There were several of us from Houston that decided to drive up thatmorning. It was agreed to meet at 5:30 am, contray to our biologicalclocks. A certain individual could not override the desire to sleep andwas just a few minutes late. However, he took the lead and in no time wewere ahead of schedule.
What seemed a little less than 1 hour, we stopped for breakfast at somelittle towns diner. After another spurt of spirited driving, we foundourselves in Austin one hour early. The weather was teasing us by beingsunny but occasionally clouding over with short drizzles.
We drove into the park and reserved a whole section of the parking lot byparking the cars in an uncivilized manner. This attracted attention fromsome local spectators and they came over to ask some questions. As wewaited, two of our group members opened up the trunk and took out theirpolishing kits. They were out in the front removing the unlucky bugsthat sprinkled the fronts of the corrados. The other two sort of satback and proceeded to make fun of the cleaning ladies (what else werethey to do?)
At about 10am, more corrados started to drive in the lot. Once a corradodrove up, all the indviduals gathered around the car, circling it,looking in and under the hood and at every angle...kind of like a bunch ofsharks circling their pray before they go and snatch it. Once about sevencorrados showed up we decided to lign them up in a nice line and take afew pictures. We even ligned them up as to color match both sides:purple in the middle, then red on either side, then black, and thengreen. Talk about a perfect match. Once we were almost done, a latearrival stopped by, we got him in line and after a few more pictures,another late arrival joined out group. With nine corrados all ligned up,we could not resist to keep those shutters snaping.
All of a sudden we hear "Look a Yellow Corrado!". Excitement fills theair as we all look at him waiting to turn into our (now private) lot. Hemissed the entrance. He must be going in the other way, from the back.Our heads turn as the car drives by and we watch him miss the turn off tothe lot. With dissapointment I heard "How can you miss nine corrados allparked in one place?". After that yellow drive by, we got back to picturetaking. We decided to try to spell CCA without corrados. We managed tolign them up but then there was a problem of getting a high enough to seethe letters. Attempts included climing nearby trees (the results shouldbe available in the next issue).
As the day moved on closer to lunch time, we decided to drive to thecapital for the "real cool" pictures. As we left the park, some policeofficers were monitoring the parks entrance. We had to make stop there(because of a stop sign) but right after that, all I could hear waschirping andstrong exhaust noises originating from that location. Needlessto say, we were followed for a little while by the boys in blue.
When we arrived at the capital in the huge convoy, we find that it wasall blovked off. With the help of some influential delegates, thesecurity officer allowed us to park in the fron of the capital,completely blovking off the entrance and exits to take a few pictures. Wegot this done as quickly as possible so as not to abuse our welcome.According the the pictures, the conditions turned out to be perfect!
Two of out fellow corrado owners had to leave at this point in time dueto previous arrangments. The rest of us went to a local burger place tograb a bite to eat. After a great 1 hour chat'n eat, it was time to saythe goodbyes and drive home. Some names and phone numbers were taken downbut unfortunately I did not have them to include in this article.
Shaun, the owner of a green VR6, let me drive his car back to Houston. Itwas the first time for me in a VR6 Corrado. Without mantioning the rawfigures, lets just say I got to see what tripple digits feel like in aVR6. Just Great! On our way back, we were lucky enough to follow alowered Honda for about one hour. We left a 1/2 mile distance between himand ourselves. It was my theory of using a shield, if the law was to goafter him, he would go right in front of me and I could slow down intime. So we drive behind him for a while, loosing our convoy in the process.To be nice, we slowed down a tad to they could catch up. Shortly, I see thisblack dot coming up in the rear view mirror. It was the rest of ourconvoy! So I start to acclerate a bit but I get passed by this corradowith its momentum. All of a sudden I see the corrado lift its tail,swerving back and forth. I immediately start doing the same. It took usabout 5 seconds to slow down to the suggested limits. After going overone hill, we see our honda pulled over. What a lucky day. We were soexcited that we even pulled over at the next exit to relieve our adrenaline.
In summary, this was a great way to spend a day of vacation time! It wasgreat meeting all the people from the e-mail list. Thanks to Nick andShaun for organizing this successful event and if you have not attended acorrado get-to-gether yet, then do so because they are lots of fun!
At the Park:
back up...