Rik Larson, SVR President

·      A big welcome to Tina Talamantes as our new secretary. We greatly appreciate your volunteering.

·      And thanks to Nancy Olson who has been our secretary since 2023.

·      The PCA Porsche Parade registration is open now and has almost 900 cars signed up. Registration closes March 22^nd. The Phase II registration opens on April 3^rd and provides for signing up for the various events (competitive, social, tours, banquets, etc.). The Porsche Parade is being held in Birmingham, Alabama in June.

·      The SVR Autocross School registration is still open ---- Collin Fat reports that there are still a few openings for this 2-day school (March).

·      And the classy Anderson’s Conn Valley Tour II event (July) is now full and is accepting folks on a wait list.

·      The Pacific Grove Tour in May is still accepting reservations. Check with Jim and Linda McMahen for hotel accommodations.

·      We strongly encourage you to signup for events when they are announced……….many of them have a limit on the number of cars or people that they can handle.

·      Dick McFarlane is coordinating a special opportunity to feed the less fortunate by “Sharing God’s Bounty” event at St. Philomene Catholic Church Gym on March 26^th from 5:15 to 7:15 pm. He needs 20 volunteers to help with the Tuesday event to help feed the poor (serving the meal, cleanup, etc.). See the flyer elsewhere in this DRIFTER.

·      Check out the article on Karen Holmes, SVR member and owner of Karen’s Bakery in Folsom. The link is in the flyer below.

·      Karen is a 911 Cup racer.

·      The article is reprinted with the permission of the author, David Mathews, and PCA Club Racing News.

·      The new Porsche Sacramento Center is nearing completion (I drove by the new facility the other day).

·      It is located at Auburn Blvd and the Howe Avenue exit off of Business Interstate 80 -- (2200 Auburn Blvd).

·      No announcement yet of the opening date.

·      The website is   porschesacramento.com   (It may not be reachable yet…………I had trouble getting to the website several times in the past few days).

·      Next race is in Sao Paulo, Brazil, on March 16^th.

·      And another race on March 30^th in Tokyo, Japan.

·      Trying to find live TV coverage of the races this year is tough. How good are you at getting some foreign TV networks? Some sources say to try CBS Sports Network, TNT, Paramount Plus. Good luck.

·      Remember to wear your SVR name badge to events.

Vice President

As we ease into March, the SVR activity calendar starts to become a bit more active. Our autocross team is holding our annual autocross driving school, which is a fabulous way to be introduced to the sport of autocross and learn how to drive your Porsche at its limits in a safe environment. This is a 2-day event. Sunday 3/10 is the classroom session at Porsche Rocklin, followed by the driving portion on Saturday 3/16 at Thunderhill. We follow that with the first official SVR autocross of the season on Sunday 3/17, providing students with the ability to continue right into their first event to try out their newfound skills.

The Porschettes are getting together on March 20th. Thanks to the Calvert’s for hosting!

And Porsches and Pints starts up the monthly cadence of meetups on the 3rd Thursday of each month. On March 21st, we will be at Solid Ground Brewing in Diamond Springs, giving everyone the chance to have a nice drive up the hill on the 50 side. We will have reserved parking for the Porsches.

The Rally Team is kicking off their series with the Spring Flowers rally on March 23rd. Check the flyer below for details or reach out to rally@svr-pca.org or Rallymaster Brad Call at (916) 458-2145 with any questions.

And finally, we are all blessed to be Porsche owners and part of this wonderful community. As such, SVR will be doing more community outreach. We are looking for 20 volunteers on March 26th to help serve dinner to those less fortunate. Please contact Dick MacFarlane for more details at (916) 715-5765 or DickM@HPSIonline.com.

Tour season is just around the corner and our first combined Poker Run/Driving Tour is Sunday April 7th.  At five locations along the route you will draw a card to make up your Poker hand with the hopes of having the winning hand for your run group. Winners win a bottle of Adoble Road Winery’s “Shift” red blend wine in its spectacular bottle adorned with gear shift knob top and metal shift gate label.

We’ll depart from El Dorado Town Center (draw first card) and make our way through Shingle Springs to the town of El Dorado where we join CA 49 south to Plymouth.    Navigate the country roads through Fiddletown and Fairplay (appropriate name for a Poker Run) to our first stop at the Community Center at Pioneer Park in Melsons Corner (draw card 2).  Off to Placerville (draw card 3) through Somerset and Pleasant Valley.    We’ll pass through Cold Springs and Gold Hill enroute to a stop along the South Fork of the American River at Coloma (draw card 4).  Our last leg takes us through Rescue and down to Cameron Park for the final card draw at our destination Moonraker Millhouse Rap Room & Restaurant.  Don’t miss it. Registration is now open.

Next up with be the scenic old historic Route 40 tour following much of the original route from Grantie Bay up to Donner Summit. Lunch at the Route 40 Café.

The rally starts in Folsom at the IHOP Restaurant at 2525 Iron Point Road, and finishes at Skipolini’s Pizza at 191 Blue Ravine Rd.

The Spring Flowers Rally is designed to be fun for all with simple instructions and a scenic route traversing the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. The duration of the rally is approximately 4 hours. The Richta scoring and timing system will be used for the rally.

Participants will need to download the FREE Richta Competitor app to their smart phone. Information about the Richta Competitor app is available at: richtarally.com. The General Instructions will be posted to MotorsportReg.

First Car out at 10:01 AM. A competitor’s meeting will be held starting at 9:15 AM. Awards will be given to first place in Novice, Senior, and Expert Classes. Awards beyond first place in class dependent upon number of entries. This event is open to the public, all types of cars, not just Porsches.

The Spring Flowers Rally is the first of six TSD rallies to be presented by SVR in 2024. Awards will be presented to the highest finishers in each class who have completed at least four of the six rallies.

Registration and payment at http://msreg.com/SVRSpringFlowersRally. The entry fee is $35 per car. Advance Registration is Required. PCA Insurance requires 2 people per car (Signing of PCA waiver form is required)

Questions: rally@svr-pca.org. The Rallymaster is Brad Call. (916) 458-2145

Click the link below to register for your tickets and receive further details. Contact Mardi Quain at social@svr-pca.org or 650-504-4866 for more information.

SIGNUP EARLY TO BE PART OF THE PORSCHE PARADE! Registration opens May 1, 2024.

Time to sign up for the 2024 Zoom Clinic and the “Hands ON” Judging Schools.

All PCA Zone 7 members are invited to attend the 2024 Concours Judging School. In order to ensure the continued strength of the series and consistent judging from event-to-event, we need trained judges. And we are always happy to see new faces at series events. If you’re new to the Series, have had limited or no judging experience, and are interested in understanding how judging works, please join us.

The school will provide instruction on what to look for as a judge (and, conversely, what judges look for as you prepare your Porsche for judging), the “do’s” and “don’ts” of judging, and hands-on judge training. There will also be time for Q&A, both before and after the hands-on judging, so here’s your chance to ask the things you’ve always wanted to know about judging in or preparing a Porsche for the Zone Concours Series.

The Concours School will be held in 2 phases with the first phase held virtually on Zoom from 9 am to 11 am. on April 6^th, the Hands on Clinics on April 20 @ High Tech Auto in San Rafel or May 5^th @ Porsche of Stevens Creek or on May 19 at the Nelson Residence in Single Springs, CA.

SIGN UP HERE:

The Pre-Valentines Dinner was held on Monday, February 12^th and 40 people attended. The folks at Palermo Ristorante Italiano were just great. We had the entire restaurant to ourselves.

By & Photos Jack Banville 

All of the participants were honored to showcase this collection of 914s at the museum from January 14^th to March 3^rd. hope you had a chance to take a look.

Camera Car -- Skip’s Racer - 1962 Lotus 23 Sports Racer Red #4 The motor is a 1679 cc 4-cylinder Lotus Twin Cam.

My Sports Car Journey #7

I had changed the transmission oil in our TR3A. The next evening, we drove to a movie. Driving home, the engine sputtered and died. We coasted into a nearby parking lot. I opened the hood to find lots of smoke and nasty smells that no polite car should ever emit. We walked home. The next day, I discovered that I had drained the engine oil, not the transmission oil. With no oil, I had destroyed the engine. We ended up replacing the TR3A with a TR4, which I promised not to abuse. It became my daily drive for four years. (See the comment about the rollbar in Story #6.) The TR4 is, in my opinion, the best of all the Triumph sports cars, 2 through 8, combining the simplicity of the 2s and 3s with a few modern conveniences like roll-up windows, a heater that actually works (or perhaps it’s the lack of cold air on the rib cage) and synchromesh on first gear.

We entered some rallies and I quickly discovered what I liked, and what I disliked. Driving on back roads and sharing the challenge with my partner was fun, getting lost or doing math while driving on back roads, was not fun. I decided to create a rally I would want to enter. Being totally unknown, I needed to attract some attention, so I announced a $1.00 entry fee and called it “The Dollar Rally”. It featured clear instructions with no traps, minimal speed changes and checkpoints identified in the route instructions. The event was very successful, with about 50 entries, and I was encouraged to do more. However, some experienced rallyists told me that what I was trying to do had already been invented; it was called a Monte Carlo style rally. So, I ran some, and that has been my preferred rally format ever since.

The Monte Carlo Rally was first run in 1910. It has undergone many changes since then, but one of the most enduring features was a well-defined route to the checkpoints, with stated expected arrival times. The current Monte Carlo Rally is now part of the FIA World Rally Championship.

I organized many rallies for the Triumph Travelers Sports Car Club over the years. The TTSCC board would question and eventually approve my plan, members would pre-run the route looking for problems, and then they would staff all the checkpoints (there was no Richta GPS system in those days). I tended to write long rallies, usually well over 100 miles and sometimes all-nighters. One was 300 miles long, with 18 checkpoints, lasting about 15 hours. Entries came from Northern and Southern California.

Overcoming adversity is the essence of rallying, and that applies to rallymasters as well as contestants. During the oil embargo of 1973, most gas stations were open only during the day, and they restricted sales on even and odd numbered days by your license number. Lots of annual rallies were cancelled, but I discovered that, on Highway 5, the gas stations were open 24-hours and would sell to anybody, so I staged a successful all-night rally based in Santa Nella. Years later, during the COVID-19 pandemic, I staged the “Social Distancing Rally”. Contestants could drive the course anytime during a two-week period and report their scores via email. No face-to-face contact whatsoever.

In 1972, Lori graduated from San Jose State with a master’s degree, got a job, and needed her own car. After some searching, she decided upon a British racing green 1970 Volvo 1800E. The body was iconic, but the rest was basic Volvo 122, and very reliable. The 1986 cc inline four delivered 130 HP at 6000 RPM. The 1800E had a four-speed transmission (more on that later) with overdrive, and leather seats. It was sporty yet sophisticated; it was great to drive and great to look at; and it was all hers.

Volvo began building cars in 1927. Engineered for Swedish winters and dirt roads, their robust design and reliability made them a competitive choice for endurance rallies. Both the PV444 (1946 – 1958) and PV544 (58 – 65) achieved victories in international competition, including the East African Safari, the RAC Rally in the United Kingdom, the Tulip Rally in the Netherlands, and the Monte Carlo Rally. Rally successes continued with the Volvo Amazon, or 120 series (56 – 70), the 140 series (66 – 74), and the 240 series (74 – 93). (More on Volvo 122 and the 142 rally cars next month.) But these were all sporty sedans, not true sports cars.

The Volvo P1800 (1961 – 73) was initially created as a concept by Pietro Frua, the same Italian firm that designed my Glas 1300 GT (Story #2). It was initially built by Jensen Motors in the United Kingdom, with production later moving to Volvo in Sweden. With the addition of Bosch direct fuel injection in 1970, the name was changed from P1800 to 1800E. The engine size was increased to two liters, but by then, “1800” had become a brand, like “356” or “911”, so the name was retained, even with the larger engine.

At a Triumph Travelers party one evening, our friend Brian introduced me to a fellow who was organizing a performance rally on the dirt roads of the Mendocino National Forest. The only hitch was that cars needed to have a roll cage, not just a rollbar, or a metal hard top. Brian and I were enthused, but neither my TR-4 nor his TR-6 had a full roll cage, but Lori’s 1800E did have a hard top!

We approached her, refilled her drink, and explained what we wanted to do. Perhaps it was the drinks, but she said we could use her 1800E, as long as we promised not to damage it. I would drive and Brian would co-drive (navigators are called co-drivers in performance rallies). I bought a set of Cooper M+S (mud/snow) tires, which were the preferred rally tires at the time. Since it was a night rally, I converted the headlights to quartz halogen, added a pair of Cibié Oscar driving lights and mounted a pair of modified fog lights as cornering lights. We already had helmets from autocrossing, and fireproof driving suits and Head and Neck Support (HANS) devices were not required in those days. We even practiced on a local dirt road one night. We were ready and the Mendocino forest was calling us.

We were not very fast, but we were having fun. At one point on the rally, as we forded a small stream, I noticed a fellow in a big 4X4 truck, with a winch and cable, ready to rescue any rally cars that got stuck in the mud. We waved and kept going. I would meet that gentleman 35 years later when I was organizing my own performance rally. What a small world we live in!

We were doing fine in Lori’s 1800E until the transmission broke. The engine was running, but I couldn’t change gears. I put in the clutch, and we coasted into a nearby clearing where we put out our “OK” sign and waited for the sweep car. If we were 20 minutes late at the next checkpoint, we would be time-barred, but what could we do, overhaul the transmission on dirt with a tire jack and hand tools? And what would I tell Lori when I got home, with or without her car?

To be continued…

SVR Membership Report

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Membership Director, at:

membership@svr-pca.org

Since we use e-mail for most of our communications, it is necessary to keep our e-mail address current with SVR and PCA. To update your information, go to www.pca.org and login. You can then make any updates (address, car, e-mail etc.).

Also, even though we receive the information from PCA monthly, you can send the same updates to: membership@svr-pca.org. New Member badges will now come with a removable colored sticker to encourage introductions at club events. They can be removed at any time. Welcome to the Sacramento Valley Region of the Porsche Club of America.

How do you join the Porsche Club? Go to: https://www.pca.org/user/join/membership -This is an online system that will request a credit card for payment. If you would rather fill out a paper form, contact 2023 SVR Membership Director, at membership@svr-pca.org

Not a Porsche owner but interested in the PCA? Try the PCA Test Drive program. For information, go to: www.pca.org/pca-test-drive Need to update your PCA information? Update your PCA record at www.pca.org

Do you have 2 e-mail addresses? Want Club info sent to a second email, work, home, spouse, friend...? It’s as easy as e-mailing your second e-mail address to the Membership Director, membership@svr-pca.org

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·      Expect to start seeing the notice below in the monthly DRIFTER, our eBLASTS, the website, and on the MotorsportReg (MSR) pages that we have for our events.

The above as mentioned by Rik Larson just so you know. This is something that has been in the PCA RPM (Region Procedures Manual) since at least 2019 and is now appearing at more and more PCA events (social media driven).