Carlisle 2023??

Kelly - the "Ed" you linked was a guy from Canada who joined in 2013 and only posted 38 times. He last visited this site on 2/17/14. I think you meant @edsnova.

@Stan Galat posted:

Kelly - the "Ed" you linked was a guy from Canada who joined in 2014 and only posted 38 times. He last visited this site on 2/17/14. I think you meant @edsnova.

🤦🏼‍♂️

I typed @ed and it did not give me an @edsnova  to choose from. All this high tech hyperlink business must be too complex for this rocket scientist . . .  @edsnova

Meanwhile, the poll?? Anybody ready to say "yay", "nay", or "here's a new idea"

First I'm hearing about this poll.

Lane at Tour d'Smo said Alan was sending out queries, very informally: "Is anybody actually going to go to Carlisle '23?"  He was wondering about setting up room reserves, I think.  I suggest you ping Lane and/or Alan.

The "poll" was just posted here by me yesterday . . .

Alan, told me that he was thinking about asking folks to see if there was enough interest to have a Carlisle '23 - nothing more.  Let's not go off half cocked here.

I posed no poll, I had asked and Lane mention Carlisle around the fire pit to gauge interest and that's the extent of the inquiry. People change as well as interest and priorities and departures...that's the way the world turns.

Carlisle Productions chose to make a major change a few years ago in the name of business and profit and by doing so, Kit -Replica Vendors were given the boot out of the main building with Kit - Replica owners losing interest.  Personally, after attending Carlisle for around 30 years, that didn't sit so well with me either, but I am one of the remaining &  active old school attendees.                                                   

IMHO in past years when Gordon, Bruce, Cory had the entire SOC weekend structured and planned almost to the minute as we'll agree, it work.  I will say attending Carlisle as a complete group is no longer an interest to all that attend and by doing so, tends to break down the momentum...............So what's your thoughts?

OK

To me, since Carlisle was such a great welcoming experience as a newbie, who BTW did not even have his car yet, Carlisle weekend is kinda baked in.  And at the end of the day, as we have said so many times, its the cars that bring us together, but its the people who keep us together.  Ergo, if the people start not coming, then the thing, as Alan points out, evolves, or devolves accordingly.  I do miss the vendors as that was a big attraction. Slapping the tuners in with the plastic clown cars and European marques, was a bit of a blow, but they can be properly ignored for the most part.  If they bring money that the Enterprise needs to survive, well I can't argue too hard against that.  So as to the not-really-a-poll poll, yes or no for '23:  I'll vote yes.

'21 and '22 had such small turnouts that it's just not worth it to spend 2 (or more) days driving in each direction for me, particularly if it's raining.  I know COVID was some of  that, but I've done the showfield enough to kinda not need to do it anymore - particularly stuck off to the side like we were this year.  I won't say I'll never do a Carlisle again, but it's not a sure thing for me anymore.

Kinda sad, tho'.

I am likely to make 2023 my third Carlisle, and again to take photos that catch my eye e.g. https://www.flickr.com/gp/farsightful/5u9E366618 https://www.flickr.com/gp/farsightful/2HZD6vw017 . For me it is a concentrated annual dose of cars and coffee since I am located in an area (north Jersey) of sparse events and somewhat short season of speedster weather. Three other factors that will affect my participation will be the weather forecast, the pandemic forecast, and the possibility of finding an attraction (e.g. Gettyburg?) that would motivate my wife to come along for the weekend. (Carlisle itself isn't that.)

It's 200 miles from here so I doubt I will ever drive there in other than a daily driver. That's a long way in a self-maintained car and has the potential to turn into an adventure that adds unplanned days to the round trip.

I hope others will plan to attend in numbers that will continue the association between SOC and the Carlisle event. Has that association had slow periods in the past from which it has rebounded?

@Lane Anderson, yeah, I felt sad after reading your post.

Just to be clear, if I was as close as Kelly I'd almost certainly come.  It's the 750 miles each way at a questionable time of the year weather-wise that's finally worn me down.  I did it every year starting in 2005 through this year, most of it in the Speedster.  I hate to see it decline, but things ebb and flow.  That's life.

@wrkinprogress posted:

I am likely to make 2023 my third Carlisle, and again to take photos that catch my eye.

It's 200 miles from here so I doubt I will ever drive there in other than a daily driver. That's a long way in a self-maintained car and has the potential to turn into an adventure that adds unplanned days to the round trip.

Yes, that would be quite a hike in a Speedster....  :-)

@David Stroud IM Roadster D posted:

Yes, that would be quite a hike in a Speedster....  :-)

Says he, who has won the longest distance travelled to Carlisle in the past...over a thousand miles, wasn't it, Dave?

Dave makes sure he drives the farthest by passing Carlisle on his way down from Canada to Florida and then driving back to Carlisle and calling that his first leg. To be fair, it's the only way to defeat Jack Crosby.

FWIW to you-all, it's helpful to me to know who thinks they're likely to make the trip in 2023. The more people who make it, the less it costs per-person.

Some background:

It's no secret that Alan and Connie Merklin have been the mainspring of Carlisle planning for many years, handling the hotel reservations and some significant portion of the meal plans and excursions. Last year Alan announced he would not be volunteering this year. There was an attempt to palm Alan's role off on David Kumpf but David (being smarter than he looks) was non-committal.

That leaves me with the keys to the event—these being a series of lists and spreadsheets, contacts, notes on side-trips taken in years past and a small cache of, well, cash that Bruce Stumpp built up in his years as MC and passed to Jenni and Cory Drake, who bequeathed it to me three years ago. Money to buy name tags, awards, snax, party favors and suchlike, plus reserve tents, chairs, banquet rooms & etc. as needed, to be replenished by participants via our traditional raffle.

I'm pleased to say that, despite our species' recent experience with the Very Unpleasant Global Event That Shall Not Be Discussed, that cache abides. It is equal today to what it was when Cory forked it over.

I have enjoyed Carlisle every year since 2011 including the recent Tuner Years. I like walking the show field and watching the silly stuff people do with their cars, checking the swap meet venders and talking to the car guys—especially the ones who show up with something unique and home built. I've done the autocross and the "low car limbo." Probably not going to participate in any of the drifting events but they are a spectacle.

As for side trips...I am contemplating an excursion to the Hershey Chocolate Factory, for no other reason than that I have never been there. It's about 45 minutes from the fairgrounds, 25 from our usual hotel.

As you all know, nice roads can be found to the north and west. I'm eyeing some roads we've not traveled that could make a nice cruise.

FWIW I'd like for the group to have a spring meet and would hope for it to be within driving range to me.

If it's not Carlisle then another place could work as well. If not in May maybe in April or June or even July. I'd love to hit the Pittsburgh VGP again despite the swelter of its scheduled dates.

But I can't pretend to know what would turn all y'all's keys.

It has been suggested to me (by men of clear vision and long experience) that a poll, or any attempt to seek consensus, on the board or elsewhere, is doomed to failure for the usual and general group dynamics reasons.

Perhaps the time has come to prove the wise men wrong.

Whatever is decided, I can also be counted on to help, as time permits. My job is full-time, but not more than that.

If anyone wants to take on some of the organizational effort PM me and we'll divvy up the chores.

Umm, a lot more than that several times thanks, Bob. A number of times we'd leave Ottawa and head down to Key West, then catch Carlisle on the way home. The real long trip to Carlisle was in about 2011 or 12 when we shipped the Speedster to Dave Mitchell's place in Sacramento, Cali. ( and thanks for hosting that one Dave ) and then we drove to the wine district in Napa, down the PCH and found a landslide which put us up the Nacimento / Furgeson Highway up right past Fort Leggat Hunter. The GI's were jumping around and waving like crazy like they've never seen a Speedster before. Little did I know at that moment but they were actually celebrating the killing of Bin Laden that day....so May,  2011 ?  We got down the PCH to LA, up thru Malibu, then across LA up to Vegas, the Dam, down to Kingman, AZ and backtracked into Oatman, AZ, saw the donkeys and back out again and did old Route 66 East for a while then around Gallup, NM headed North up to Cortez, East to Durango, over to Taos, NM to visit a friend then back down to 66 in Albuquerque. East then and spent the night at the Blue Swallow Motel in Tucumcari, then East to Amarillo, OK city , Memphis, Nashville, ( Francine saw Elvis somewhere in there ) and on East to 81 then up to Carlisle.

That ride did over 5,000 miles driven including sightseeing, back trips, beer runs etc.....just total miles driven on that trip. ( not as Mapquest would show as Sac direct to Carlisle as Rich Drewek said would be more proper ). Having said all that, I'd like to thank my excellent Wife, Francine who enjoyed the whole trip along with me, the excellent mechanical advice and encouragement I was given by some very capable SOC members daily as I reported our progress along the way. There were many minor, but hilarious side "events" along the way that I probably never mentioned. Lacking much spare time we couldn't find a quick stop for a traditional Mexican lunch in Santa Fe, NM and finally pulled over a Cop for advice. He quickly took us to his Mother's place nearby, a little takeout place....a couple of burritos later, maybe one or two cervezas and we were on the road.

Next morning at the hotel in Alberqurque Francine was packing up stuff in the hotel room and I was stuffing more of it into the Speedster. Down the walkway walking towards me was a mid 30's very well built and attractive woman in high heels and a skirt a bit shorter than normal. She stopped and said what  nice car I have. Want to spend some time, she asked ? Not thinking about much more than todays planned ride, I said " what are you talking about  ? "  She said $75, 20 minutes anything you want....at which time Francine appeared with the last baggage and the "lady" said...."oops got to get off to work. " It was hilarious at the time, but sadly when we got on the road we passed her standing on the corner, just about  7 am...at work. We had the pleasure of a trip like this and look what she's going thru.

All in all it was really a trip of a lifetime. Jack Crosby and Musbjim probably are the record holders of high time mileage but Francine and I probably hold multiple long distance records that will likely never be matched. I'm proud of that...memories that cannot be any better. My thanks to the many SOC friends for their support and encouragement. Without that support, we'd not likely taken on such an adventure.

Come to think of it, I'd give a personal shout out and thanks to Edsnova  for his help with us both going thru a steep learning curve of how to put a Soob engine onto a VW tranny....mine Speedster and his MG. Ericson and I put our heads together many times late at night right against the wall several times but came up with good solutions. We both learned and we both won. Thanks, Ed.

PS....in 2010 we bought the Speedster in Boise, Idaho for $6,500. Drove that bugger across the USA in about 8 days driving with a bone stock 1600 cc motor. Spent a long weekend in Spanish Fork, Utah while waiting for four new tires at the Big O Tire shop. They gave us a loaner and we discovered Park City and Sundance.  Needed a break near Denver and stopped at Buffalo Bill's gravesite. The travel permit was supposed to be stuck on the inside of the windshield but it was blocking much of my vision so I stuffed it under the seat. Coming down a big hill over Denver a big Harley Biker type pulled up behind us for a looksee. No plates on my car front or back. He looked at the back, pulled up and looked at us, pulled ahead and looked back at the front and just shook his head. I looked at his BoB ( a nice one too ) and blew her a kiss and got one right back. You can't get that stuff sitting behind a computer and once again, I apologize to no person for the number of dead bugs on the front of my car.

@edsnova posted:

Dave makes sure he drives the farthest by passing Carlisle on his way down from Canada to Florida and then driving back to Carlisle and calling that his first leg. To be fair, it's the only way to defeat Jack Crosby.

Just so you know Ed, Nobody can defeat Jack Crosby and I'd never refer to my own fun as any attempt at trying to do so. Jack and I are great friends. He and Alice have my greatest respect. We're just doing the Speedster thing a little differently and not competing with anyone. We're just in it for the fun....travelling is what we do.