How Werks Reunion Became A Bucket List event

Welcome to the Porsche Club Insider, your one stop for all things Porsche and PCA.

Here's your host, Vu Gwin, and the Insider crew.

Hello everyone and welcome to episode 205 and today we're going to go back in time,

take a little stroll down memory lane as well as give you some sort of new updates on what we

call Works Reunion. Before we get into it, let's thank our presenting sponsor Pirelli. Pirelli

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driveway and our garage. That's the test drive program and you can find details on that again

at PCA.org. Manny, can you believe it's been over 12 years since the name? I remember when we were

thinking about what would we name this event? I was sitting together with Jeff Caldwell,

the current president of the BMW Club of America, which I'm a member of, and this story starts

together with them. Here's an opportunity, and I think Jeff knows the story as well,

but some BMW CCA folks have a little bit of a different version. I'm not here to

necessarily clear the air, so to speak, but we're just going to share how we got there.

It all starts with an event called Legends of the Audubon, and we were happy that we were

asked to participate with them. What was the Rancho Cagnada? Correct.

Legends of the Audubon was run by the BMW Club, but when we were invited it was a third club,

so it was Mercedes, Ben's Club of America. Audi was there too? I don't think Audi came

later. What was the three powerhouses? The three majors, and that's why they

called Legends of the Audubon because they were all German marks. It was an event that was a club

event. It basically had the feeling of three different events in one, as each club did their

own thing. They even separated the amount of microphone time you'd have to 20 minutes each

club would have to get in front of the microphone. We liked being part of it. It gave our members

a chance to share their cars off during Monterey car week. It was usually a week where you have to

be invited to share your car that you just can't register. I think that event was initially a regional

event or some sort of. It wasn't called Legends back then, but I think once it became CCA National

and became Legends, and again, we were very happy to be a part of it. There's no mistake in when

we became a part of it. We brought 200, 220 cars to the event, so we were a big part of it. We were

going along happy, go lucky, and as with any relationship, when things are going well, we

were trying to be proactive and understand where we stood in the relationship. Without going into

too many details. In the end, CCA decided to move that event from Rancho Cagnata.

We didn't necessarily know about the fact that they were doing that, and we weren't part of that

decision. So we decided to stay at Rancho Cagnata and form what now is called Works Reunion.

There's a couple things that happen in between.

A couple things that happen. We don't need to go there, but when it happened, of course,

we weren't exactly happy because we thought the whole concept of Legends of the Auto was great,

but hindsight is 20-20. It's the best thing that we could have ever done is to become independent.

Absolutely. The best thing was, and we really weren't thinking about going on our own until

the final year that we were Legends. Things happened and gave us the opportunity to rethink

the relationship. We decided that it would be better if we went on our own and controlled our

own destiny, if you will. That was a blessing in disguise that this all went down the way it did

because we were able to branch out on our own and take a chance.

And to say that we were confident from the very beginning, we weren't. We weren't because we

didn't know. I remember, I believe, you were sharing with others at the time that you would be

happy if we could get 300 cars for the first one.

I was confident on the outside that I was telling people we were going to have 500 cars.

I wasn't too happy about things, how things turned out. And so I said,

we will get 500 cars on this field. And then I remember looking at you and saying,

if we get 200, we're going to spread them around so they look like 500 cars.

That's what it was. And we had to really, had to gear up very quickly, starting with the name.

What would we call this thing? And I remember, we've been to works one, works two, works three,

and how that came about. And calling it works with an S isn't a German thing.

And yet, it flows very well in the States calling it works reunion.

So we had to explain ourselves of why we chose that name.

Yeah. And I told people that, you know, we were also taking advantage of the success of Rendsport

reunion. Plus you had the motorsport reunion at the track. So it just made sense to keep the word

reunion somewhere in that, in that theme. And, you know, to me, works one was where it all started.

That was pretty cool. We were told that works in plural is not a German word.

But I said, we can't call it work reunion because people are going to think it's like

their office or something were union. And I said, well, in this case,

works sounds better in English. And so we kind of butchered up the word.

We had a location because we stayed put. Now we had a name. We had a target goal of how many cars

there. And also we had a great team of volunteers ready to make this happen.

And much like everything in PCA, none of this works unless we have the volunteers to chip in

and help. And so we had from a event chair to judging lead, we had it all. But we also had to come

up with to set the tone of works reunion because PCA up to that point may have been more perceived

with the traditional concourse, especially when you're on a golf course, when you say

a PCA event on concourse, you think concourse, you think Q tips, you think full on crazy detailing.

But works reunion was going to be sort of the first of national events that was not that type.

Yeah. In fact, I was I remember initially, I didn't even want to have any judging at all.

I can't remember this before Luft or whatnot, but I was envisioning an event

that would just be a reason to come hang out and spend the day, if you will, like a big

cards and coffee. But I think some of the organizers were and when I say what my thought

was, I was president at the time. So that's why I was having some input on this. I was kind of

overruled and they wanted to take the safe road and include judging. Because they said people

wanted to be able to win trophies. So I remember I gave in to that and said, you know, we'll do

judge, we'll do not call it judge because we didn't want to scare people away that this was

going to be at the level of parade. Yeah. So I do want to say I just did a little bit of research,

but we've called the first one 2014. Oh, was it? Yeah. So same year. I remember being an

elevator with Patrick Long and saying, Hey, I heard your event was pretty cool. And we just

did a quick elevator talk as we went to our floor. That's pretty interesting damage in

real life. Same year as we started works. Yeah, I forget if it was the before, if it came before

afterworks, which would have been August, I guess 2014. Yeah, definitely been August. So when was

left that year? Can you look that up? Anyways, so one of the things that transitioned from full

on traditional concord to judge, I do remember the first year we did it, folks had to adjust.

They were like, where are my score sheets? How can I, you know, did I win with this that and the

other? It was a different, different style, different vibe than what we're used to. But now

it's now it's understood. And for those that are seriously competing, you know, you can still come

and you'll do well. But does that mean a perfectly prep car will always win first place? Absolutely

not. The big thing is the story. I think that takes that's that's a big difference between

works reunion versus the traditional concord, the story behind the car, the

how it got there, the journey and such plays a big influence on how it will play.

And I tell people I got that for the one year that I judged the Porsches at Amelia Island

Concord. And I realized it was much different than Parade Concord, where

neither we're judging for cleanliness, originality. Here they were listening to the story of the car

and how important the car was. And there was a completely different atmosphere. And I liked it.

I didn't, it wasn't so stressful, like you said, who cutipped their car the best. It was much more

about the ownership of the car and whatnot. So yeah, that threw a lot of people off the first

time around because they were expecting parade style concord. Yeah. And to add to the ambience of all

that also is when you come to works reunion, there's just, you know, I don't know if it's

light jazz, I think when we first started, we did light jazz or Chade or something like that.

But now we have some live music, but it was just a relaxing time, hang out with your friends, have

you know, food trucks, coffee, it was a new thing. And now it's a norm and it's, it's,

it's very cool. You know what I think it was, or at least maybe it was one of the works. But

remember when they played Beach Boys for like eight hours straight? I think that was one of the

early ones. Yeah, it might have been the first one. When we had, we had a DJ, we didn't, we didn't

even know to bring like live or maybe we just didn't have the budget, but everything was sort of new

to us. And I believe it was at the first works reunion, Amelia, Tyler, who he came with his,

his Moon 996, the million mile 996 or whatever it is. And he was, he was doing his funny dance to

the jazz music that we had there. But what we were aiming for was a, once again, the negative of

parade that I saw the Concord was people up for three days, the real serious ones cleaning their

car and just being exhausted by the time Concord Day came. And pretty much wanting to be judged

and then going back to the room for a nap. I wanted people to enjoy all day at our new event

and not be stressed about having a car clean for three days prior to be, to be competitive.

So, you know, one of the things I guess the founding highlights of works was it had to be free

for spectators to get in. We didn't want to charge. I mean, some of that's back.

Not only free, but regardless if you're a PCA member or not, like I remember the executive

council at the time going, you know what? This is a marketing initiative for PCA. If you are a

portion of enthusiasts, you're welcome to come. I remember sending out invitations to the Splinter

groups, you know, our group 914 guys through the six registry and saying, Hey, you're welcome to

come to this, even if you're not a PCA member. I think we even gave them like special park,

like if you come together, we'll park together. Yeah, we were celebrating the portion mark.

And we wanted to create the atmosphere of coming and stay all day and hang out.

And, you know, it wasn't come for an hour and leave. Yeah. And that first year,

as many was hoping that we would get 500, we clearly got 505. Yeah, 505. And

events after that, we knew we sort of hit the right recipe when folks would park over at the

quail because we ran out of parking and they were walking on the main highway in front of

coming over from the quail. Yeah. These are people that paid back then, I think was $750

to get into the quail, which was like blown away how much it cost to get into the quail.

But we saw them coming over either walking or getting rides and golf carts to come over to

our free event. And we thought maybe we have something here. If the people who paid all the

money to be at the show are coming over to our show next door, plus I remember the quail paid

for a military flyover, which we got the benefit of. So it wasn't all rainbows and unicorns because

then we were faced with the Rancho Canyada getting ready to be closed down to be a park.

Now where do we go? Which is a tough thing in Monterey because it's not like there's all these

venues that are waiting for someone to come find them. Everyone has sort of claimed and put a stake

in all their property in Monterey for their various events. So finding a location to be able

to host hundreds of porches and thousands of people is not easy. And again, thanks to our

volunteers and the staff, we found ourselves at Corral del Tierra, which is over by Laguna.

I think didn't the track reach out to us and they wanted us to move it to the track?

Yes, they did do that, but we were just like, it wouldn't work. It's too loud at the track.

The focus wouldn't be on the event. It would be on the track.

And once moving over to Corral del Tierra, we realized it was even more underscored that we

had a very successful event because now we were starting to affect traffic in Monterey,

more specifically affecting traffic to the track. And that's not without planning. We did

contact the local police and say, you need anything from us because we don't want to

cause traffic jam. They said you're too far away from the main highway. Don't worry about it.

Yeah, but then they came anyway because they got enough calls.

So I do want to say before we move on too much, I don't think Rancho Cognata became a park because

then we could just have the event at the park, right? Pretty sure it was condominiums.

No, no. At least a big part of it was reclamation, I believe.

It's not a park. It was like it's in that nature preserve.

Yeah, I was blown away that crime real estate, they were basically giving back the nature.

It was a little hard to process that this wasn't going to be useful or anything.

But fast forward to today. It's still kind of there. It hasn't really changed.

I don't know. They still have part of the golf course there, how much they gave, but anyway,

we lost it. But again, things happened for a reason. We were not terribly excited to have

to go to a new location. Corral de Tierra, I will say the elevation that they have there made for

spectacular photos of the event. But the egress for that location really was one way in, one way

out, quite difficult to up a hill. I remember seeing a Carrera GT trying to stay on the golf

path because there are tiny little curbs on the side of the golf. Oh my gosh.

Yeah, a beautiful way in, one way out. Beautiful location, but logistically,

it was a nightmare. And so then we tried Black Horse Bayonet, which is where the Ferrari show is.

Concorso Italiano. Concorso Italiano on the Saturday. So of course,

our show is on the Friday. We were on the backside of that course. Again, logistically,

that place was not that great. And also it confirmed to us being the B partner

at a location was not favorable to PCA. And so we were back on the hunt again.

Like when Jimmy Hendricks opened up for the monkeys.

Back on the hunt again, we found ourselves at Monterey Pines Golf Course. And I have to say

that group there, lots of restrictions because it's owned by the military being by the

airport and such. There are guidelines and requirements. But other than that, the facility,

logistically, initially, was also a bit difficult, but not nearly as difficult as Corraldale-Tierra.

But last year, they made it even better by providing a second exit. Oh yeah. Kudos to them

because they saw a problem and they addressed it right away. And the location is very centralized

and the food trucks and the staff there. The staff there are fantastic. So thankfully,

and hopefully we get to stay there for a while. But as we were seeing how well this was received

in the West Coast, and before we even landed at Monterey Pines Golf Course, we were still,

I think, with Corraldale. Oh no, Black Horse. We were probably at Black Horse when the decision

to go to the East Coast happened. So you remember? I think we're at Corral. Corral, yeah. Yep.

It was 2007. I remember telling you, if we were, the only way to tell this event was successful

is by year three, if we were still selling out, if we still had the demand and that meant we were

on to something. And sure enough, by year three, we knew that we were on to something special.

So Tom Gorsuch, who was, he would have been Vice President at the time, was telling us we should

come and check out Amelia Island. And so we did. We went out to check out the Amelia Island Concor

and right away we realized it would be a perfect fit. And hey, there was a Friday that was pretty

much opened. So take the same recipe as Monterey and put it on the East Coast.

But we also had a little bit of luck by our side in the sense where we didn't have to fully

commit by ourselves the first time we started with Amelia. Because if you remember, we had a

relationship with Hollywood Wheels Auction that already had a fairway or fairways reserved

at the Omni. And they were looking to hook up with PCA to of course support their auction,

but hey, give us a fairway. And then the event on Saturday was a big car show.

Exactly. And so they said, hey, we can give you for a nominal fee to have your works reunion

on that Friday, which it worked out for us in terms of being able to test out our concept.

And we did it with them for two years. But we did find out again, being the B player in a

relationship with the Omni and with Hollywood Wheels, we decided that we would go our own

separate ways. We did what we were hoping to achieve with them the first and second year.

They also kind of changed the direction of their business model. And we found ourselves

at Amelia River Golf Course, which is where we are now. And the really lucky thing we had was

since the good thing about Monterey was that we had all the volunteers who were helping put on

Legendia Autobahn on the PCA side, just transferred over to works when we went our own way.

You know, after we told them about our plans and got everyone to buy in

at Amelia, we didn't have that same advantage. We had to start almost from scratch. So I remember

calling up the president of Florida Crown and I said, hey, I know you're having a board meeting

tonight. Would you mind adding something to your agenda? And I started telling him. And as soon

as I said, we're thinking of bringing works to Amelia Island, he said, we'll do it. Yeah. And I

said, well, I need you to get your board on board. He goes, I don't do it. I said, we'll do it.

So PCA. And I was like, well, you know what? I said, I don't need to know right now. I said,

just talk to him. And I'll call you in a few days and we can discuss, you know, what their

concerns are. And of course, he was right. They were immediately on board with the idea. They were

just thrilled that that we were coming. And then we had our first meeting. Yeah. And the first meeting

was, you know, what a surprise. I come to find out, we get like the cream of the crop of people

who had retired from working at Amelia Island Concorde, but still wanted to do something.

And when they saw that we came, we're coming around, they immediately raised their hands and

wow, we got, we got Marsha Marsha, the mayor, the mayor of a unofficial mayor of Amelia Island,

who she saved us probably five years at least of making connections because she knew everyone on

the island that we needed to hook up with fire department, police department, parking, bug spray,

every trash can anything we just have to ask her and she would pick up her cell phone, make a call.

I still remember we were having lunch at the Ritz or a planning meeting. We brought up our

concerns with police and fire and she made a phone call and it felt like 15 minutes later,

the fire chief and the police chief were at our table saying, what can we do? So it was,

it just made the planning of this event so much easier. I guess I got to mention also that Tom

Parvasi, who was the chair or still the chair for a worksman array had agreed to also do Amelia

Island and that was key in keeping all the continuity and almost like a McDonald's,

keeping the same thing that we did successfully in Monterey and moving it to Amelia Island.

Yeah. And the other thing that we, and I know you had this conversation with the Amelia Concord,

we wanted to make sure that they understood that we were in no way a threat to their event. In fact,

we were hoping that we were going to bring a new crop of attendees to their event. What was that like?

So everyone told me about Mr. Bill Warner. He ran the Amelia Concord and that he didn't like

people coming in and doing other events. That's what I was told. So I said, well, I got to approach

this very carefully. So I called him up and I said, hey Bill, I said, who I am. And I said,

I wanted to let you know where we're planning to do an event on the Friday of your event,

but we're not going to compete with you. We're not going to charge entry for spectators. I said,

I said, to sum it up, I said, we are the tailgate party before the big game. You're the big game.

We're there to watch the big game, but we want to have a party beforehand in the parking lot,

and that'll be worse reunion. And he absolutely loved that metaphor. And he said, you know what,

man? He said, I will give you anything you need. I'm going to tell my people to give you guys

anything you need to make your event successful and true to form. He did just that. He helped promote

the event. He would call me when he heard any news in between the years. And he was one of the big

reasons why I worked for Union was successful stuff that people never saw behind the scenes,

but getting the blessing from the Godfather went a long way. Yeah. So having his blessing,

have the volunteers in place. We have, you know, a place to have the event. And I'll also remember

this. We were also concerned or wanting to make sure that we have worthy vehicles or maybe special

displays. And you made a reach out to the Ingram family to have cars for us. Well, that was the

first one in Monterey. The late Bob Ingram, I approached them and I told them my plans.

And he was a big supporter to the end of PCA. And he said, anything you want, I'll bring. He

goes, I just need one spot for a car. I'm bringing the Pebble Beach. But the rest of the tractor

trailer can be all cars for your event. And I said, that would be awesome. I said, I need some,

you know, key important cars to show off. Exactly. Halo cars to show off at our event, to

legitimize the event. And he just did just that. In fact, he even was gracious enough where he said,

I don't want to be judged. I don't want trophies. I just want your members to enjoy my cars.

And so he gave them a special parking spot with where in true form, he brought all the cars on

the tractor trailer and showed them off all at his cost. Because back then the budget wasn't very high.

And definitely made the event that much more special.

So, Manny, talk about the timing of Works for Union because that was important too. One of the

things is with national events, even to this day, our executive council is very concerned about

timing of what we do because we're not huge. We have a staff, we, in terms of a car club,

we may seem to be big in numbers of members. And we do have a headquarters staff. We have

headcount of around 20. But to run the events that we have, again, without our volunteers,

it wouldn't happen. But it also requires a lot of national office coordination. So the timing

of Works for Union was important too. So for Monterey, we just picked up where

legends had left off and decided to use that Friday as well because that's what

members were used to coming out to see the Porsches. And it was also not conflicting with

Saturday at the track. Monterey is super packed with the event. So it's not like there's a lot of

empty days to pick things. Thursday would be too early for a lot of people. Saturday and you're in

the midst, like I said, of people going through the track and whatnot. So Friday was definitely a

keeper. And once again, people are used to going because of legends. But now that they wanted to

show their Porsche, they were just going to a different location. For Amelia, we looked at it

again. Same thing that Friday was pretty open at the time. There were some auctions going on,

but we wouldn't be interfering with what at the time was, like you said, our Hollywood

wheels event, plus the Amelia and Concord at things going on Saturday too.

You know, I should say when for our first works reunion, we didn't have 20 people on staff.

It was more like 10, I want to say. And not all 10 went there. I don't even think Charlotte and

member services with the store, they weren't there the first one. So it was really, really

smart. In fact, I was hired December 11, 2013. So this was like my introduction.

Yeah, we were, it was very cognizant about the budget. And we didn't know how much we would

collect from. In fact, the parking, I remember, we were splitting it with the church next door.

There was a church next door that had space because we really didn't have much parking

at the facility. So we had to rely on that church to park there. And of course, that was

where people decided to park on the side of the road. Like it was a saying of people,

not only from the quail, but I remember people coming up to me saying,

it's a car show, just walking down to your event because it's Ferrari, Lamborghini's,

all these exotic cars parked on the side of the road on the shoulder as they're coming down here.

So yeah, that's the stuff that we believe we're not. We were really nervous whether people

would come out or not to our event. Yeah. Yeah. And now we're worried about too many people

coming out to our event. We've done pretty good lately with traffic and managing,

but every year it seems to get bigger and bigger. And which, of course, makes us happy because that

means we're doing something right. Yeah. And I love the diversity of the cars, not only the

diversity within the Porsches because you have those that will be ready to be judged. But as you

said, the the corral itself, some of those cars in the corral definitely deserve to be judged,

but for whatever reason, the owner just put it in the corral. But you'll have 600, 700 cars in

the corral that are worth your time to walk around. And then you go to the spectator parking lot,

which is where you'll find some incredible non Porsches parked there. So three, sort of like

three shows in one. How long did it take? Because initially Porsche had told us we can't, we can't

support the event because we're too busy at the quail. We got, we got basically our own problems

to handle. You know, fortunately, we can't, we can't support this event. Year two. It wasn't till

year two, though. The year two, they came over. I remember we were like, Hey, no problem. You

can bring anything over. Awesome. If not, we still love you to come by just to see what the event's

like. No, no sweat. And they did come by. And I think they quickly realized that we were on to

something and that maybe they should have at least a little bit of a presence at the event. And

certainly by Amelia Allen, they realized they, this has had to be, even though they were also

at Amelia Allen at the Ritz, they had to come out and do something with us as well.

Yeah. And you know, fast forward to today's works reunion. It is really cool to see how much of a

imprint we leave for, you know, Amelia as well as Monterey. And some people even come just for

our event and they don't go to the others, which is, that's pretty cool. The first time I heard that

was we were at the Guardians dinner, I think the Wednesday or Thursday before the event.

And somebody walked up, we were looking at one of the cars on display and somebody came up and said,

are any of you all going to work for union? So I think most of the people raised their hand and

said, yes. And I said, are you going? He goes, Oh, yeah, he goes, that's why I come. And I said,

you're staying for the Concord? You go, nope, because I'm going home after

works, which that made me think, huh, people are actually coming just for our event. Of course,

we encourage people to stay the whole weekend, not just come to the event because it's so much

to see and do at Amelia. Yeah. And then it comes to how do you, we had the recipe for the success

in Monterey. We applied it to Amelia. But just like anything, Manny, like we also try to change

things up a bit year after year to keep the recipe fresh. And I think one of those things that we

are able to change up are the themes of each of the events. So talk a little bit about that.

I think you mean like the cars? I think Tom Probasi and Ron Gordon, who's our current

vice president, and he also been involved with work since the beginning. They usually come up

with a featured car. A lot of times based on what Porsche is. Aligned with Porsche. Yeah. Porsche

is featuring as well. Like this last year, we did the Targas. This year, we're doing the Transaxle

cars. Yeah, they're following what Porsche is doing. So that's how the cars get featured. Usually

featured cars are parked up front in some way. So when you first see them, and people have those

cars give you the excuse to come out and show them off. Yeah. And the number of support that we get

from the advertiser sponsors and exhibitors has grown tremendously from the very first one. Now

you go to a works reunion, you'll easily have 30 to 40 vendors there, which in our early days,

if we had five, that was a lot. Yeah, and they brought their own easy up 10s, and now it's

we have commercial 10s, line fairways with them. And believe it or not, Damon, I don't know if

he's going to do it this year or not, but it always seemed weird to me that Damon also had to add

the power source guy. We have hired, I will tell you Damon, the quote for the AV people

for Amelia includes providing power to all of the exhibitors. You're relieved from that duty.

Finally, over a decade of stringing together Daisy Cheney. Let's not say how we did it.

But that's how we roll. We wanted all this. We had to will it to happen. We had to wear multiple

hats. We were schlepping boxes from trailers. I mean, we really can't complain because we

have these volunteers that are just doing an incredible job. So, you know, I remember I

was breaking down boxes for the trash and somebody stopped and said, don't you have people to do that?

And I looked at them. I said, I am we are we are the people. I said, we all have to pitch in. There's

no there's no glory. And if we want dinner, we have to finish packing. That's right. Absolutely.

And it was worse back in the day because it was, you know, people, you know, some volunteers,

they had done their work, you know, they would be up up there, you know, maybe talking or starting

to have a drink or eat. And we'd be out there, you know, still sort of in other volunteers as well,

throwing stuff into the palette, wrapping it up. And we're just trying to get it done so that

dinner doesn't pass us by. Yeah. And the thing is, we have to leave the property as we found it.

In all cases, we leave it better because we, every foot of property that we use, we go back and

check to make sure there's no trash there. We didn't damage the grass. We've cleaned up our

areas of where we use. We put all the golf carts back. There's a lot to do. Like people come to

the event, they have fun, they leave, but we're at the beginning where they are before the sun

comes up. And to be able to make that dinner, we have to work pretty quick because we also have

to make sure that everything is set because these golf courses will start golfing at, you know,

six o'clock in the morning of the very next day. And I will share with you, there have been a number

of times, despite telling our members, get your car off the fairway. I've gotten the call at,

you know, 10 o'clock, then 11 o'clock, and then midnight that there is, in this case, I think

it was a Cayman that was still parked in the middle of the fairway. And how do you, how do you

remedy that situation, right? You don't know who the car belongs to. You can't really take a wrecker

on a fairway. You're going to mess that up. So, and the car is going to become a target. It's

going to become a target. Thankfully, we end up, in that particular situation, in the golf courses,

they have, they don't want the cars to be damaged either. And in this particular case, they brought

out blankets, they put boxes around it and just protected it as much as possible. But fortunately,

we did find the owner that was having what happened was, and they didn't mean to do it,

they lost their keys. They lost the keys in the middle of the event. And so they had to call home

for someone to get the second set of keys, but they still had, even if you next day aired it,

it's too late. So they actually had to get someone from where they lived, drive down with the spare

keys and get the car off the field. And then it would have been fine because it was covered up for

the first round of golf or whatever. But things like that happened. We had, we had a, I think it

was a Volkswagen bus in Monterey that was parked on the fairway. It was a... Is that the one we

pushed? Yes, we figured out how to put it in neutral and then push it off to the side and

stuff like that. It's interesting, but at the end of it all, I think it's one of the best events

that we do in terms of marketing and how inclusive we are. Monterey, the ones that impressed me the

most are the two guys, and I wish I could remember their names. Oh, the ride on the car at the end?

The trash guys. The trash guys, yeah. They're big C members. High-level individuals who are

smiling constantly, and they've been doing this now for quite a few years, and they're very proud.

Yes. And, and they just ride around collecting trash, which can be kind of ugly with people

with a food jet, but they never complain, and in fact, they come back year after year.

And they don't want us to give that volunteer position to anyone else. Like they have, they're

like, that's sorry. Maybe they're finding cash or something, but God bless them. I mean,

to be the enthusiastic, and that's the way of enjoying works is they, they basically volunteer

all day and just ride around and collect trash. So after 12 years of works reunions, I think we

should impart to our listeners, what are some good tips if you've never been there before?

Sunscreen. Sunscreen, well, especially Amelia and Monterey. Sunscreen, also Amelia,

bug spray, although we provide it. Get the heavy, get the heavy duty bug spray. Sometimes if it's,

if it's very still, it's six-mon hour breeze, you're fine. Right. Because the bugs can't fly.

They're called no seams. No seams, yeah. But you definitely feel them.

And believe it or not, we pay extra to have to play sprayed.

Marsha coordinates all that. Yeah, but nonetheless, just bring some bug spray. It'll make your life

easier if you're coming. So you can come as an entrant to show a car off, or you can just come

to watch. We do have parking on premises. Is it $40 still, or is it going up $40?

It's per car, so you can squeeze in the Brady Bunch into your car. No problem, same price, $40.

The park, you can stay all day. And a lot of people get there early and then stay to the end.

You can bring your own picnic lunch if you want, your own drinks, or we have plenty of food trucks,

if you don't remember that. We have restroom facilities. It's really designed for you to

stay all day. And the way we have the agenda set up and the show, the whole show layout,

it's something you can really spend all day because you're going to run into people you know,

or like Booth said, with the vendors, you can walk through and just talk to them,

and they're more than happy to speak with you. There's car vendors, Porsches there.

Was it last year where you had the GTS, Michael Tam? Yes. He had the whole thing,

not the whole thing, but the battery exposed. It was answering all the questions people had

about the new hybrid system. And although the judged area is sold out for Amelia Island,

but for future ones if you're going to, I would not hesitate to put my car, although I don't

expect to win anything, it's cool to be in the judged area. When you put it in the judge area,

you get special parking, you're kind of in the middle of it all. Don't worry about winning,

just take advantage of the parking. It's not much more money than the corral parking,

but you're kind of center stage. And bring a chair, whether you're showing a car or just

coming as a spectator. Because once again, you're running the fringe. I see so many times people

have chairs in a circle behind a group of cars, and to them this is just a big tailgate party.

They can come hang out and just enjoy the day. Unlike a car and coffee, which is a couple hours

long and you're walking around and you don't really see too many folding chairs, it's not unusual to

see people, especially in the corral. When you walk over to the corral in the afternoon,

yeah, people are having a party. They're setting up camp and just enjoying in a group by model.

So if you're driving a boxer and you don't know anybody, guarantee by the time you leave,

you're going to have a lot of friends in the boxer section that you met.

Speaking of party and fun, this is something that we're considering. So I'm going to ask our listeners

what they think about this, although it's tough to add on more things for that day.

But at the Amelia River Golf Course, they have this beautiful pavilion that they built

across the back. And it's typically used for special events and or weddings. And I think

they're booked out until late 2027. We do have the opportunity to have that building for PCA.

As you know, we get there early where they are all day. But what if we had, let's say, 200,

300 tickets available once we're done with work's reunion, we would move over to this pavilion,

which is on the same property. It's beautiful. It's right over the water and have catered food,

music going, lounge area, invite maybe some of our key sponsors with special cars,

maybe even invite the winners of the day to bring their cars over to display, have a DJ going,

have music going, and you could continue into the evening having great food, music,

fun, still be around the cars, watch the sunset, and then go home. Would you pay extra for that?

Would you do that? Is indoors or outdoors? Both. It's a pavilion, so it has indoors and

outdoor capability. And we can also bring cars in and out if we wanted to do a presentation on

something new. It's a beautiful, like I said, it's for weddings. So it's gorgeous. I'm just thinking

there's limited areas to go out and eat and also fighting traffic. Would you be interested if, let's

say it's a hundred bucks ahead to just stay, continue to drink, continue to relax,

and go into maybe from six to nine o'clock, and then you can go home?

Yeah, I think there's something there because of the fact that it is very crowded there.

And usually when we try to get dinner reservations, it's usually around eight or nine,

just because anything earlier, it's almost impossible, especially if you have a group of people

that makes it even harder. So if you have a group of people that just want to move from the golf

course and keep the party going, then yeah. So anyways, chime in in the comments if you think

that's something that you'd be interested in. It's just we were on the site visit and we saw

the building and we're like, maybe we can make use of it. And obviously we wouldn't be able to host

everybody that's coming to work's reunion, but 200, 300 people, we could make that happen. And

yeah, whatever it costs us, it'll cost you. Pretty cool. All right, any other tips for

those that are going for the first time? If you're showing the car, be ready to get there early.

In fact, I believe this will do this, you can park the car. If you're showing it, you can,

if you're showing it in the judge area, you can park it the night before or the day before.

I think they open that up around four o'clock and you can bring the car and they have a spot

just for you. So the team knows exactly where each judge car is going to be parked on that field

and they will park you at a time. Of course, you got to have a friend who can ride you back to your

hotel or whatnot. But the next morning, you'll see a lot of cars that have been covered and

all they got to do is take the covers off and they're ready to show. For Monterey,

knock on wood, we've never had rain to worry about. Amelia, I think only once.

We had twice, at least twice. But you know what? It didn't dampen the mood.

No, typical Florida on and off. Yeah. And people stayed. Still had fun.

I think the most water we ever had was when they punctured the irrigation line, setting up a tent.

Yeah. Probably the most stressful moment for Warx reunion Amelia ever was

even though we asked for the pipes to be marked, there was one particular pipe that wasn't marked

correctly. And of course, the tent people hit it. And within minutes, we had a lake. We had a

little lake forming, which was sheer panic. And I remember they had to go, not wake somebody up,

but they had to go ask somebody where the blueprints were for this irrigation system,

because it had been in there so long that no one had plans for the irrigation pipes.

But they managed to shut it off. And we were ready to go the next day.

And what amazed me was it drained within 30 minutes and it looked like nothing ever happened.

That's an advantage of doing it in Florida. Now, opposite of being able to say something

was taken care of quickly, if you've been to Amelia Island recently, you'll know there's

lots of construction going on. So for a last week when we did the site visit,

it was the beginning of all of this. And those of you that are familiar with

getting into Amelia River, there's, I guess, a north south way to get into the property.

While one of those streets, which is on the airport side, that is completely closed. So

there's only one way in to Amelia River. If you're using GPS, they are going to

route you the right directions. If you're familiar and you kind of go your old normal

way, it might kind of trip you up a little bit. In the morning, I don't think it's going to be

too much of a problem because it's so early and we are the only ones there that you're going to be

able to go down a Fletcher Avenue, which is the more commercial road, or you're going to go down

Canopy Road, which is a residential area. So I don't know if that residential area road will

be open by the time we get there in March. But if it is, and if you do get routed through that

residential area, please, please be very mindful. You know, the residents are still sleeping at

637 o'clock. And if we have 600 porches coming through, it's going to wake them up. I get it.

But keep it to a minimum. And I always say, at least it's not as bad as Monterey when it comes

to traffic. But the upside to traffic in Monterey is there are such cool cars in traffic that

you don't mind. You don't mind exactly. I still remember the first time we went there and we

saw the two F40s back to back and it was like, wow, what a traffic jam to be in next to two F40s.

So unfortunately, any big weekend, any big event like this is going to bring

traffic and it's held in a place that isn't meant to carry this much traffic. It's not a stadium

where they can quickly evacuate a whole bunch of people out of there. So patience. And the good

thing about work is people leave little by little. It's not like a concert ending and everyone leaving

at once. So after the last awards are given out, then you start to see the slow migration out. So

having this event afterwards may be beneficial too because people will stay and have something to do

instead of rushing up to find a place to go eat or hang out. Yeah. And also, if you haven't heard

new for this year at Amelia, the Concord is actually on Saturday. Yeah, it's going to be a

big change. Basically, what's happened on Saturday moved to the Sunday in vice versa.

So if you've always wanted to go to the Concord, but Sunday is travel day home for you,

you've got no excuse. This Concord is now on Saturday. For people who want to stay,

brought a car and want to stay for cars and coffee. Cars and community. Community, cars and community.

Yeah, I think it's called. You just have to wait till Sunday. Yep. All right, folks. I want to remind

you to head over to PCA.org to sign up for PCA's newsletters, performance news, e-brake news,

and mark fresh all free. And in the news, I hear there's someone new at the helm at design.

So Porsche has only had four heads of design, which is pretty incredible considering the whole

history. The first one being Butsy Porsche, who did 911. So Michael Maurer, he is retiring and Tobias

Schulman, I don't know I pronounced that or not correctly, he is going to be taking over February

1st. And he is the or will be the former chief design officer for McLaren. Wow. So yeah, that's

very interesting news, mainly because once again, Porsche doesn't change the designers very often.

Yeah, so Mr. Lapine was one? I think he was then Harm Legai. So it was I think Butsy,

was it Tony Lapine, then Harm Legai, then Michael Maurer. So yeah. Yeah, wow. This guy's going to

be he's 46 years old. So he could be there for quite a quite a long while. Yeah, hopefully,

I think Porsche and the family is very strict on keeping that family language in the design. So

I don't think you're going to see radical changes in the design. And if you look at all Porsche,

they're easy to spot as Porsche's an evolution. Right. That's what a Porsche always says. Yeah.

All right. If you were at Daytona, or if you were following Daytona, and this is sort of the

cutesy side, I even made a little version for myself. They were celebrating 20 years of Pixar,

the cars and Sally Carrera. Yes. And so I brought this up because the head of

is it what's his title at Pixar? Oh, Jay. Jay Ward. Yep. Something creative design, I believe.

Anyways, he was very much involved with Sally and approaching Porsche. In fact, we have a tech

tactics live where he explained the whole story of how he approached Porsche and how

he had to convince Porsche that the car would be a female, even though everyone looked at the

911 as a male figure, not a female, but it worked. And what kid doesn't have a Sally Carrera or

doesn't realize what a Sally Carrera. But the cool thing was they actually built a functioning

Sally Carrera based on a 996. They had to change the proportions. You look at the windshield,

the 996 windshields aren't this big, but they... It's drivable. It's drivable. Wheelbase is definitely

shortened. And did he say that the eyes could have moved at one point? They were working on

making the eyes possibly move, but there was just too many logistic involved in making it happen,

because you're just much more involved than they originally thought it would be. But it's pretty

cool story about how Porsche and Pixar got together. And I think it did so much for PCA as well and

juniors and having Sally Carrera. So cool. So cool. And so many people are saying

there needs to be another one with maybe a new generation Porsche or something like that.

That would be very cool. I know it's not cheap. We found out that the reason there isn't too many

Sally Carrera toys is because Pixar has to pay a royalty to Porsche every time they use the

Sally Carrera. Of course. Of course. All right. So here's where we'll give you... There is a

spoiler alert. Not really. By the time you watch this, hopefully you... We're not the one spoiling it

for you, but the results at the Rolex. Yeah. So the way this is recorded,

you should have already known that Porsche won the 24-day Tona. And it was a three-peat,

especially for Philippa Nasser and the Penske Porsche team. They won three times in a row.

Yeah. I guess I don't know if there's anyone talking about a four-peat yet,

but as typical fashion, the IMSA and really NASCAR who owns IMSA has done an incredible job

of making these classes very competitive and the racing very competitive to be that close

after 24 hours is pretty incredible where you're still at the edge of your seat,

biting your fingernails, hoping that nothing happens as he's dicing his way through traffic

in the last couple laps with the... I think with the Acura, right behind... With the Acura Cadillac.

Might have been Cadillac. I can't remember. It was right behind him, but yeah. Kudos to

Team Penske. They're on their way to the Sebring 12 hours in March. So this was the 21st overall

win for Porsche at Daytona. They're going to go for their 20th overall win at Sebring.

So one of the questions I was there for not the whole time, but for a few hours, for meetings and

such, we did have the traditional PCA Corral well attended. And in fact, congratulations to IMSA for,

I think they set a record for attendance. That's what they said. Yeah. And you could definitely

feel it. It was packed and so was our Corral. But a question did come up because people haven't seen

very much in terms of the Porsche Plats at Sebring and will there be one? So Sebring did sell parking

passes for those that want Porsche parking, but as far as the Porsche Plats program,

there will not be one. There will not be a tent. There will not be amenities for that. And unfortunately,

no surprise for those of you that listened to us, you know, times,

there's some belt tightening there. And it was not PCA's decision. Of course, we would have

assisted if Porsche was still thinking about having a Porsche Plats there. But unfortunately,

they've cut it out for the rest of the year. We're trying to secure some sponsorship to see if PCA

can restore a few of those corrals at some other races. And that's part of the meetings that I was

in down there. And again, it's not that Porsche doesn't want to do it. But as we've talked about,

you know, the times that are coming ahead, there are some programs that have to be curtailed for

them to prepare for what's coming. And unfortunately, going from nearly 20% profit margin to one or two

percent. Personally, I was scrapped to hold tennis and golf involvement and go back to their roots

in racing. But that's just me. Yeah. Yeah, I'm not saying how they're doing it, but I can tell you

that this is part of it, right? And honestly, I'm just happy that Porsche is still racing.

I'll be Justin Imsa the 963 and going for overall victories because I remember for the longest time

there was a drought. And the best you could hope for was the GT victory. And as you watched all

these other makes win overall, knowing that your favorite mark would be up there if they were racing.

So the fact that they're still in the going for the overall title, I'm very happy about that.

You know, also was really cool to see is our dear friends running the number 36 car,

Mike Levitas and Randy Pope's running their cup car. Was that 20 year anniversary?

Yeah. I guess it was like a classic, the classic race that they did with HSR, I believe it was.

Used to be the 24 minutes. Yeah. I don't know, still 24 minutes.

But they, they were like kids in a candy store to be able to pull out. And it was so interesting

to see how rudimentary those cars are were compared to today's race cars. But the spirit

100% all there. And to see all the, the Viper, the various cup cars, the Mazda's of the time,

and they were all running it all still sounded phenomenal. If I recall a year or two years prior

to that, they were also leading with an hour, maybe two hours left in a race. And they had

an accident with another car and it took them out of a race in the heartbreak of, you know,

just think about it going all day on Saturday, going through the night, surviving the night.

And then the last 90 minutes, 20 minutes, your car gets taken out. It takes a lot to

win the 24 hours. That's why it's so special. So yeah, I saw pictures of Mike down there.

And it's, it's very well deserved that, you know, he's a true privateer and it's not cheap

to race. And you figure how many sets of tires you have to go through and all the logistics

and for privateer to come on top. That's pretty cool. Yeah. And if you're considering going to,

and you've never been to the Rolex 24, it's cool. It's really cool. The whole experience,

everything's accessible. I will. So we have a new corral Porsche Plats chair. Lynn retired from

that position. Catherine Menja from Canada. She also resides in Florida as well has taken over

that role. Karen Rinaldi, the zone 12 rep was there picking up the volunteer roles there.

I will say just when you're picking where you stay in Daytona,

read the reviews carefully. Pricing may not reflect quality of room because it might be a 300,

350. Was it worse than the room we stayed at across the street at the one time?

Unfortunately, they reserved that very same hotel and it's called a Wyndham. It's called a Wyndham.

So you think how bad could a Wyndham be? It was below a Motel 8. I mean, it's the,

they were literally in the same building. Yes, where the cats, we didn't take our socks off.

Right. Right. We didn't change because we slept in our clothes. It was so gross. Yeah,

it's still there. And unfortunately, they, I didn't know they were staying there.

It's a place they asked me for a survey. Yes. You about lost it when we checked

out. So sir, how was your stay? So a bit of insider tip research where you're staying

very carefully. Price does not reflect condition. I found actually a pretty reasonable one. I said

seashell cottage down on the A1A a little bit further out, kind of a sketchy neighborhood,

but the room was relatively clean. And still that was like 175 bucks a night. And yeah,

I remember years ago, comfortable, but a bunch of us in the region went down to all guys.

And we had no, back then you didn't need reservations for hotels. And we flew down,

got in the minivan, and we went along A1A. And we see a sign that said like $29 rooms.

We're like, let's go check it out. Those days are over. And the guy says,

yeah, they're $29, but you have to look at the room. And we were, I looked at him, I said,

are you asking? He started telling us. He goes, I'm telling you. He says, because

I've had too many people look at the rooms after they've registered and then their money back.

Oh, look at them before you pay. And I'm like, why is there something we

should be worried about? He goes, well, he goes, we're demolishing this in three weeks.

So we haven't made any repairs, but it's fine. So we went in and we said, you know, I mean,

obviously they haven't made any repairs, but you know, with two guys to the room,

we could make it happen. So we paid our 29 bucks. We're like, this is great. $15 a person for three

days, 45 bucks. What could go wrong? That same room is still that same night. I remember I

watched you start to brush my teeth and I could feel my toes getting wet and I looked down and

the little YouTube no way was gone. Oh, no. So I was just draining to the floor. I told my roommate,

I'm like, I think we're going to be brushing our teeth in the shower because we can't use the

sink. So yeah, it was the guy said, he goes, any of these guys that show up with their wives or

girlfriends or the wives and girlfriends are walking right out as soon as they see the room.

Yeah. Yeah. So Catherine and Karen, thank you for suffering through that hotel.

All right. Let's talk about tech tactics seats where you can find much nicer hotels at reasonable

prices. February 21st, that is sold out. 22nd, we still have a few seats available.

That's in Eastern Pennsylvania, February 21st and 22nd. Works reunion, which we've talked about

earlier. March 6th, judge area sold out. Corral is still open. Porsche Parade, as of the day of

recording, here we had Porsche Parade Phase 1 open and registration is hot. There's going to be a

lot of people there. June 14th through 20th, if you're anywhere near the Northeast, definitely

plan on coming. We've got a great event scheduled for you. For those of you in the

West or for those of you that want to try out Treffen at sea, the cruise that we'll be going

out of Vancouver, that's September 19th, out of Vancouver, down to San Francisco, then down to

Santa Barbara, then down to LA. It's a wine cruise. We also have a host of wonderful speakers that

will be presenting while we're on days at sea. We'll have wine partners come in and it's going to

be a wonderful cruise. I hope you join us for that. PCA videos, anything you want to plug, Damon?

Yeah, basically we do have, I'm pretty sure with the timing of how we're filming this,

is that what came out last was either a tech tactics show from Parade, which would be,

I believe, Tony Callis's $800 oil change or inspection, one of the two.

Oil change, yeah, which is not just an oil change, it's definitely a lot of other stuff.

And then I also drove a 99 Carrera, which was Porsche Owings Mills,

2095, yeah, restoration challenge car. So it was part of the individualization class.

So it has some mods. It's the kind of mods that I love. So basically suspension, brakes rebuilt,

lightweight flywheel, and a nicer interior with bucket seats and a few other things.

Wide body, Gumballa wheels, all that fun stuff. Yeah, and I think it's available for sale, isn't

it? It is as we are recording this and when I recorded the video, I didn't mention that

was for sale in the video in case that it wasn't. But yeah, you can assume any restoration

challenge car by a Porsche dealership will be for sale when it's done with a challenge.

All right, for those of you that got excited about watching the 24 hours and want to race,

but maybe not have your own race car, check out PCASimRacing.com. You can do it online

with fellow PCA members. If you're looking for insider swag, head over to our web store,

PCAwebstore.org. We have bottles, mugs, and t-shirts. And if you're looking for some decals,

we'd be happy to send some complimentary PCA insider decals. All we need is your address

information and send it to podcast at PCA.org. Your mailing address, not your email address.

Yes, your mailing address. These are real stickers, not virtual.

Correct, correct. All right, anything else before we wrap this one up? Nope. All right,

well thank you everyone for listening. Be sure to like, comment, and subscribe. Consider sharing

our show with fellow Porsche enthusiasts. Until next time, stay safe and we'll catch you down the road.

How Werks Reunion Became A Bucket List event

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