As promised, our last membership meeting at the Reel Café, only lasted 20 minutes.  It was a great location for the meeting, private bar, meeting room, wait staff and good food and spirits.   Parking was a little difficult, with some finding spaces 3 blocks away.  Turnout was excellent, with many new members attending their first meeting.  Our April 21st meeting will be at Sticky Fingers on Market St, next to Hooters (with a huge parking lot).

Our trip to the Outer Banks was a blast.  Great weather, good company and the cars ran well.  One thing that helped me enjoy the trip even more was my CB radio.  It is an old Lafayette, probably as old as my car.  But it still works and is really fun to be able to chat back and forth with other people in the group during the trip.  It also helps to be able to communicate urgent needs, such as gas, breakdowns, restroom, or hunger pangs, from the front to the back of the convoy.   Cell phones are great, but sometimes don’t get reception in the middle of the ferry ride or outback country, and they are hardly functional for a group discussion.  Walkie talkies are hard to hear with the top down, unless you have it to your ear and many do not have variable frequencies where all can be on the same “channel”.  I’ll bet many of you have one of these antique CB’s tucked away in the garage.  Get it out and install it.  Lets enjoy the fellowship of the club during the ride as well as after. I don’t know about the rest of you, but if I let the Healey sit for several weeks without driving it, especially in the moist/humid summer months, I find that it is sometimes hard to start and then the engine misfires for several minutes.  My guess is that there is moisture getting into the points in the distributor.  I have therefore decided to invest in a Pertronix Ignitor electronic ignition (www.vintageperformance.com).  This Hall Effect device replaces the points and condenser, lasts the life of the vehicle, and supposedly provides a substantially hotter spark, allowing more complete burning of the fuel, providing more power, better fuel economy and elimination of “run on” after the ignition is turned off.  That seems like a lot of benefit for a “mere” $80.  Installation appears to be easy.  Remove old points and condenser, screw in Ignitor, attach the wires, start engine, check and adjust timing.  I will let you know how it works out.  But probably the easiest way to prevent moisture in the distributor is to drive it often, but then again you would still have to replace the points and condenser periodically.

See you at the next meeting,

Bill

So you wanted to stage an event in which you could drive your car.  Not just putter around town for a few miles and then park someplace where passers by could stop and admire the shiny paint and clean wheels which took you all afternoon to polish.  You wanted to really drive.  To pack up the boot, snap on the side curtains and take off cross country.  Press on regardless of weather, ferry schedules, breakdowns and anything else fate could throw at us.  That’s exactly what a group of us did recently.

The weatherman  had been predicting rain and high winds along the coast and that probably deterred some folks from making the trip with us.  But Saturday morning showed up with bright sunshine, albeit pretty darn cold for this time of year and six  buttoned up cars left the Hampstead Food Lion parking lot. 

The following BMCCF members made the trip with us:

Jeff & Paula Starling in their Healy

Dan & Estelle Samel in their TR3

Linda Masters & Pat Hogan in Linda’s new MINI

Myself and Jim Hogan in my MGB-GT

Pete & Marcy Mullen and Victor & Mary Mannino in their family iron. 

Last but certainly the most brave was Prez. Bill Massey in his Healy, who drove the whole weekend with the top down and no hat. 

We got snugly tucked away on the ferry and settled down to enjoy lunch and the 2 ½ hour ride.  Once out on the water, the breeze died down and everybody decided to sit outside and enjoy the sun.  The next leg of the trip, between Okracoke and Manteo, was probably the least interesting in terms of roadside scenery. Unless you plan to stop and visit the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse or walk on the beach, all you see are dunes on each side of the road.  In some spots it’s downright desolate.  A few of us couldn’t get on the second ferry because of the altered winter schedule and were forced to wait an hour for the next one.  Because it was nearing twilight, the leading group went on ahead to the hotel and informed them that the rest of us were on the way.

We joined up again for dinner at the Weeping Radish Restaurant in Manteo.  The Radish is a bona fide Bavarian pub serving some of the best German food I’ve ever tasted.  Maybe not for everyone, especially if you’re on a diet,  but after a full day of driving it’s a great place to relax, eat and drink some really great beer brewed right on the premises. If you want to sample some, they have it on tap at Fat Tony’s on Front Street.

After a peaceful night and complimentary breakfast at the Elizabethan Inn, we were on the road again at 9:30 the next morning. We headed west across Roanoke Island and down US64 towards Lake Mattamuskeet.  Just for kicks, we drove across the lake on the causeway that divides it in half.  Our original plan was to catch the free ferry at Bayview and shoot over to New Bern for lunch and then on home on US17.  Like all plans though, we were pre-empted by other circumstances.  A small, unplanned detour at Belhaven took us through the center of town instead of around the outside and while we were pulled over checking the maps, a couple of local townsfolk brought to our attention that we were parked right across the street from the best restaurant in town, The Fish Hook Café.  Truth be told, it was probably the only restaurant in town but we decided to give it a try anyway.  It was good.  The problem was that it caused us to miss the ferry and once again, because of the  winter hours we were looking at an hour and a half wait.  That didn’t set too well so we decided to motor on to Little Washington and pick up 17.  At least we got to go through the historic village of Bath that way and again the roads were scenic and quiet. On Route 17, everybody broke up in groups of one or

Everybody’s car performed flawlessly and other than a few sore butts and backs we all agreed that we had a good time.  The only suggestion was that we plan the next trip over a several day period.  Driving is fun, but only a few of us are what you would call kids anymore.  Makes sense to me. We covered about 450 miles in two days.  Three days would have been easier.  I think next spring we’ll head over near Boone and follow the Parkway down to Georgia.  Is anybody up for that?

The next time you see Dan & Estelle Samel bow down on one knee and pay them homage for being the most senior members, in terms of age, to make the trip with us.  They also drove the oldest car.  That’s what I call the right way to perpetuate our hobby.  Anybody can coast down hill in a parade or sit next to their car all day at a show but for those of us who really like  to drive.  Damn the fear of breakdowns and gas prices.  Full speed ahead.

Dale M.