Text and Photos: Carl Foleen
Ten (count ’em ten!) hearty souls gathered in the (vey) early hours of Sunday, August 27th to support the Lake Oswego Heritage Collector Car and Wooden Boat Show. Most everyone arrived well before the 6:45 AM scheduled departure time. Glen and Jan’s arrival was a bit “touch and go,” as the TPMS (Tire Pressure Monitoring System) light told them that their F-Type was in need of attention. Sure enough, there it was! So Glen had to avail himself of the services of his stalwart air compressor to complete the day’s adventures. Unfortunately this also cost him the ten minute “cushion” he had built in to their travel time from home to the assembly point. All’s well that ends well, though, as Mr. and Mrs. “Yrs Truly” had plenty of time to schmooze and pose for the accompanying group photo.
Apparently a small traffic snag prevented Rick Martin from catching the group, as he arrived just a shade after 6:45 AM, but was just a few cars back from our group. Christopher Silvia could only bring one car (unfortunately), so he brought his 1939 Rolls Royce. That’s understandable, any motorcar that has the distinction of carrying Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman certainly deserves a bit of the spotlight from time to time.
We pulled up at the check-in line and were ninth to about seventeenth in the queue. Perhaps not the stuff of the Pebble Beach “Dawn Patrol” stuff, but if your group can qualify as some of the earliest customers at the local Starbucks, you certainly have some chops for being early risers. The registration crew had not yet set up their tables, but two or three people were beginning to walk the line, gathering names and bringing back the packets for the cars.
Once on the field it was rather amusing to watch the Canada Geese heard themselves into smaller and smaller grazing areas until they finally decided to give up and move over to another location. Guessing from previous spotting’s, this correspondent’s “WAG” is that they relocated to Westmoreland Park, which is just a few wing beats away “as the crow flies.”
Car care commenced for most participants once the lawn chairs were deployed and one’s favourite detailer was in hand (along with a clean microfiber towel, of course). Since parking and polishing took about an hour, that synched up perfectly with the Lion’s Club pancake (or flapjack, if you prefer) breakfast. It’s nice that most of the proceeds go to various assistance programs that the Lions sponsor.
In no time at all the sun began to warm things up, and coupled with the still evaporating dew, it was becoming somewhat uncomfortable (on the hot and humid side) for some of us natives, so we decamped to the southern fence and claimed our place in the shade. Fortunately this was also a good place for our intrepid shutterbug to attach a long lens to his camera and try to capture some images of the resident osprey family.
Show car attendance was down by a rather significant amount, and there was some speculation that the rather stiff $30 entry fee may have winnowed out more than a few owners that simply to take their cars to a less costly event. Some of the more interesting cars on the field were an actual Indy car, a Japanese Domestic Market (JDM) ice cream scooter that was actually vending ice cream (!), and Robin three wheel car (made famous by Jeremy Clarkson in a rather classic episode of “Top Gear” in its heyday).
IJust by casual observation it seemed that there were fewer spectators as well. That may not be the case, however, since there is no real gate through which the public would pass, which would make a formal headcount much easier.
Congratulations are in order to Rich Stephens who won the Jim Rathbun award for this year’s event. Way to go. Rich!
Next event is the All British Field Meet. Hope to see everyone there.
