On Friday, June 1 Kevin Leonard arranged a dinner at Belle Vie European Bistro attended by the few hardy souls who braved the stormy weather in their Porsches. Fortunately the sky was clear (and cool) on Saturday for the tops-only concours along the banks of the scenic James River at the home of Court and Kathy Spotts. Eighty six Porsches were on display, ranging in age from four 356’s to Alex Smith’s shiny new 991. David Cottrell brought two outstanding exotics: his red Carrera GT and a very original Andial 964 cup car, one of only three still known to exist.
Dave Lasch led two teams of judges for the cars formally entered into the concours. The concours categories and their winners are:
- 356: (1) Dick Pitman, (2) Chris Acker, (3) Pat Daily
- 911 (air cooled): (1) Roger Borsink, (2) Don Henck, (3) Jeff Sivers
- 911 (water cooled): (1) Alex Smith, (2) Rich Waddell, (3) Mark Smith, (4) Don Coleman
- 968: (1) Gary Schepker
- Boxster/Cayman: (1 tie) Bob Brown, Mike Acanfora, (3) Jim Condon and Sherry Westfall (car shown by Andrew Stevens), (4) Deane Parker, (5) Damien Walsh
- People’s choice: Rich Waddell
The concours concluded with a catered lunch at the famous “Cafe Carrera.”
In the afternoon, Sherry Westfall led a gimmick rally/fun drive to the historic Foundry Golf Club on scenic Fine Creek. The Foundry was built in the early 1800’s to manufacture arms but never actually produced any. It is now a golf club, not a country club, for serious golfers. From there we went to a tech session on the Porsche 991 at Euroclassics Porsche. Chris Stone showed a series of slides explaining the technical marvels of the 991. Cars are becoming amazingly complicated machines. I hope they will remain reliable! The evening awards banquet at the Martin’s Grant clubhouse featured Ms. Connie Nyholm, co-owner and developer of Virginia International Raceway (VIR), telling us about our favorite race track. Check out Connie’s black 356 necklace. Not only does she run VIR, she is a vintage racer who currently owns and drives an Allard J2.
The weekend finished with a Sunday autocross on the 1/3-mile banked oval track at Southside Speedway. Twenty bold Porsche drivers plus Samuel Reiman in a 1997 Dodge Stratus braved the scary boilerplate and concrete walls of the Speedway to drive Rick’s surprisingly fast course. Bobby Smith had the FTD (35.912 seconds) as usual, in his blue “improved” 1973 914, but he was followed closely by Jeffrey Elmore at 36.239 seconds and Rick Ebinger at 36.590 seconds on new tires. The first three “unimproved” finishers were Emmett Richardson at 38.363 seconds, Jonathan Newhall at 36.365 seconds (just 2 milliseconds slower!), and Jim Condon at 38.495 seconds. Here are all of the autocross results by time and by class.
