Spring Break
Christmas, New Years and taxes are now (officially) over, so this annual benefit for the Make-A-Wish foundation was just the thing to let off a little steam and herald the arrival of spring time and better driving weather. Well at least a little better weather until the monsoon and hurricane season hit. Well, that's the future, I want to talk about the past. The Celebration Exotic Car Show Board did a fantastic job of getting this thing together. As usual our host hotel was the very nice Celebration Hotel. New this year was a reception dinner for the participants at D'Antonios. So, they are going to feed us too. Say no more. We're there.

Old Friends, Karaoke and the Wee Hours
After checking into the hotel, and parking the Esprit close to it's assigned spot, we ambled over to the restaurant. We bumped into a lot of old friends including Jay and Denise as well as Jeff I. and his brother, Jimmy. The dinner was a good start to the weekend, but after reacquainting with old friends, we decided more social interaction was in order. We adjourned from D'Antonios and walked down the street to the Tavern. Karaoke night. Enough said. Oh not in the beginning. We were still sane when we walked in. But soon. I can only assume that at some point in time we decided to call it a night because the next memory I have is of the 7:00am wake-up call that I had, apparently, left the night before. Oh, boy. Today will be interesting.

The Show Must Go On



Having the Esprit prepped before arriving at the show helped my disposition a bit. Having a Barnies Coffee and Tea within walking distance did even more. "That's one frozen Cappuccino with no whipped cream, please. What do you mean you don't sell it in gallons"? Well, after a quick chat with Jimmy (who seemed WAY TO CHIPPER CONSIDERING), I learned that the Don Wallace collection had made it and was being set up at the top of Market Street. I mumbled a quick goodbye to Jimmy (I think it was something like "me go see pretty cars, now" or something like that - cognitive abilities had not returned yet) and meandered up Market Street. Wow. I was stunned into silence (Yeah, like that took a lot). Feeling rational and logical thought returning, I quickly snapped some pictures of the cars before the crowds arrived and made this area impassable. The composite picture above was made using five shots and stitching them together. Left to right are a (very special) McLaren F1, a Maserati MC12, The Ferrari FXX, The Enzo, a Mercedes CLK-GTR, and finally the Bugatti Veyron.

Thoughts on the Veyron
It's small. I mean, intellectually I knew that it was not a behemoth, but in all of the pictures it looks like it is large enough to eat roads in one big gulp (which it does, I am sure). However, when you see the car, it is a bit of a let down. Hard to explain, but there it is. I have come to the conclusion that this is one of those cars that actually looks better in print than in the metal. To test my theory, I took a few pictures of the car as it was on the move. Upon reviewing the pictures, I found myself saying "That's more like it..." Theory proven.