Volume 45 - Vol 3 | June 2023 | |
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View Through The Star
by Gary Edwards, President
I heard it again. My section doesn’t do very much. But it wasn’t about Peachtree Section!
I have said frequently I believe events are the essence of a section and are the service we offer to our members. I believe that having lots of events is a key to serving our diverse membership. I want to remind you that we can only have events if we have event planners. If you have something you’ve always wanted to do and you’d love to take 25 of your best friends with you, I encourage you to plan an event. We can do anything that isn’t illegal, immoral or results in an unplanned financial loss. We’ve had events as diverse as skeet shooting to driving on a racetrack. Personally, I would love to do an autocross or a Safe Driver, Safe Family event (basic driving safety skills), but the challenge is having a large parking lot available for a reasonable price. If you know of a large parking lot we can get for a reasonable fee please let me know.
I think events generate excitement. I am certainly excited about Peachtree Section, both the people and the cars. I’m especially excited about our performance driving events but all of our events are fun, and I’ve enjoyed cars and coffees more than I ever expected. When I think about Mercedes and excitement the first things that come to mind are the AMGs. But there’s more to excitement than that. All the cars from the SUVs, the off-road vehicles, the track focused vehicles and the four-door sedan, even the more mundane daily drivers are extremely competently executed. They’re all a pleasure to drive and they’re all the kind of car where you look down and realize “oh I’m going a lot faster than I thought”. And they are all exceedingly safe. They’re generally technically very well executed, often with features years ahead of the competition. Read More
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July
7/1 | Cars and Coffee at Halcyon | register | map
7/8 | Mountain Drive | watch for details
7/15 | German Car Repair Tech Session| watch for details | map
7/23 | PCA Autocross | register | map
7/29 | Member Appreciation | register | map
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August
8/5 | Cars and Coffee at Halcyon | register | map
8/13 | PCA Autocross | register | map
8/19 | Warner Robbins Aviation Museum | watch for details
8/23 | Concours Judging School | register | ZOOM
8/28 | HPDE with Lotus Club | watch for details
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September
9/2 | Cars and Coffee at Halcyon | register | map
9/3 | Karting at Lanier | watch for details | map
9/6 - 9/10 | Mercedes Grande | register | map
9/9 | Mountain Drive | watch for details
9/23 | Peachtree Concours d' Elegance| watch for details | map
9/24 | PCA Autocross | register | map
9/29 - 10/1 | HPDE Road Atlanta | watch for details
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Thanks to our Renewing Members | |
- Alan Bremer
- Gordon Broome
- Douglas Coulter
- Michael DiCarlo
- William Dickinson
- Adrienne Donahue
- James Duncan
- John Eagleson
- Alejandro Ferrell
- Bruce Fichter
- Ian-Gordon Fisher
- Carl Frasher
- Douglas Geganto
- Reuel Hamilton
- Leland Harwood
- Ken Hedrick
- Archie James
- Zachary Kehayov
- Carl Maier
- John Olson III
- Mahesh Patel
- Elda Pearce
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- Nicholas Pio
- Everett Price
- Marvin Psalmond
- Diana Quinn
- John Race
- Gezim Rexhepi
- Laurie Rich
- J Richey
- Gary Samoluk
- Chris Sears
- Yousef Shaban
- Dietmar Schmid
- Chris Sears
- James Seme
- Scott Smith
- Vinh Vo
- David Waldrop
- Tom Wells
- Edina White
- Kurt Wolfe
- Scott Zelgewicz
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Cars and Coffee at Halcyon
Join us for our monthly Cars & Coffee sponsored by RBM’s Mercedes-Benz Experience at Halcyon. Please arrive by 9:30 am, we’ll begin at approximately 10 a.m. when everyone has finished prepping their cars. The Fuel coffee shop is ready to serve up a hot cup of coffee to enjoy while chatting with fellow members.
This year some months will have a theme to them. Here is our upcoming dates:
6/3 - Cars and Coffee at Halcyon - Bruno Sacco Car Show (See article below)
7/1 - Cars and Coffee at Halcyon
8/5 - Cars and Coffee at Halcyon
9/2 - Cars and Coffee at Halcyon
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BRUNO SACCO
In-person and Virtual CAR SHOW
Cars and Coffee at Halcyon
June 3, 2023
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Sam Kamber, Concours Chair
The largest collection of “Bruno Sacco” vehicles will be on display at Halcyon in Alpharetta GA on the 3rd of June from 10:00 am to 1:00 pm. In addition to the Live Show we are for the first time hosting a Virtual Car Show for those not displaying their cars at the Live Show at Halcyon in Alpharetta, GA.
This is a charity event with the recipient being Bert’s Big Adventure which is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that provides a magical, all-expenses-paid, five-day journey to Walt Disney World® for children with chronic and terminal illnesses and their families.
VOTE FOR YOUR FAVORITE BRUNO SACCO CARS! All entered Bruno Sacco cars (Live Show and Virtual) are now available online. Voting is FREE and you may vote for as many cars as you would like (Only one vote per car!). Voting will be open until Saturday, June 3, 2023 at 2:30 p.m.
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My Mercedes Place 20th Anniversary Celebration and Tech Session on Saturday June 10, 2023, Doors open at 11:00 for conversations and lunch followed by a facilities tour and tech session.
Lunch will be provided by our sponsor and host My Mercedes and Bimmer Place. Additionally, most services will be 20% off for the month of June in commemoration of their 20th year.
This is NO Charge for this event (Member + 1).
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Get your navigator and take a leisurely drive along the backcountry roads of Middle Georgia. Our journey will begin at the original Chick-Fil-A Dwarf House in Hapeville.
We will have lunch in Juliette, GA at the famous Whistle Stop Café made famous from the movie, Fried Green Tomatoes.
This will be a pure driving fun driving event, no tricky questions and not a timed event.
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The third PCA autocross of the year is on June 25th at the huge parking lot at Atlanta Motor Speedway. Great fun, a great way to become a better driver and to learn your car’s medium speed performance limits in a safe environment.
Don’t doddle; they tend to fill up quickly. The dates for the rest of the year: July 23, August 13, September 24, October 8 and November 5.
These are well run, safe events that typically give you 10 runs – much better than most autocrosses, time to learn the course and experiment. You should plan to bring a helmet, though they do tend to have some loaner helmets available.
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Member Appreciation - July 29
Jane Brown and Thomas Lammert, Event Planners
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Members and guests of Peachtree Section are invited to the free Southern barbecue buffet at the group shelter in Sweetwater Creek State Park. The group shelter is a fully enclosed, air-conditioned building and includes kitchen facilities, private restrooms, a playground.
The free buffet includes barbecued pork and chicken, accompanied by several salads, molasses baked beans, walnut brownies, and beverages. All the food – except buns and pickles – will be homemade. The buffet will open at 12:30 p.m.
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Gary Edwards, Event Planner
We need concours judges for our September 23rd concours. We’ll provide free judges training the evening of Wednesday, August 23rd from 6 to 10 pm via ZOOM.
Previously certified judges are also welcome since there have been some rule book changes since our last training. There is no charge for this event, but you must register.
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High Performance Driving (HPDE) - 8/28 | |
It’s great fun, it’s addictive, and you also improve your driving. Our next events are on August 28th probably at Talladega Grand Prix Raceway (TGPR) in cooperation with the Lotus Club and on September 29 through October 1st at Road Atlanta with PCA.
Registration links for these are not yet available. Going to these PCA events and partnering with the Lotus Club allows us to get to tracks we otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford.
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Surprises while Car Shopping
by Gary Edwards
I pulled the dipstick to check the oil and – there was no oil! There weren’t even any low/high/normal range marks on the dipstick! The end of the dipstick looked like it was broken off!
I had flown a couple of hours to look at this car, a 1999 CL600 (140 chassis). I had spoken to the seller, an individual, not a dealer, who had described some problems with the car, and I had about a page and a half list of deficiencies based on the conversation and the pictures. It was clear that he had overpriced the car; the Hagerty value guide had $13,800 for a “fair” condition car and he was up towards the “good” price. I was thinking that I would be able to get it for around the “fair” condition price.
Condition is the most important determinant of the value of a car and sellers should be brutally honest in assessing condition to set their price. Overpricing a car benefits no one; the seller will waste time showing it to buyers who will walk, or it will generate no interest. In the unlikely event that it does sell for an unreasonable price, the seller might be happy, but the buyer is likely to be very disappointed, and in any venue that provides a rating the seller rating will suffer. Read more
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Peachtree Members Tour Jack Daniels Distillery | |
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As a part of the Peachtree Spring Fling weekend (April 27-30) several groups of members drove from Chattanooga to Lynchburg, Tennessee for some sightseeing in Lynchburg and a tour of the distilling plant.
After walking through the various distilling plant buildings and sniffing some of the fumes of alcohol in the making both groups made it back to Chattanooga safely.
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Group 1 - Dry Tour (L to R): Sandy and John Everage, Diana and Jim Quinn, Dean and Cristie Prince, Karen and Doug Geganto, Debbie Mabie | |
Group 2 - Sampling Tour (L to R): Rich Mabie, Brandon Berry, Janet and Kent Sauter (from Knoxville Section) | |
Mercedes-Benz USA And NFL Legend Matt Ryan Build Outdoor Learning Lab By Out Teach, At Dunbar Elementary School in Atlanta
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April 20, 2023 - Atlanta
Mercedes-Benz USA (MBUSA) employee volunteers and brand ambassador Matt Ryan built an outdoor learning lab for the students and teachers at Dunbar Elementary School in Atlanta as part of MBUSA's National Volunteer Week (April 17th -21st). The "Big Dig'' project was facilitated by Out Teach, a national non-profit designed to help schools and elementary teachers reimagine and re-engineer teaching and learning science into something fundamentally more effective and equitable for all students. MBUSA volunteers spent the day transforming the empty schoolyard into a fun project-based learning tool for the students.The program is part of Mercedes' corporate social responsibility initiative, Driving Your Future, which aims to empower the next generation by supporting educational programs, career readiness, and child safety. The "Big Dig" event took place during National Volunteer Week, which recognizes the impact of volunteer service to build stronger communities.
Read More
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Peachtree Section Officers | | |
Mercedes-Benz Club of America Peachtree Section | www.mbcapeachtree.com
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