What follows is Keith Park's accounting of the 2004 Invasion as reported on the vwtpe3.org list.
Brian Fye, Dave and Anne Hall and I head down to Hershey from Albany NY, bit over 5 hour drive... UNLESS IT POURS... which it did! we drove through a Tornadic thunderstorm cell and despite the lack of an actual Tornado it poured like you wouldnt believe!! one lane barracaded interstates dont drain well in a downpour and we were driving through about 3" of standing water... and poor Brian is in my 65 with the lack of fresh air ventilation and wipers that... well... arent as fast as the late ones! But with care we made it... and a good thing we didnt leave earlier, there had been a Hailstorm there... tree limbs down, leaves plastered on roofs and sides of buildings... pays to procrastinate sometimes!
Thursday wasnt too busy... getting things ready, buying chocolate.... nice cruise at the Eatery with the HAVOC club... it was also nice to see that the Tornado that went through Campbelltown a couple weeks earlier missed the host hotel by a few hundred yards... that could have been a problem!!
Ron and I were up at 6:30 to go get the 18' Budget box truck and trailer to get the Witness car from Newark NJ. So we hop on over to the host hotel by 7:30 to gather Brian... well, as it seemed we woke the hibernating Bear... who was still on Pacific time. Would have made a great picture but I wouldnt have wanted to remove my Camera from where it would have been had I taken the shot. So we went back to gather Ron's new 71 Fastback and bring it out to his house. When we were done Brian joined me and we set out for Newark.
Trip out (about 3.5 hrs) went well until we were to turn onto the Garden State Parkway... and I should have remembered it was cars only, no trucks! so we continued to the next exit and called Eric. He gave us very straight forward directions but they were right through the middle of Newark. About half way across Newark, which took a half hour or so we started seeing ambulances zooming by and hovering helicopters... this cant be good! We made it to the storage facility and met Eric and the car and became aware that there had been a huge pileup on the Garden State, good thing they didnt allow trucks afterall!! There was the Car... after all these years, as it turned out a typical Southern PA salt rat that had had a hard life before Paramount got it and mudded it up and painted it. But it was THE car!! Always wondered what had happened to it. We took a few pictures and Brian pushed the car down the long hallway to the end where there was a little ramp to the exit door... and upon reaching that door and opening it an even STEEPER ramp to the street outside!
I went and got the truck and trailer and didnt have much luck getting it backed around to the door into the storage facility. I can back a small boat, but it took Brian's expertize to get the trailer around using mirrors only... with a little help from Eric to pull the trailer a bit straighter than we had it. We started to pull it up with a come-along but quickly realized that this was going to take a while and we had the street blocked. Eric then offered to push the car on with his... and it did have good rear bumper mounts so who were we to say no? He got it most of the way up before his tires broke loose and we pulled it the rest of the way with the come-along. Finally with the car loaded up, we headed out around the Building......
Only to get stopped by heavily uniformed local cops doing a Homeland Security check!! They had me open the truck, checked my license, Searched the Witness car... and well... OK, I wont embelish further!
After just a few moments they let us go and we were off back through Newark with this whole rig... and back onto I78. I could never imagine as I watched the film 20 years ago that I would be the person to bring the car back into the public eye for the first time 20 years later as we hauled it down I 78 and back into Pennsylvania! Its now 4:30 and time for Milking... or in this case Gassing up the truck and grabbing a couple more bags of munchies!
We got back to the invasion site after 6:30 and unloaded the car under the tent and headed for the host Hotel, quite hungry and very tired! It was a blast meetin up with everyone there... and seeing many cars I hadnt seen yet... or hadnt seen since thier restoration (like Sophy!) After the meet and greet I headed back to Ron's, gathered his new Fasty and brought it over to the showfield seeing as we already had the truck and trailer... then returned both of them.
I really owe Brain for This day alone!!! and the Invasion has just started...
Day 3 for me was Saturday... up and at the show by 7:30! Fantastic morning was nice and cool and then the 3's starting showing up... COOL! So great to meet everybody, we had 27 cars on Saturday and one new comer on Sunday for a total of 28 Type 3's!! Jim Adney proved to us that he can put on such an interesting tech session on FI that an SP 2 can drive in behind him and nobody snuck away!! And yes, our SP2 Freind drove up from Carlisle so we could all finally see one in person.
About 4:30 we all lined up for the cruise... 21 Type 3's in a row is a sight to Behold! and a nice cruise through the town of Hershey and all its attractions with a really cool description of each one put togeather by Ron. Some great Photo-ops and a fantastic videographer (Bonedaddy!) to catch each one... I cant wait to see the DVD!!
It was a really cool day filled with good people and great Type3 talk!!
Sunday started with bright sunshine and stayed that way all day. Few less invaders but we all still had a good time. I got started on Rons new 71 Fastback, the fuelpump wasnt running so I replaced a couple hoses (some were still original) and could feel a twitch with the pump but no go... Till Jim Adney arrived! he pulled the correct wires off the fuel pump relay and with a couple clip-leads we would manually switch the polarity across the pump back and forth as the shaft was moving a little then sticking. Within a half minute or so the pump was running again!!! I put the hoses back on and and cycled the key to get fuel pressure... only one small weeping hose under the front end but NO LEAKING INJECTORS! Not bad for a car that had been sitting since 1991!! I tried to start it... no go, then Jim hard wired the fuel pump on, we could hear gas circulating but I tried again... no go, then Jim jumps in the drivers seat and of course.... Voom! Right to life!! ( he has a T3 aura about him).
It would run just fine but the idle would rev and try to stall... so out comes the Bosch FI tester and we ran through all the FI tests with it connected to the harness and then the Brain.... all tests good (Boy! this car didnt know what was happening to it after all these years!!). Ron then jumps in... it goes into gear (automatic) and sucessfully drives it around the field!! then even the idle is fine!!
So after this informal FI tester tech session John Jaranson puts on an actual full-scale demo of composite work on Brian's Speedster cover... Vacuum bag molding and all... really neat stuff!! Jim does his Brakes tech session and I finally round out the day with the front end session.
One side-track as I get the Witness car back into storage (thanks again to Tracey Moore for the use of his rig) and then.... I cant belive its over! Ron drove his new Fasty home... ran and drove great!
Until the next one... Ill just have to be a list Junkee....