Porsche Parade - Travel and PreparationBy Dean Lewellen Several Arizona Region members and their families and associates will be traveling more than 1,300 miles northwest from Phoenix to Portland, Oregon in early August to participate in the annual, six day long Porsche gathering known as the “Porsche Parade”. This year’s Parade (August 6-11) will be number fifty-one in the sequence of consecutive yearly happenings which can be traced back to the inaugural meeting held in 1956 at Gaithersburg, Maryland, hosted by the Potomac Region the founding region of the Porsche Club of America. Eighty-five Porsches were entered in that first event at a cost of $13.00 for PCA members and $15.00 for non-members and sixty-four PCAer’s were recorded as entrants - wow, what a bargain! The registration cost for a member, an associate and one car at the 2006 Portland Parade is $150.00. It has long been sold out and there is a waiting list for late registrants—fifty years does make a difference! Legend has it that an actual parade of Porsches, or at least a conga line of the cars wove and drove through the streets of the host city, thus coining the phrase, Porsche Parade, which has become the enduring title for the PCA’s annual convention of cars and people. There is no actual parade of Porsches scheduled for the Portland Parade, but there is a two-day Driver’s Education event scheduled for the Friday and Saturday at the end of the Parade week. It is sponsored by the Oregon Region of PCA and will utilize the 1.8 mile road course at the world famous Portland International Raceway. Portland’s PIR is a city owned/operated facility which is beautiful, challenging and a great venue to exercise your Porsche and sharpen your driving skills. Here’s some information found on the internet about the expected journey and stay in Portland during early August. First, Mapquest.com defines the distance from downtown Phoenix to downtown Portland as 1,335.14 miles with a driving time of 20 hours and 9 minutes routing through Los Angeles, Pasadena, Bakersfield, Sacramento, Eugene to Portland. I have traveled this route several times to Seattle and, barring summertime construction projects, it should be a smooth sail northwest. An overnight at the downtown Embassy Suites in Sacramento is a good stay on the road. August is typically the best weather month in the Pacific Northwest. My Texan father-in-law always said that we had two seasons in Seattle, winter and August, and he would only visit us during that time. August temperatures historically average 81˙F during the daytime and 59˙F at night. It should feel about like Sedona/Prescott in August. Next, the preparation/checklist for long distance travel is the same as the checklist for a Driver’s Education event. The “From the Motor Pool” article in the January 2006 issue of Going Places detailed the items you need to checkout before departure. Another good idea is to carry along a “travel kit” which includes a roll of paper towels, window cleaner, tire gauge, a roll of duct tape, road flares or a warning triangle, a plastic ground cloth and a garbage bag to hold a dirty, flat tire should it be needed, as well as a few garage towels. I also carry a small bottle of something like Quick Detailer to remove bird droppings and bug deposits each day. The meat and potatoes of the Parade will be the events and activities involving you and your Porsche. Imagine a Phoenix Flight, Cinco de Mayo or Fiesta del Porsche multiplied by about six and you will begin to visualize the competition content of a Porsche Parade. The Concours d’Elegance takes all day Monday to complete the judging with the preparation going on nonstop for several days prior to the Monday morning placement of the cars for the show. The gimmick and TSD rallies take most of Tuesday to complete and score. The Driving Event takes two days to complete all the class runs—it used to take three days. There are events like art shows, walking rallies, a golf tournament, RC racing, technical sessions, a huge Goodie Store, workshops for committee chairpersons, a rally school, a web site seminar, a newsletter editor seminar, a memorabilia swap meet, a Driver’s Ed seminar, and much, much more. You should have no fear of entering as many Parade events and activities as you and your associate can schedule (you just can’t do everything). Lots of folks enter events at a Parade that they would never consider trying at their home region. The serious competitors will rule anyway, so go out and have some fun with your old and newly acquired friends. You will meet new people at a Parade, some of whom will remain forever close. The last big events are the Worker’s Party (great door prizes) and the closing Victory Banquet (more great door prizes). The host region for the 51st Porsche Parade is the Oregon Region of Zone 6. They will receive lots of help and support from their neighboring regions of Zone 6, PCA National and from members elsewhere in the country with the production and execution of the events and activities during this Parade. Of some historical and perhaps some trivial interest, the Silver Sage Region of Zone 6 hosted the 16th Parade in 1971, in Sun Valley, Idaho. The Parade chairman was a fellow by the name of Mick Williams, who became the President of PCA during the late 1970’s and early 1980’s. At the close of the final Victory Banquet on Saturday night, Mick ended the affair with a short, anonymous offering called “An Irish Prayer.” People were so moved and taken by the words which were so profoundly appropriate to many, that Mick was called upon to close the final Victory Banquet at every Porsche Parade following 1971 until his untimely death due to cancer in the early 1990’s. Leonard Turner, Panorama Chief Photographer and PCA Policy Advisor, has closed every Parade since Mick died with this short prayer, and will do so in Portland, I’m sure. With your indulgence, the message that means so much to many PCAer’s follows: May the road rise up to meet you, That says a lot in a few words, and, says it all for a lot of us. Thanks, Mick. See you in Portland! |