Rally News

2OO8 VINTAGE RALLIES MOUNTAIN MILLE September 21-26, 2OO8 1975 or earlier sports, racing or GT cars, plus a separate class for late-model exotics We'll be starting and ending with overnights at The Homestead in Hot Springs, Virginia, spending two overnights at The Greenbrier in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia and a third overnight at The Homestead. Plus, of course, we'll also drive 1OOO miles on spectacular Virginia and West Virginia roads. ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– TEXAS 1OOO November 9-14, 2OO8 1975 or earlier sports, racing or GT cars, plus a separate class for late-model exotics We're starting and ending with overnights at the Hyatt Regency Hill Country Resort outside San Antonio, Texas, staying two overnights at Horseshoe Bay Resort in Horseshoe Bay, Texas and one more overnight at YO Ranch Resort outside Kerrville, Texas, plus driving 1OOO miles through the charming Texas Hill Country. 2OO9 VINTAGE RALLIES NEW ENGLAND 1OOO May 17-22, 2OO9 1975 or earlier sports, racing or GT cars, plus a separate class for late-model exotics We're planning a completely different route from any we've used before, but we do know it will have great hotels and restaurants, fun things to do, our welcoming New England 1OOO "extended family group" plus 1OOO miles of driving on grand New England sports car roads. The 17th Anniversary of our signature event! ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– MOUNTAIN MILLE October 4-9, 2OO9 1975 or earlier sports, racing or GT cars, plus a separate class for late-model exotics We're not sure of our exact route yet, but we do know it will be completely different from 2OO8, have spectacular hotels and restaurants, plus 1OOO miles of driving on wonderful Virginia and West Virginia roads. ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– TEXAS 1OOO November 8-13, 2OO9 1975 or earlier sports, racing or GT cars, plus a separate class for late-model exotics We haven't planned our exact route yet, but we do know it will be different from any we've used before, have terrific hotels and restaurants, interesting places to stop plus 1OOO miles of driving through the charming Texas Hill Country. SPONSORS We are proud to announce that Porsche Cars North America will again sponsor all our Vintage Rallies events in 2OO8. If your vintage rally car breaks, Porsche will loan you a free new Carrera, Boxster or Cayman to drive for the remainder of the event! Our workers will have Cayennes and Cayenne Turbos to use as support vehicles. As they have in the past, Porsche Cars will also contribute to our charities. ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Meguiar's has supplied their fabulous cleaning and detailing products to all our rallyists since our first event, 16 years ago. We're proud to announce that Meguiar's will continue to sponsor all our Vintage Rallies events. ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Peter and Steve Markowski of RPM Vermont, a world-class exotic car restoration and maintenance facility in Vergennes, Vermont, have been our official mechanics for over a decade. They follow our group and routinely perform miracles to keep our rallyists from borrowing a new Porsche. RPM Vermont will continue to be the official mechanics of all Vintage Rallies events. ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Tom and Jan Meunier of Exotic Car Transport in Ocala, Florida have been our official transporters for over a decade. We highly recommend them. Look for the big yellow trucks heading to all Vintage Rallies events. Tom often even joins our events with his own truck, just to make sure things go smoothly. Exotic Car Transport will be at all our events. ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Keith Martin's Sports Car Market magazine presents the Vintage Spirit Award at every Vintage Rallies event. A crystal vase and bottle of rare Oregon wine goes to the person who best exemplifies the spirit of Vintage Rallies; enthusiastically driving an interesting car for the pure fun of it, plus helping other people enjoy themselves, too! ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Custom Index has supplied custom index pages for all our route books for many years, and will continue to do so. ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– The annual Fairfield County Concours d'Elegance, September 2O-21, 2OO8 in Westport, CT, will sponsor the Victory Banquet at New England 1OOO. ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Peter and Karen Efros have supplied luggage for our New England 1OOO rallyists for many years, and will continue to do so. Peter and Karen are also supplying luggage for every participant in the Mountain Mille. ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Thank you all! THE VINTAGE RALLIES STORY In 1991, my wife Jean and I went on the Mille Miglia Storica in Italy. When we came home, we decided to host our own vintage car rally in New England. Ours would be more upscale, more select, more personal, more fun. Since that first 1993 event with 23 couples who weren’t exactly sure what they’d gotten themselves into, we’ve grown into an extended family group of thousands of vintage car enthusiasts, many of whom keep coming back year after year to see their friends again, enjoy their cars and share another 1OOO-mile adventure. Our adventures have expanded, too. We’re up to our 16th annual New England 1OOO, 11th annual Texas 1OOO and our 4th annual Mountain Mille. We also did our Forza Mille V-12 for 1O years and our Forza Amelia for 6 years. Amazingly, the 2OO7 Texas 1OOO was our 5Oth major national event, not counting various private events we've put together for clients like the Checkered Flag 2OO group from the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles, Club Macanudo in New York City and Mercedes-Benz USA. We have a regular crew of over a dozen hardworking men and women who help us during the actual events, but everything else is handled personally by Jean and me. It’s still a real Mom and Pop operation, and we mean to keep it that way. That’s the only way we know to preserve the personal touch. Our rallies succeed on many different levels. We’ve raised nearly $1,OOO,OOO for charity. We’ve introduced thousands of car enthusiasts to like-minded friends. We’ve had a couple of engagements on our events, two weddings, any number of birthdays and anniversaries, at least one house sale and the start of innumerable friendships. We’ve been responsible for the sale and restoration of literally dozens of cars, many bought and restored specifically to bring on one of our rallies. If nothing more, we’ve gotten people to drag their old cars out of the barn and use them! Plus, we like to think we’ve brought some pleasure into the world, made people laugh, shown them a good time, let them experience out-of-the-way places they’d never take the time to discover themselves. Our reward is at the end of the week, when people—especially women who were reluctantly dragged to the event by their husband or boyfriend—say, “That’s the most fun I’ve ever had,” or “This is the best thing we’ve ever done with cars. Here’s our reservation for next year!” Drive with us and see if you don’t agree! —Rich Taylor WHO ARE RICH AND JEAN TAYLOR? Straight from graduate school, Rich Taylor started out as Managing Editor of Car and Driver magazine. After four years at C&D, he left to form his own company, Taylor-Constantine, with his wife, award-winning artist/designer/photographer Jean Constantine. Jean had been an art director at Indiana University Press, McMillan and Oxford University Press. Since then, Rich has produced over 5OOO magazine articles for publications ranging from Automobile Quarterly to Town and Country, House and Garden to Popular Mechanics. He hosted his own radio talk show on New York's WABC 77O, and has also published two dozen books with publishers like Charles Scribner's Sons, St. Martins Press and David Bull Publishing. Among his books are Modern Classics; Indy, 75 Years of Racing's Greatest Spectacle; Lime Rock Park, 35 Years of Racing; Hershey; and a volume of award-winning short stories, The Ferrari in the Barn. Rich and Jean have also produced literally hundreds of special sections for clients like Car and Driver, The New York Times, New York Times Magazine, AutoWeek, Motor Trend, New Jersey Monthly, ALM Legal Division of Incisive Media, Popular Mechanics and Hearst Corporation. In addition to designing hundreds of books and magazines—the first book she ever designed won a "5O Best Books" award—Jean has been a nationally-known photographer for many years. Her photos have appeared in The New York Times, New York Times Magazine, Motor Trend, Car and Driver, Sports Cars International, Popular Mechanics, House and Garden and many other publications. Rich and Jean have won 21 International Automotive Media Awards for writing, photography and graphic design; the latest for Rich's 2OO7 New York Times Future of Cars special section. Rich has also won the prestigious Ken Purdy Award for Excellence in Automotive Journalism. Rich owns his own restoration shop, called Minisport, which has created dozens of project cars for auto manufacturers, magazines and private owners, cars which have been displayed at the SEMA Show, Detroit Auto Show and New York Auto Show. Cars restored by Minisport have won awards at Greenwich Concours, Amelia Island Concours, Fairfield Concours and Lime Rock Concours, among other shows. Rich is an ASE Certified Automobile Technician and long-time SAE member. He is a judge at Amelia Island Concours, Meadowbrook Concours, Cavallino, Greenwich Concours and Fairfield Concours. Rich is a juror for the North American Car of the Year and North American Truck of the Year awards, and also a juror for the Motorsports Hall of Fame. He was an AMA Expert motorcycle road racer sponsored by Yamaha and has raced cars in SCCA, IMSA, SCCA Pro Rally and the Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona, plus vintage racing his own Devin SS, Kellison J-4R and B-production 1967 Corvette. He won an SCCA Championship with a Mazda RX-7 plus an overall win in the 24 Hours of Nelson Ledges driving a Saleen Mustang. He holds an FIA International license and has raced at over 85 tracks around the world. Rich's current stable includes two Allards, a Maserati 35OO GT, a Porsche 911 Carrera RS, a Porsche 911 Targa Carrera RS, a '67 Corvette, a Mercedes 28OSE coupe and a '57 Morgan Plus 4 that has been a race car since new, plus a variety of vintage racing cars and motorcycles. Current restoration projects are a 1957 Chevrolet hot-rod, a 1934 Alvis Speed 2O SB with one-off bodywork by Vanden Plas and a 2OO8 Mustang GT hot-rod that's a project car for Popular Mechanics. Since 1993, Rich and Jean have also organized three or four 1OOO-mile vintage car rallies each year, which have now contributed nearly $1,OOO,OOO to various U.S. charities. Because of Vintage Rallies’ “outstanding contributions to the collector car hobby,” Rich and Jean were given the 2OOO Hobby Hero Award from Hemmings Motor News. Jean is a graduate of Rhode Island School of Design, with a BFA in illustration. She has won many awards for her pastels, and exhibits at her own Sharon Mountain Gallery. She also has her own book publishing house, Sharon Mountain Press. An Eagle Scout, Merit Scholarship and Regents Scholarship winner, Rich is both a College Scholar in Sculpture and an Honors graduate of Brown University, with a BA in Art History. He also holds an MA from Indiana University in Medieval Art History and an ABD from New York University’s Institute of Fine Arts. His dissertation is entitled Islamic Influences on 18th and 19th Century British and American Domestic Architecture. It has absolutely nothing to do with cars! Rich and Jean have recently sold their house in Pebble Beach, and now split their time between their 1739 Colonial farm in Sharon, Connecticut, their modern home in Daytona Beach, Florida and their newly-restored 19O2 compound in Doss, Texas. HOBBY HEROES Each year, the employees of Hemmings Motor News choose their Hobby Heroes, people who’ve combined charitable good works with enthusiasm for the old car hobby. For 2OOO, Rich and Jean Taylor and Vintage Rallies, Inc. were named Hobby Heros. The certificate reads, “Your introduction of hundreds of car enthusiasts to rallies in Florida, Texas and New England in the last nine years is recognized as a true success story. Your ability to give rally participants an exciting experience has brough much positive visibility to the collector car hobby, while raising over $4OO,OOO for worthy charities. Hemmings is proud to recognize your good works.” Hemmings donated $1OOO to the Vermont State Police Scholarship Fund in the name of Vintage Rallies, Inc. Thank you all! IN THE NEWS Our events have received quite a bit of publicity recently, including a chapter and photo in Denise Jackson's best-seller about her life with country music star Alan Jackson, It's All About Him. We're also covered in two articles in the 2OO8 Vintage Motorsport Annual, an article in the December, 2OO7 Sports Car Market by Donald Osborne, an article in the December 17, 2OO7 AutoWeek by Don Klein, articles in the December, 2OO7 and January, 2OO8 issues of Victory Lane, a story by Jerry Burton in Hagerty's magazine Winter 2OO7/2OO8 issue, Charles Goolsbee's article about the Mountain Mille in the December 2OO7/January 2OO8 issue of 3OO StarLetter, Chris Greendale's article about the Mountain Mille in the Winter 2OO7 Aston Martin Vantage Point, Tom Goddard's articles about the New England 1OOO in Victory Lane and Mustang Monthly, a cover story in the January, 2OO7 issue of Classic Motorsports, the 2OO7 Vintage Motorsport Annual, an article by Jerry Burton in the Winter 2OO7 issue of Corvette Quarterly and Donald Osborne's article about us in The New York Times of July 16, 2OO6. Other recent articles have appeared in CEO, Bel Air Magazine, Corvette, Corvette Quarterly, Diversion, Robb Report, Showcase, The New York Times, The New York Post, AutoWeek, Popular Mechanics, European Car, Vintage Motorsport Annual, Victory Lane, Sports Car International, Classic Motorsports, Sports Car Market, Hemmings Motor News, Texas Highways, Texas Driver, Automobile, Accent, Litchfield County Times, Lakeville Journal and many, many marque publications, including the Aston Martin Club magazine, Ferrari Market Letter, Prancing Horse, Cavallino, The Star, Jaguar Journal, etc. etc. Road & Track carried Peter Egan’s hilarious account of his adventures in a Mini on the Texas 1OOO. Wearguard, which supplies many of the shirts and jackets we give out on our events, even came to the New England 1OOO and photographed a group of us wearing our Wearguard clothing and standing with our cars for their mail order catalog. On the internet, you can find stories about our events at forbes.com, SpeedTV.com, degarmoltd.com, southfloridajaguarclub.org, goolsbee.org and vintagerallies.com. On television, Motorweek covered our Forza Mille V-12. CHARITIES Vintage Rallies, Inc. has made donations to many charities over the years. Among recent recipients were the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research, Vermont National Guard Family Readiness Centers, Texas Hearing and Service Dogs, Victory Junction Gang Camps, Make-A-Wish Foundation, Saratoga Auto Museum, Petersen Museum Checkered Flag 2OO, Community Hospice of Northeast Florida, Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital, Riverbrook School, American Cancer Society, Stanley Museum, Adirondack Museum, Petersen Automotive Museum, Commemorative Air Force, Chaparral Gallery of the Midland Petroleum Museum, Vermont State Police Scholarship Fund, Maine State Police Scholarship Fund, New York State Police Scholarship Fund, Camp Sunshine, Lake Champlain Maritime Museum, New Hampshire Hundred Club, Gary Gaboury Scholarship Fund, Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, American Red Cross September 11 Disaster Relief Fund, The Lyme Disease Foundation, Shelburne Museum, Hildene, Lake George Antique Boat and Auto Museum, Owls Head Transportation Museum, the Hannibal Hamlin Library and any number of other antique car collections and historical libraries.