On Thursday May 20th, under powder blue skies, participants ranging from Steve Brightman in his white M100 Elan leaving from Texas, and Gordonie is his fire-breathing mellow yellow Esprit out of Los Angeles and 150 others traversed the lands to converge on Lake Tahoe.
A variety of twisting roads guarded by skyscraper pines that blanketed the snow capped
8,000 foot mountain passes left one’s breathe aside as the hearty growl of revving Lotuses echoed off canyon walls. The narrow ribbon of road that passed over a splendid series of peaks was called Route 89. There were shear drops of several thousand feet on either side of one section leading down broken rubble to matchbox sized houses and lakeshore. And that was the road in!
Thursday night's reception started with registration. Participants put on their badges and their very cool event jackets while ogling the pre-production lipstick red 2005 Lotus Elise from the balcony of the waterfront reception hall and grazing on tasty bits of finger food. Ed Oblad of Lotus Museum fame from Salt Lake City came for his first event, while Walt Okun who towed his Von Dutch pinstriped 50 year old Lotus 6 joined him to mingle with an spicy and spirited assortment of the usual suspects representing Washington, Oregon, Northern and Southern California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Texas.
Friday morning arrived with clear blue skies and the racers long gone to the newly expanded Reno-Fernley track. Except for a minor rain squall nothing untoward happened and reports came back that all had a marvelous time donating rubber to the great state of Nevada. The Lake Tour too got hit with a light rain, but that was better than the light hail reported a by a few for Thursday's ride in. The Tour wafted through mountain passes through very low speed switchbacks and up and over spiraling goat roads past aptly named Emerald Bay, all sorts of ancient land upheavals, gleaming redwood peg-beam estates and decrepit deserted farm houses.
Lunch was held at a Nevada State Park with wonderful black and tan sand beach, wide cut tree stumps for picnicking and bikini clad lingering bathers drifting off the beach to see the cars while we munched on well-stuffed box lunches. A dozen or so got the chance to enjoy a ten minute blast in the 2005 Elise through the coves that punctuated Lake Tahoe. Drives which elicited many a wide grin from viewers and participants.
Friday night was the Sunset Dinner Cruise on board the Tahoe Queen and what a lovely sunset it was over gorgeous Lake Tahoe. The light simply shimmered across the water as the wind picked up and the temperature dropped as we passed large structures that seemingly erupted out of the ground through the blanket of tall green Pine and Sequoia.
Saturday was the Autocross with a great layout that was well-marked and quite challenging. Cars ran staggered two at a time and while Sevens, Elans and Esprit’s V-8 and 4 performed well, the surprise of the day was Clyde Shepard, Sales Operation Manager for LCU out on an autocross the very first time AND in the 2005, AND hitting numbers near the top challenging and besting some who have been with SCCA for years! There were a few antic moments with drivers getting a little off course…but that’s another story.
That was followed by the WCLM Concours at the Lake Tahoe Golf Course. A picture perfect green tucked into a valley surrounded by steep stone faces and waving pines. 58 cars in all, the star of the show being the 2005 Elise in its glowing red coat. The barbeque was enjoyable and soon it was out free evening. Some went out and gambled more than a roll of quarters, a few gathered in casino tower restaurants for an evening meal, some traveled towards the Bonanza Ranch and a few went back over the mountains to small highly favored and secluded redwood post and beam restaurants.
And then it was Sunday, time having passed far too quickly. Time for the WCLM Awards and Farewell Brunch. Marvelous prizes had been donated by LCU, Dave Bean Engineering, British Motor Cars, Sports Car World, , Kampena/Golden Gate Sevens, JAE Parts, Silicon Valley Lotus, Smith Lotus, Sector 111 and Birkin N.A.
Kiyoshi Hamai, hard working Event Chair and his Staff presented the Awards for Best Of, along with a whole bunch of donated goodies. And after the last awards were given a special thanks went out to Arnie Johnson, former CEO for Lotus Cars USA. Without Arnie there would be no Federal 2005 Lotus Elise.
By mid-afternoon it was over, participants had been taking off in all directions since late Saturday. Caravans were negotiated, directions plotted and the lot emptied, one of the most highly acclaimed Lotus Meets ever held. A truly great event, and a marvelous time for all.