from the dust, morning dew, and rain.

[cbutler32]

Originally Posted by bruno

And, every bit of it is true....no elaboration! Dang Chris, what a memory you have. I thought it woud be befuddled after all the partying but you definitely know how to overcome. You have left me some 'burning' memories, much like those from Dan.

bruno

p.s. Sorry I somehow failed to mention to you and Dan the covered parking area that kept our vehicles free from the dust, morning dew, and rain.

don't worry...
I saw it in time to stripe that too...
please note that the stripping took place past fellow members vehicles and no animals we're harmed in the testing of concrete vs. asphalt traction "comparisons"...

oh and just wait for chapter II...

[bruno]

[quote=cbutler32]don't worry...
I saw it in time to stripe that too...
please note that the stripping took place past fellow members vehicles and no animals we're harmed in the testing of concrete vs. asphalt traction "comparisons"...
WHAT??? Hope you didn't get too close to my baby! How did you avoid the concrete wall at the end of the garage? That concrete floor was very slick, too!

oh and just wait for chapter II
I'm looking forward to it!

bruno

[srt8danno]

Great post as usual CB! It’s like riding in the front seat with you. The preponderance of evidence presented has overwhelmingly been…….everyone had a damned nice time. Great! There was an actual moment that I considered firing up my beast and heading out to try and meet up with the AZ crowd. Talk about a serious coast to coast trip. There would be no way I would show up without my ride and miss out on the fun and good times I’ve read about. Perhaps one day- you never know.

BTW- before names became attached to pictures I had Chris Butler (post #12)picked out as the dude with the live strong wristband.
We can always count on CB for the insider information of what really took place. Can hardly wait until Chapter 2.

[Yeravener]

Hey folks...thought I would give you the newbie view of the event:

I have lurked for about a year doing LX platform purchasing research, and finally dropped the buck on a 300C SRT 8 in mid January 06. Shortly thereafter I saw the first thread on the M&G and decided to attend....two days later Linda asked for volunteers and I decided to volunteer. Didn't know ANYONE, just knew everyone had LX bods like mine. I showed up at Irvine, did the volunteer meeting on Friday, and then hit the ground running parking 300Cs and Magnums (since I own an SRT8 300C I wanted to see the other models ). I worked with Andy, and Brian, and others to get the cars parked......piece of cake, and we were done by 1145. I then walked around taking pics of everything and everyone in sight. The cars were incredible....my favorite love being the Top Banana which I came THIS CLOSE to buying before I purchased the SRT8.

I roamed around talking and taking pics until the afternoon, when fatchance, knock_out_punch, myself, 5 or so others, and Ralph and Adam were left. How freakin' cool is it that I got photos and autographs from them two months after buying my car?!!! What an incredible experience!!! I got my pics with them both at that time, and then we all called it a day and headed to the hotel.

First stop was Cbutler32's room for a kick-butt drinking and bench racing session. Dan-"it wasn't me!!"-realtor, scott from GSM, vvv90, and others made this one hell of a good time. After, starving, we hooked up with rest of the the crowd waiting out front for transpo to get to the local Yardhouse, got there, found the wait was an hour, and met others arriving when we hijacked the shuttle to get back to the DT. The Yardhouse beeper was a casualty of the night, ending up staying in my pocket all night long. Dang thing never did go off....would have been a long wait for food.....

We hopped into the DT restaurant, put 7 tables together...thereby owning the restaurant, and proceeded to drink, and drink, and finally, after Chris helped out with the food serving...to eat. I took a boatload of pics, hung out with AWESOME folks from all the forums, and just had one hell of a good time.

Thanks to all of you for accepting a newbie into your ranks at first blush. The rides were great, the people topnotch, and the times were awesome. I am sooooooooo glad that I bought the LX 300C SRT8.....the M&G has further expanded the experience to a level that I didn't even know existed.....the hard work of all the committee members, linda, tom, john, etc., etc., etc......really made this a killer time for me, and I appreciate it, big time!!!!!

THANK YOU to all of you!!!!!!! Yeehaw, man,....when is the next one?

James

[cbutler32]

James,
now this is why I enjoy this site, these people (like yourself) and this car so much...
I just got home from Prison (work) at 9:15pm...
and this is my one and only post for the night...
later everyone...
I'll try and do part II tomorrow night...
As James said...
"when's the next one?

[bruno]

James,
Another memorable write-up! Like you, I also had a tremendous time at my very first ever M & G. The cars were incredible but it was the people who made this happening so amazing. As volunteers, we didn’t get to chat much except on the morning we were leaving to return home! But, even those moments were valued! Thanks for taking such great photos, too. I like your newbie enthusiasm, am glad you joined the forums and felt comfortable enough to jump right into it all.

Chat later….
bruno