Today my son Will and I attended a luncheon at AutoVino in Menlo Park California and had a great time.
Speaking of Menlo Park... Just a few hours before the luncheon a plane was taking off from the nearby airport in East Palo Alto and hit a tall electrical tower causing it to crash thus killing three employees of Tesla Motors Inc. One wing landed on a day care home which caused it to catch on fire. Fortunately nobody was injured except for the Tesla employees. Just a couple months ago I was invited to tour the Telsa facility. CLICK HERE for news story and video.
Before a nice sized gathering of car nuts several people spoke.
(notice the wine barrel room)
The real meat & potatoes guest speakers were 2009 La Carrera Panamericana participants Martin Lauber and Conrad Stevenson.
You may remember Martin and Conrad drove the "El Taxi Perdido" Fiat. CLICK HERE The two of them gave a great day by day account of some of the more memorable moments from their LCP adventure. Will and I had a few moments to chat with them afterwards and right while we were sharing stories a guy walked up and said, "I have a nice tow rig and I really want to be on your team next year and will donate my services and truck." That's when I saw his eyes light up and I knew it was time to say, "Well I can't top an opening line like that so I'll just say good-bye." As it turns out they are going to run LCP again this years so we'll want to hear a lot more from these guys.
AutoVino showed us all a good time and great food and wine and you couldn't help but be impressed with the cars to boot. Looks alike a great place to become a member and swap some car stories not to mention get some awesome wine. MORE HERE ABOUT AUTO VINO.
After a bite to eat Will took a few laps on Laguna Seca on their virtual reality simulator and let me tell you this was state of the art. Even the seat jarred the driver around when going off track and during acceleration, braking and cornering. When Will finally hit a wall the car was steering and driving exactly as it would with the left rear wheel busted off. Amazing stuff.
I had to laugh... even the computer began yelling at Will just like I have for many years. SLOW DOWN!
There was a lot more cars out back but here a few that were inside.
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