OCT 6th and 7th - DFW/Austin Get-Together

I know that this conflicts with some other events; however, maybe Texas is big enough to have multiple events going on during one weekend... We really wanted to incorporate C&C in Dallas and this is the only weekend Steve and I could pull this off. Hope to see everyone at least at one event!

ALL TEXAS AND/OR WHEREVER YOU CALL HOME GATHERING! OCT 6TH AND 7TH 2012. START PLANNING (AND SAVING) NOW!!

This is what happens when friends start coming up with get-together ideas... you go BIG!

2 Days of Awesome!

SATURDAY (With a touch of Friday night...)
- Cars & Coffee in Dallas. Starts early so you might want to come up Friday night...
- DRIVE!
- Pole Position go-kart racing
- Food, Fun, Festivities!
- Head South! Because...

SUNDAY
- Poker Run / drive up and around the hill country of Texas. Plan on 200+ miles of puckering your ass.
- More Food, Fun, Festivities!

Obviously things are a bit fluid right now as mk2tmr2, Lime-Light, and I finalize some details, etc.

Come to the events you can come to and be missed at those events you can't join.

There will be a more formal "schedule" of sorts once this gets closer to make it easier to join up for any one of the events. I.E. - want to sleep in and miss C&C in Dallas? Cool. Catch us at 10AM at... You get the idea.

30,000ft view of the weekend...

- Figure out who is coming into DFW Friday night so we can plan a gathering somewhere. (You'll need to find a couch, bring a tent, rent a room, sleep in your car, et al.)
- All day Saturday is spent in the DFW area. mk2tmr2 has a lot of ideas and we'll continue to work on getting a solid plan for the day.
- Head out of DFW Saturday evening and stay at a KOA campground that is between DFW and Austin. Party. Hard.
- Regret the party and get up early on Sunday and head into north Austin for the next gathering.
- Head out on Nick's 200+ mile loop in and around the hill country of Texas. We'll end up in the Marble Falls area and then a long loop back into Austin.
- One final stop somewhere for food and drinks before everyone heads home.

Other details...

- Open to any and all. This isn't a Miata specific gathering. Bring what you've got and if you know someone cool, invite them too.

- Again, come participate in what you can since each event/drive will be a good time.

This Thread...

- Please post if you're interested in coming out and for what events... this will be a HUGE help in coordinating the details later.

- Please post up where you're located if it's not in your info. This will help figure out the "mini-meets/drives".

- Would be great if some of the far west Texas and far East Texas guys/gals can come meet-up. As well as the gang from OK!


STAY TUNED FOR MORE DETAILS!!

The plan is to stay in West, TX on Saturday night and then head into Austin early Sunday AM. We should be done driving the 200+ mile route around the hill country midday and we'll hit a local watering hole for food and drink before parting ways. Factor in a bit of additional time for photo ops and the usual group fill-up delays.

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http://www.reserveamerica.com/campin...&parkId=192052

I booked the only 6 person cabin today for the 6th. This is going to be a blast! They don't furnish bedding so a sleeping bag will be needed... I would suggest giving them a call if you want to snag a cabin or a tent spot. More details to follow.

EDIT: All 6 beds are already taken in our cabin but they do have some other cabins available.

Ok. Let's flesh out the plan a bit. Interest seems to be mild...and that's perfectly fine. A small group of a dozen or so awesome Roadster dudes is fine by me. But, as always, the more the merrier.

Note: The plan laid out below is open for suggestions. So if you would like to add something that you think would enhance the day - speak up!

Feel free to join us at any point. The only caveat to that is with regards to Cars & Coffee. You need to get there early if you want to show.

Saturday:
6:45am- Meet at the Cinemark West Plano. Map is here - http://goo.gl/VWORG
It will be dark, cold and sleepy. If you don't want crappy free coffee once we get to the next location, get your Starbucks ahead of time.

6:55am- Roll out. That's 6:55 SHARP. We won't wait around for stragglers because we risk not getting adequate parking at the meet if we do.

7:00am- Arrive at Cars & Coffee Dallas. Map is here - http://goo.gl/Zv7P1
The location is Classic BMW at Spring Creek and the Dallas North Tollway - Northeast quadrant. If you don't want to meet up and arrive at the same time as the early crew, you're welcome to show up later. However, if you show up after 7:15 I can almost guarantee you won't park with us and if you show up much after 7:30 you risk getting pushed into spectator parking. This show fills up fast - especially on nice days.

9:30am- Saddle up and prepare to roll out. Next stop...breakfast.

10:00am(ish)- Arrive at LePeep Grill in Frisco, TX. Map is here - http://goo.gl/2Q4Kj
I am going to attempt to have them reserve the back room for us. It doesn't hold much more than 20 people. So if we have more we'll bleed over into main dining. There still shouldn't be too much of a wait if any. The menu has pretty much something for everyone.

11-11:30- Saddle up and head out to Pole Position Raceway in Frisco. Map is here - http://goo.gl/ZaYli
We'll get there before noon. The goal here is to burn as much of the afternoon as possible. It shouldn't be difficult. Hang out in the parking lot, talk B.S. about cars, go inside and get some races done.

The cost to race is about $22 per race. Each race is 12 laps and every race is timed with driver standings at the end of the race. Standings are based on lap times - not physical position across the finish line. They give you a cool printout at the end with a graph of all your lap times and what place you wound up in.

I'm also going to try and scout a few nearby photo-op locations so people can go snap some photos. There are 2 or 3 spots nearby that are picturesque. Directions will be handed out when we get there. It won't be very organized. Just come and go as you please. I'm sure there will be enough people there with decent photo skills to get everyone a nice handful of shots to post in the "Recent shots" thread.

Mid afternoon - 2 or 2:30 - Head out for a bit of a drive. Dallas is not known for beautiful or fun driving roads. But there is one route that is a bit of fun. Map here: http://goo.gl/LDJ10

Pole Position Raceway is just off the tollway. We'll head up the Tollway to 380 an across to 289. That'll take us a long, boring way up to the "TRAD" route. Since we'll be driving these roads in the mid-late afternoon, we'll likely encounter some traffic. These roads run the borders of farms, so expect random patches of gravel and the occasional farm vehicle. It's still a fun ride.

Our final destination will (likely) be http://www.cadillacpizzapub.com/ - which is here: http://goo.gl/0lbgr
As you can see, this is just off the square in downtown McKinney. It's actually a quaint little area and we'll get there around 3 for a late lunch. People who are heading down to Austin for Sunday's activities (more info to come) can head out any time after lunch. As early as 4, probably. The rest of the crew can hang out in McKinney square - which is a cool place to kill some time. It will have been a really long day at this point so we'll plan on lunch being the last "official" part of the day and people can feel free to do whatever afterwards.

I modified some of the event timing so that people headed down to Austin for the next day's festivities can get on the road late-afternoon and not end up falling asleep at the wheel on the way south.

Wife and I just came up from San Antonio via 281 instead of the usual 35. Then we just drove 281 all the way down/up to Fredricksburg a weekend or two ago as well. So much nicer than 35. Added maybe an hour total, but the speed limits are actually faster for the most part, which was kind of odd. But yeah, GORGEOUS drive in that general area. Almost reminded me of east coast back roads. Almost. I've been talking to some Z guys I know in Austin to see if they want to get something going for a little drive down there too, so this kind of works out perfectly.

Anyway, I'll see if the wifey is up for another 5+ hour trip out that way with you guys. She loves going for rides like that, just need to see what our schedules say.

I'm definitely up for some if not all of this. Question though. If y'all are driving down to Austin Sunday afternoon, when do you plan to finish? I'm guessing I'll be out on the Hill Country part due to having to be at work early Monday morning.

Driving down to Austin Saturday afternoon. The drive IN austin will be on Sunday morning and will likely wrap up early/mid afternoon Sunday so people can find their way back home in time to rest up for work.

I might be in for some Saturday activities.

The more, the merrier!

I drove the Saturday "TRAD" route today. It's still loads of fun. A few notes:

• There are a few spots of uneven pavement in the lane we'll be using. I didn't scrape underbody in my GS, but I think some really low Roadsters should probably steer clear for the sake of oil pans.
• The road has NO shoulder....EVAR.
• There are quite a few blind corners where you cannot see if there is anyone in the oncoming lane.

We'll go over this on the day, but I really don't want to see anyone crossing the double yellow or driving so fast that there's no choice but to drop a wheel of the pavement. Doing either could be catastrophic. This will just be a 5/10th's fun run.

The drive from Pole Position up to the route is pretty harmless. Tollway North to 380 East to 289 (Preston Rd.) north. It'll be easy to stay together but just in case some people get stuck at a light, we'll meet up here at the start of the route:

http://www.r2-limited.com/blog/wp-co...trad-meet1.jpg

Here's a random shot from about 3/4 of the way through the route. The route is a combination of tree-lined stretches and open stretches lined with farms and small residential communities.

http://www.r2-limited.com/blog/wp-co...rad-road-1.jpg

At the end of the drive we will aggregate at this truck stop. Someone got there early. Once we cool our brakes we'll shoot down 75 a few miles to McKinney.

http://www.r2-limited.com/blog/wp-co...trad-stop2.jpg

Printed details of the whole journey will be available from me on the day of the drive.

Here is a link to the Googlemaps route for Sunday's run down in Austin. It looks really awesome.

http://tinyurl.com/Hill-Country-Route

I'll be there for most/some of it on Saturday. Sunday is less likely. I've driven Hamilton Pool 100s of times in dozens of vehicles. Usually get the Miata airborne on two of the cattle guards and there always seems to be some lumbering old Toyota truck down by the creek crossing.

As of right now, the weekend forecast looks great. If that changes and it looks like it might threaten to precipitate, we'll just skip C&C and meet up at Le Peep at 9:30am. The rest of the day will proceed as usual.

Planning on being there for some of it. Looking forward to it.

Does anyone know if you can bring a dog to C&C?

Got to cancel. Rent house in Houston needs my touch.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by black roadster

Does anyone know if you can bring a dog to C&C?

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Absolutely. There are tons of dogs there every month.

I will pay good money to see a dog take a dump in a Veyron.

Can't make Friday but I will be at c&c with my dog

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Gmrlocal1

Can't make Friday but I will be at c&c with my dog

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FYI...the main event is Saturday & Sunday. Not Friday.

It looks like it will be cold and possibly wet. I was trying to decide hardtop or softtop. Looks like hardtop is it. Is the go cart racing indoor or outdoor?

Pole position is indoors. Here's video of Wags, Chance, Andre and me. And here is the last heat.

The course changes regularly. The barriers are light and easily moved. Get tips from the staff and be nice to them. They can stop/slow your car via remotes.

For those of you coming to Pole Position to race on Saturday - I just awoke to a half off deal on Google:

http://goo.gl/bXVnW

Click link. Buy deal. Save money.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mk2tmr2

For those of you coming to Pole Position to race on Saturday - I just awoke to a half off deal on Google:

http://goo.gl/bXVnW

Click link. Buy deal. Save money.

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Awesome! I just got it. I imagine $40 worth of play should be plenty of fun.

Not valid on Saturdays in the fine print.

Also 1 voucher per visit. 40 dollars won't even get 3 races there. 45 bucks for 3 heats.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Nails

Not valid on Saturdays in the fine print.

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I guess I'll be going back then. That sucks. I like how the "fine print" is grayed out so it's hard to read.

Stil 3 races for 25 bucks isn't bad.

Yeah. I noticed that fine print too late. Sorry guys! Those of us who jumped the gun will have to go back on a "not Saturday" some time soon.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mk2tmr2

Yeah. I noticed that fine print too late. Sorry guys! Those of us who jumped the gun will have to go back on a "not Saturday" some time soon.

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Count me in.