Kettle Call Rally & Ferrari Convention

[Chi Si Dici]

Last week was full with excitement. It all started Friday morning while my wife and I where heading northbound on 294 to meet our group of car enthusiasts for a caravan to Road America. The meeting time was 8:00 am at the Lake Forest Oasis, we were running a few minutes late and traffic was becoming an issue. Once past I-90, I notice a guy wearing a red shirt walking in the middle of the Tollway. I said to Graziella, "who's that nut walking in the middle of the road and without an empty gas container"? It turns out to be Joe LaBarbera whom we were to meet at the Oasis, he waves me towards him and explains that he's looking for the rear wheel of a Testarossa owned by our other friend Dominick Busa's whom had just lost his tires going Northbound towards our meeting spot. I noticed the traffic coming to a crowl and feared the worse. I realized that all was ok with the exception that a rear 24" tire was missing from a Testarossa, the single hub was nowhere to be found and it was becoming a highway circus with one Testarossa body on the ground, another one parked right behind it and a bright yellow 1750 GTV in front of both cars.

A state tropper no shorter than 7' tall walks out of the squad car and is amazed to see two Testarossas parked to the sides, trucks coming within 12 inches of the cars and two wild Sicilians looking for a massive tire and a hub.

Needles to say, here comes Dominick rolling this monster tire across the southbound lanes and Joe coming from what seamed a 1/2 mile south of the parked cars with the hub intact. The Testarossa's tire apparantly hit the barrier missing all northbound vehicles, flew across 4 lanes of southbound traffic without killing anyone and landed on the grass 80 feet away from the barrier!

Using the other jack from Joe's Testarossa, we raise the car, use the other jack to bring it up and perch other jack at correct jack-point, visually inspect the car and install the massive tire and hub. All of this is happening within 30 minutes, believe it or not!

So now you have traffic gauking to view the cars, construction workers coming over to know and take pictures of the cars, a 7' tall officer wondering what in the hell just happened and to make this story complete, Dominick in his best Sicilian gesture, pulls out the espresso thermas and lights a cigarette as if nothing ever happened. He says, "lo prendi un cafe'"!

This is a true story guys, the go home to drop off one Testarossa and proceed to catch up to us later that day before the start of the Rally.

The picture below is of the two characters adamiring their cars at another event. Classic!

[Chi Si Dici]

The Rally was a great time, well organized and something to remember. The gang asked to get off as a group, first thing we do after the start is to visit the gas station to fill up our cars since we were all running late. 15 miles into the rally, our group had already an amazing 45 miles on our odometers. Needless to say, we were absolutely awefull but we managed to have a great time and finished approx. an hour after everyone else checked in. The event had something like 70 cars and was a great success, with proceeds going to three main charities. Here are some pictures from the Rally start.

[sfalfa]

Great shots & story - thanks for posting. That Ghibli is B E A U T I F U L !!

[67alloy]

Hi Carm,
Thanks for sharing the great photos of the event!

Bigger and better next year!

Dominic won a prize (The Last Open Bar- Siebkens Poster)for his grueling experience. I loved the way he handled it- so cool.

Great to have you guys. The charities were thrilled. The sponsors were thrilled. And the participants loved it!

[67alloy]

I'd also like to point out that it was C.I.A.O. that put together the Kettle Call Rally with Smiletrain.org.

We hope it turns out to be a long and prosperous relationship in raising money for cleft palate surgery for underprivileged children.

[Chi Si Dici]

Here are some of the cars at the track on Saturday.

[Chi Si Dici]

A few more nice cars. I love the 308 GT4's

[fredgarv]

hey carm, lots of great photo's. and some fantastic cars!, what is the green car with the wire wheels? a stunningly beautiful car. and whats the grey metalic car from the photo taken from behind? I'm not up on all these exotic cars.

I went out the other day in the green spider, up into the mountains where there was this long straight road and nobody around, so for the first time I decided to see what it could do. I had it up to 95-100 as I was a little too chicken to go faster than that. wow, what a thrill and the car just hummed along like it was loving it. it could have gone much faster as the engine wasn't really straining much at all at that speed. had to put a new thermal actuator on it recently and now it runs very smooth and nice. keep up with the postings and photo's they are great!

did you see in the latest issue of alfa owner that only one car was entered at the portland convention concours in the series 2 section? one car, a 78 spider, and guess what? it won! it got 92 points. so most likely I would have won against one 78 spider had I gone to it. 6 boat tails were entered. lots of good photo's in the magazine of the event. perfect weather for it too.

see ya, Brian G.

[sfalfa]

Green car is an Apollo GT and the grey metallic car is the fabulous Maserati Ghibli

[Chi Si Dici]

Quote:

Originally Posted by fredgarv hey carm, lots of great photo's. and some fantastic cars!, what is the green car with the wire wheels? a stunningly beautiful car. and whats the grey metalic car from the photo taken from behind? I'm not up on all these exotic cars. I went out the other day in the green spider, up into the mountains where there was this long straight road and nobody around, so for the first time I decided to see what it could do. I had it up to 95-100 as I was a little too chicken to go faster than that. wow, what a thrill and the car just hummed along like it was loving it. it could have gone much faster as the engine wasn't really straining much at all at that speed. had to put a new thermal actuator on it recently and now it runs very smooth and nice. keep up with the postings and photo's they are great! did you see in the latest issue of alfa owner that only one car was entered at the portland convention concours in the series 2 section? one car, a 78 spider, and guess what? it won! it got 92 points. so most likely I would have won against one 78 spider had I gone to it. 6 boat tails were entered. lots of good photo's in the magazine of the event. perfect weather for it too. see ya, Brian G.

[sinfulbaby]

very interesting