Concorso Italiano/Monterey
Historics- August 19-20, 2005
by Emilia
Seiferling
Day
one
It all started out well enough, for our trip over to
Monterey. We allowed for the commute traffic on our route to thin out
before we left in the morning. Well, like the best laid plans, it did not
work out as planned! First, we were slowed way down in Antioch, on Highway
4. Then we moved smoothly all the way to San Jose. It was there that
we totally fell behind schedule! The traffic on Highway 101, at about
Capitol Expressway, ground to a stop! The one good thing was that the
Pantera handled the stop and barely go traffic in fine form and did not over
heat! We were eventually forced to exit off Highway 101 at
Hellyer. What an appropriate name for a
street. It seemed as if we did drive to hell and back before
we were back on the freeway! We later found out that it was a wreck with
an acid spill that closed down the entire freeway. All of these travel
problems lead to an hour and a half addition to our travel time to Carmel.
We arrived too late for the lunch in Carmel, that we had planned, but we did get
to view the Pebble Beach Concours cars when they were on their tour and parked
on Ocean Avenue. ( Note: the best public restroom ever is located at the
corner of the park where the Tour has lunch!) There were a couple of
special sightings on Ocean Ave. We saw Sir Sterling Moss and his
winning Mercedes #722 300SLR. The car was on the original factory carrier.
We also saw the Batmobile driving around town. We then headed to the Las
Laureles Lodge, where we had a room with the PCNC group. We stopped for
gas in Carmel. The cost was $3.05 for 91 octane. We later saw it for
$3.11 in Carmel Valley.
Once at the hotel, we checked out the hospitality
suit. We munched and drank our missed lunch. While we were
there, we were joined by CP members Rick Moseley. and Carl Stein.
They were staying with the PI group in Marina and had come over to Carmel Valley
to see what was happening with PCNC. At that time there was nothing
happening at PI. What no hospitality suit at PI? We learned that
they had an easy trip from Sacramento. In fact, they stopped for lunch
early in San Juan Bautista since they had made such good time. Carl
especially enjoyed telling us about his great Mexican lunch after he learned
that we had missed lunch!
Jim and I went to an early dinner
at a new restaurant for us, Cafe Rustica, in Carmel Valley. We had a
wonderful meal! We dinned outside. Jim had the lamb filets and I had
the pork loin medallions. We shared a heirloom tomato salad with pesto and
goat cheese that was huge and delicious. The Monterey county wine
that we enjoyed was Logan. There was ample free parking for the
restaurant. After dinner we returned to the hotel and the hospitality suit
for a night cap. Then it was time to get some sleep, since tomorrow
would be an early day.
Day Two
It was up at 6 am to be showered and dressed in order
to be ready to leave with the group for Concorso Italiano. There were 8
cars that were ready to leave at 7 am. It was an impressive line up of
cars on the road. There was fog at the top of the Laureles Grade that
limited visibility and required both head lights and wipers! I was very
glad that Jim was not one of those guys who had removed the windshield
wipers! The drive into Concorso went smoothly for us, but the organizers
still need to fine tune traffic control on the entry and exit route.
Once parked in the DeTomaso area, we began our quest for the "free coffee" for
the exhibitors. In the process of trying to find the exhibitor
hospitality tent we bumped into several people all doing the same thing!
Steve & Merry Dalcino, Linda & Randy Welsch, and their neighbors from
San Ramon Gary & Sue . Gary and Sue have had their Pantera for about 6
months. It turned out that they were parked right next to us in the show.
(There was no map and the event volunteers didn't have a clue where the
hospitality tent was). The weather was cold and foggy for most of the
day. The sun came out only very briefly in the afternoon. During the
course of the day we met up with several CP members; John Worsley, Carl Stein,
Rick Moseley, Linda & Jeff Budelli, & Glen Cramer. There were four
Panteras, from our club, at the event and three of them won awards! Jeff
-Best Engine, Carl-Third place touring Class, Glen- Best Interior and Best
Modified Car! Very impressive for our small CP group.

Glen, Carl, & Jeff
A note for the ladies and those who buy them jewelry. I
spoke to Jo Snyder of Jo's . She designs truly beautiful automotive
inspired jewelry. I have purchased a different piece of deTomaso
jewelry from her each of the first three years that we attended the
Concorso. Well, this year I didn't buy anything, but I sent three ladies
to her and I know that two of them were happy buyers of Jo's beautiful
automotive designs. Jo is cutting back due to some past medical
problems and some wonderful grandchildren. If you want one of Jo's
pieces, she can be reached at P.O. Box 3013, Orange, Ca. 92857.
She made one of my pieces up custom, to match the earrings and
pendant. Her gold work is really
distinctive.
Carl was selected to
drive his Pantera on the stage during the deTomaso marque part of the
program. Carl has had the car for 27 years! John got to ride in the
passenger side during the podium drive and was thrilled! After the podium
drive and the trophy, Carl said that he almost did not bring the Pantera for the
weekend, since he had to do some last minute fixes to it! Carl also
ended up parked next to a newer Pantera owner, Randy McAyeal from
Loomis. So we all spoke to him about the Capitol Panteras. Hopefully Randy
will come to our next meeting! Rick and Carl also found that the owner of
the hotel, where the PI group stayed, has a Pantera and lives in Stockton.
Maybe we'll get a couple of new members! It was long cold and foggy day,
so we headed out a bit early for the lodge. We wanted to rest up and warm
up for the PCNC "Good Times" dinner that evening. The weather was pretty
good for outdoor dinning that night. If you had layers of clothing on you
were fine, since there was no wind and the fog didn't roll in until later.
We had nice group of people at our table for dinner; Tom Galli, Bob Benson
& son, Al Chelini & friend Judy, and Diane Dean. Since PCNC
President Bob was at the table, it became the "head table" and we got to go
through the buffet line first! The buffet line was filled with lots of
good food. So it was a fun evening of conversation, food and DeTomaso
automobiles.

Carl & Keith Martin, with
John Worsley in the passenger seat, on center
stage
Day
Three
Yet another early
morning! This vacationing requires getting up earlier than a workday!
We arrived after an easy drive in light traffic at the
PI corral at Laguna Seca. Then once again we were off for the quest to
find that first cup of morning coffee. The stand where we have gotten
coffee in past years was not open on time! Talk about a poor business
move, lets sell coffee and rolls and have the first stand that the race fans go
by and not be open on time! We had to go all the way over the bridge to
find coffee, passing many stalls that were not ready to open at the appointed 8
am. After we did find coffee, we were ready to start walking the
exhibits. One good thing about being early, the crowds were small and very
considerate of people taking photos. We figured the diehards are the ones
who were early for the event. We started at the Chaparral exhibit.
This is where Jim really scored. He had saved a program from Laguna Seca
1967 with the winged Chaparral on the cover. He brought this
with him and was aiming to get it signed. Well, Jim got it signed by Jim
Hall and Vic Elford who were both very gracious. Mr. Elford said to Jim
that he "wasn't there in 1967, but I was there in 1966". I was so excited
for Jim that I forgot that I had my camera, until it was too late, I snapped
quickly and cut off both Vic's and Jim's heads off in the photo! The
second shot was not as good but they have heads! You can read more on the
significant contributions Jim Hall made in the racing world at the following web
link, http://www.petroleummuseum.org/Chaparral/Chaparralhome.html
We always have an eye open for celebrities, but take what I call
stealth paparazzi photos. We don't ask to pose with them and try not to be
in their face with the camera. We also saw Brian Redman and Phil Hill at
the Chaparral exhibit. We also watched the Speed Channel crew film a
couple of segments, one with Alain de Cadenet and one by Mike Joy. While
we watching them film with de Cadenet, we struck up a conversation with an older
gentleman who was quite knowledgeable. Our conversation went on for
about 45 minutes. Little by little he told us more about his automotive
background. He said no one would know him, as he was "behind the
scene". Well, it turned out that he was the factory Mercedes mechanic for
Sterling Moss's #722 300SLR, in 1955. He had a long and varied career
for Mercedes and has been a judge at Pebble Beach. Jim started asking him
some technical questions on how the valves were adjusted on the Mercedes
desmodromic valve engine. Yes, he was the real deal, because he explained
precisely how this procedure was done. He finally told us his name was
Erwin Benner, but that was not the name that he was known by early in his
career. He is originally from Iceland and the surnames that
people use change. Whoever this mystery man was, he was very
knowledgeable and it was enjoyable to speak with him. He said that he
would be at the Historics in Sonoma next year and would look for us. We
will be looking for Erwin too.

Our mystery man, Erwin Benner &
Emilia
The rest of the morning
was spent walking the pit areas. We didn't catch some of the early
sessions, but did hear that there were some weather delays due to fog.
They had to be able to see from one flagman to the next flagman, but the
fog was still present on part of the course, so delays resulted. We
started back to the corral area for the PI luncheon. This year the
luncheon was again catered by Tarpy's. The food was really good and
plentiful. If you haven't done the PI Corral package at Laguna Seca, you
are missing out. It was the best lunch of any that we saw in the corral
areas that we saw. It would be very difficult to go back
to regular parking and food at the races, after you have done PI.
After lunch it was back to finish walking the pit areas. Then we
headed to the start/finish line to watch the afternoon sessions. There
were several highlights to the afternoon. There were parade laps for only
the Chaparrals. The highlight of which was seeing Jim
Hall's famous 2J vacuum car, on the course. Later in the
afternoon, Sir Sterling Moss, with passenger Jay Leno, drove the last laps
ever for Mercedes #722. It will be retired to a new museum in Germany and
never driven again. Jim Hall drove a couple of laps in the winged
2E Chaparral. All the cars that he brought out are in the Petroleum
Museum, in Midland Texas. We saw Bobby Rahal drive a 1961 Ferrari 250
GT to victory in his session. We also saw Brian Redman come in second
in a 1958 Scarab Mk III. That session also had Ol' Yeller ll from
1959 (note; it is owned by a dentist). This car was recently
featured in the 1-hour program "Behind the Headlights", on the Speed
Channel. We stayed for the last race, which were
the Can Am cars. Then we began the long walk back to the car.
Luckily the trip out of the corral was a very easy one. We were directed
onto a road that we were not familiar with, but we didn't care because it
was free of traffic and going downhill. There was just us and a Corvette
ahead of us on the road. We snaked around the backcountry and ended up at
the main entrance where the police just waved us onto the main road! Once
back at the Lodge, it was time to have a beer and dinner. We were too
tired to drive anywhere new for dinner, so we decided to have
dinner at the Lodge. We had a bad meal there our first stay at the
Lodge four years ago, so we had tried to avoid the restaurant. We
hoped that there would not be a repeat and decided to give it a try. We
are happy to report that our dinner was very good, the service was good and the
setting at sunset was very calming. We both had the mushroom bisque soup.
Jim had the Veal and I had the Calamari. We shared a bottle of Merlot, by
Scheid. We know one of the partners in the winery, so we needed to
try his wine! The servings were ample so we were too full to finish
everything and sorry to say left no room for dessert. As we were finishing
dinner, a group of PCNC members were seated. As we exited,
we offered the first table our unfinished wine. They were
not too proud and didn't turn down left over
wine!
Day
Four
Finally a day to
sleep later than a workday! We slept into 7:30 am!
Everyone was doing the same, because we didn't hear a single Pantera leave
early! After a quick shower, a cup of coffee and repacking the Pantera we
said our goodbyes and headed home. I was not anxious to go through San
Jose again, so Jim planned a route home via Hollister and San Luis
reservoir. We topped up the gas tank in Salinas for $2.97 per
gallon. We had light traffic all the way home and were cruising with the
flow at 75 to 80 MPH. We stopped at In-N-Out Burger in Stockton, for
an early lunch. It hit the spot for a good burger on a road trip.
The car weekend was coming to a close. The Pantera preformed very
well. Having this car has opened a lot of doors for us and
introduced us to a lot of new friends and people we never thought we would ever
meet. So get out there and drive your
car!