Results:
5th Annual Forza Amelia
March 14-19, 2OO4

Well, you missed it! Unless you were one of the two-dozen couples who signed up for the fifth annual Forza Amelia rally, it zoomed right past you in mid-March. You missed a once-in-a-lifetime chance to drive 1100 miles on challenging Florida back roads, visit unbelievable private collections plus spend hours talking cars with America's premier collector, Miles Collier, during dinner at his spectacularly-expanded museum.

The world-class Amelia Island Concours was just a warm-up for the rally. Actually, the rally cars themselves put on quite a show. Vintage Spirit Award winners Ron and Carol Novrit held their beautiful but delicate 1946 MG TC together for four days, mostly with grit and determination.

Carl and Narcelle Schneider came all the way from Eureka, CA to drive their Pininfarina-bodied '52 Packard, the most unusual and beautiful Packard two-door fastback you've ever seen.

Other rare rally machines were the lovely Ferrari 212 PF Coupe of Helen and Richard Fraser, the perfect Jaguar XK-120M of George and Emily Crook and the trio of Austin Healeys driven by Ralf/William Berthiez, Bill/Sandy Parks and Scott Patterson/Foster Barnwell.

Other concours-quality rally cars included the gorgeous AC Ace-Bristol of Dan Leonard/Randy Moss, the immaculate Porsche 356 Carrera 2 of David/Paula Fischer and the equally immaculate Porsche 911 Carrera RS of Robert/Ann Hanson. The Hansons even drove their orange Porsche all the way from Sioux Falls, South Dakota for the event.

Norm and Bernice Koglin brought their familiar Ferrari 275 GTS from Chicago, Don Polak/Howard Serkin drove Don's Fly Yellow Morgan Plus 4 from Nashville. There were four '64 to '67 Sting Rays, rallied by Jim/Suzanne MacDougald, Bruce/Cindy Troxell, Fred/John Ehle and Joe/Kathy Lukason.

Two V-12 Ferraris, Gene/Mary Jane Hammer's Daytona coupe and Terry/Carolyn Smith's late-model Barchetta, shared the road with the Mercedes-Benz 280SE Coupe of Rich Taylor/Anne Ehle and the overall rally-winning Mercedes 450SL of Charles/Chuck Goolsbee.

After a wonderful—and sunny— weekend at the Amelia Island Concours, the rally crowd gathered for Sunday dinner at nearby Amelia Island Plantation where we also received clothes, presents and route books.

Amelia Island Plantation is a very private resort on 133O acres bordered by the Intracoastal Waterway on the West and the Atlantic Ocean on the East. Among other things, it boasts 23 tennis courts, a health and fitness center, a 54 hole golf course designed by Pete Dye and Tom Fazio, miles of private beach and multiple swimming pools. It’s the secret place to stay on Amelia Island, much more unique than the Ritz Carlton.

The driving started Monday morning at 8:00 am sharp when rally wrangler Jean Taylor flagged off the Goolsbee's 450SL from the Amelia Island Plantation driveway. A nearly three hour drive through amazingly empty two-lane back roads in northern Florida brought us to Gainesville Raceway.

The dragstrip at Gainesville was already jammed with thousands of racers getting ready for the Gatornationals later in the week, but not one of them ventured back to Gainesville's neat 2.5-mile road course to find out what the old sports cars were up to.

What we were up to was high-speed attacks on the road course, cleverly split in half for the occasion. The long course could be lapped in just under 50 seconds; the short course took about 40 seconds. Terry Smith in his incredible Ferrari Barchetta fittingly posted the fastest combined time on the two courses, followed by John Ehle in his '67 big block Corvette. Chuck Goolsbee was third overall, after a pair of inspired drives in his father's stock 450SL.

Lunch was a catered trackside picnic with steak, salmon and shrimp grilled on the barbie. After lunch, the group rallied south through the scenic Florida "Hill Country" on surprisingly twisty roads to the Old Florida city of Lakeland.

Parish Heacock Insurance is headquartered in Lakeland. Owners Ford and Kate Heacock started SVRA many years ago, as well as Vintage Motorsport magazine. They now insure many vintage racing and collector cars. For the Forza Amelia, they organized an informal car show and cocktail party.

The original plan was to park the cars along the lake shore, but a late afternoon rainstorm drove everyone into a nearby parking garage. It didn't dampen the party. As Ford Heacock observed, "Put a bar almost anywhere and they will come!"

That night, we stayed overnight at the 1924 Terrace Hotel, a Lakeland landmark that's been totally renovated. Dinner was at The Grille, a restaurant with the elegant ambience of the Twenties. Already, the group was buzzing with car talk as the rallyists made connections with new friends with similar interests.

Bright and early Tuesday morning, we followed a short transit stage to Fantasy of Flight, the massive aircraft museum assembled by wealthy collector Kermit Weeks outside Polk City. From a 1909 Glenn Curtiss pusher to a Gee-Bee replica to a polished aluminum B-25, there are dozens of beautifully-restored planes, all kept in flying condition. We even got a private tour of the restoration shops organized by the Vintage Rallies folks.

From Polk City, we rallied over tiny two-lane back roads all the way to the Royal Palm Yacht Club in Fort Myers where we had lunch overlooking the Gulf of Mexico. Just down the street are the winter homes of Thomas Edison and Henry Ford, now open to the public. After touring the surprisingly cozy Edison and Ford homes, we drove a transit stage down the highway to Naples.

We all checked into The Inn on Fifth, a "boutique" luxury hotel in the heart of Old Naples, a wonderful area that's on the National Register of Historic Places. Most of the women found time to shop the length of Fifth Avenue, the Naples equivalent of Rodeo Drive. The rally organizers provided a shuttle so we could leave our rally cars safe in the hotel parking garage and enjoy a few glasses of wine before dinner.

Dean and Wendy Edmonds are wonderfully enthusiastic friends of many vintage rallyists. Near the Naples Airport, they have a hanger full of rare cars including a low-chassis 4.5 Invicta, Type 55 Bugatti and Blower Bentley. We started with cocktails and hors d'oeuvres at Dean and Wendy's.

Less than a mile away is Miles Collier's private automobile museum. The Collier Collection includes the entire Briggs Cunningham Museum collection which Mr. Collier bought many years ago en mass, plus his own collection of historic Porsche racing cars, plus dozens and dozens of other significant machines including an Alfa-Romeo 8C-29OO that won the Mille Miglia and a Mercedes-Benz W125 race car that only recently resurfaced in Romania.

Dressed up and on our best behavior, we wandered around the elegant Collier Museum carefully sipping more white wine and munching more hors d'oeuvres. Patron Miles Collier and museum major domo Scott George affably greeted every rallyist and guided us through the unbelievable collection.

After dinner on the mezzanine, we were free to spend more time ogling the cars, or visiting the automotive library and the restoration shop. Peter Markowski, the official mechanic for Vintage Rallies events and one of the best vintage car restorers in the country, kept repeating, "I'm in awe. I'm in awe!" If anything, that was an understatement.

Wednesday morning, we headed back North, following a transit route to Gerd and Feli Petrik's home on Casey Key. It is good to be Gerd Petrik! His wife Feli is a striking fashion model, as smart and pleasant as she is beautiful. His home is a sort of mini-palace built of Mexican coral rock, filled with art and overlooking a private beach.

And the cars! Gerd specializes in over-the-top supercars. Among dozens of 200 mph machines, he has a Bugatti Veyron, a CLK Mercedes factory racer, a Jaguar XJ-220, Porsche GT-1, GT-2 and GT-3 racers, etc. etc. etc. Lunch was catered on the patio, where Feli handed out hats embroidered with the house's name and logo. Does your house have a name? Does it have its own logo? Do all your guests receive commemorative hats? It is good to be Gerd Petrik!

From Petrik's, it was just a short transit to the Sarasota Classic Car Museum. About as different from the understated art museum hush of the Collier Collection as it could be, Sarasota Classic Car Museum is a boisterous melange of everything from a V-8 60-powered hydroplane racing boat to a late-model Rolls-Royce station wagon. There's a whole wing of cars designed by Piero Rivolta, who lives nearby.

Rick Furtado, of Rivolta Boats, got Piero to autograph two dozen copies of Winston Goodfellow's definitive Iso Rivolta history. As we left the Sarasota Classic Car Museum, we each received a Rivolta carry bag containing an Iso history and Rivolta Boats brochure. Neat surprise!

From Sarasota, the afternoon rally through gorgeous Central Florida ranchland and back into the Florida Hill Country was the best driving of the whole trip. Who knew there were great driving roads and spectacular scenery in Florida? After hours of twisties with no traffic, we arrived at The Mission Inn in Howey-In-The-Hills. This is a Spanish-style golf resort that's been in the same family for decades. It's all newly refurbished.

Before dinner, a group of us sat outside on a second-story patio, drinking wine, looking at the stars and quietly relaxing after what had been a truly memorable day. What an unexpected mix of cool cars, beautiful scenery, nice people and great roads! This is Florida as most people never see it, a Florida that is rapidly disappearing in the face of uncontrolled development. How lucky and special we felt to have experienced it before it's all gone.

For our final morning, the rally route took us along more twisty Hill Country roads and through cute old towns like Mt. Dora, Weirdale and Summerfield. As we got nearer to our checkpoint, the horse farms got bigger and more lavish, with increasingly impressive thoroughbreds standing regally in their fields. Padua Farms was the ultimate, with barns nicer than most people's homes.

Our checkpoint was in front of the Don Garlits Museum. If you have any interest in drag racing at all, you really have to see this remarkable collection of literally hundreds of famous racing cars and all sorts of unusual memorabilia, including Smokey Yunick's engine-building room. In an adjacent building, Big Daddy has more hundreds of antique and classic cars. To be honest, it's all a bit overwhelming. You could literally spend days examining every drag racing artifact.

From Garlits' place, we rallied diagonally across Florida through the Ocala National Forest on more picturesque back roads. The final checkpoint of the morning was in a waterfront park in the Historic District of Palatka, overlooking the St. John River. This surprisingly charming spot is one that few tourists will ever find. That was typical of the Forza Amelia; we went places and did things that only organizers Rich and Jean Taylor would bother to search out.

From Palatka, a 30 mile transit brought us to the well-known tourist town of St. Augustine on Florida's east coast. St. Augustine is the oldest city in America, with a restored Spanish Fort and quaint historic area. There was a choice of lunch spots; we sat outside on the patio of the White Lion and gorged ourselves on fresh broiled grouper. There are worse ways to spend an hour in St. Augustine.

After three and a half days, 1020 miles of driving and 21 separate stages, five teams had zeroed every checkpoint. Ralf Berthiez and his father, William, in their Austin Healey 100 LeMans, David and Paula Fischer in their Porsche 356 Carrera, Don Polak and Howard Serkin in Don's Morgan Plus 4, Fred and John Ehle in Fred's blue Stingray roadster and Charles and Chuck Goolsbee in Charles's Mercedes 450SL were in a five-way tie for overall honors.

The last rally stage was a simple 60 mile drive up AIA along the coast, followed by a bit of highway to get us out to 105 North and onto Amelia Island. The final timed checkpoint was at the end of a 3 mile, one-lane twisty road that leads to historic Kingsley Plantation. The rally instructions left 80 minutes to cover 60.75 miles, an average of just 45.56 mph. Vintage Rallies timing and scoring counts a one point penalty for each second you're early or late, up to a maximum of 500 penalty points per stage.

Of the leading group of five cars, on this diabolical last stage, the Berthiezs and Fischers each earned 500 points, Polak/Serkin had 300 and the Ehles got 256. Only the Goolsbees zeroed the checkpoint and the rally. I asked Chuck Goolsbee how they did it. "We were very lucky, and we drove like hell!"

Charles Goolsbee and his wife Carol have won rallies in the past, but son Chuck has been trying for seven years to win a Vintage Rallies event. To win cleanly and brilliantly on the last stage was obviously a thrill. He and Charles were still excited at the Victory Banquet that night, sharing their victory champagne with the rest of us.

Rich and Jean Taylor of Vintage Rallies have put on dozens of events since their first New England 1000 in 1993. After they cover their costs, all the rest goes to charity. Break even is around 30 cars; fewer than 30 cars means Rich and Jean are subsidizing the event out of their own pockets.

The New England 1000, Texas 1000 and Forza Mille are solidly in the black; Forza Amelia did not survive. That's too bad. You'd think vintage rallyists would find Forza Amelia's combination of mid-winter sun, back-country roads, great hotels, secret car collections and priceless camaraderie to be irresistible. As we said at the beginning, if you weren't on this year's Forza Amelia, you missed it! Forever.