In what has to be the best showing ever for this group, we had a record 20 SHOs, 2 Contour SVTs, and 1 Mazda RX7 TwinTurbo show up this year. We all met in Bandera in front of the courthouse at 11am on November 13, 1999. There was hardly a parking space left in the area with all the SHOs! While we waited for any last minute stragglers to show up, everyone looked over the cars, chatted for a bit, and Bob Allison had our "drivers meeting" to go over the plans for the day (the route we'd drive, and some safety precautions). Then we were off - heading out of Bandera for a long day of hill country driving! There was a bit of confusion in car order when groups got mixed up (the plan was for the "faster group" to leave first, followed by the slower cars) as we left Bandera due to the traffic, and for what was one of the few times during the day, the RX7 was actually behind me! Once out of town, the groups collected themselves, and the "fast group" was soon out of sight. It wasn't long before we caught up to them, however, as one of the Contour SVTs didn't quite make it around a sharp curve, and wound up with a little body damage and a destroyed tire to show for it. After making sure the driver was OK (he was) and he could swap out the spare to make it back to town (he could) we were on our way again, less the two Contour SVTs.
We spent the next several hours without any other incidents, heading further into the hill country, where we drove some twisty roads, bumpy roads, scenic roads, and what I like to call "don't make a mistake" roads (where there is a cliff going UP on one side, and DOWN on the other!). We even drove in a place where there wasn't really a road at all (we seem to be making this a tradition - happened last year too!). After awhile we needed a rest stop, so we found a gas station where the group took turns filling up with gas, and resting under a tree. After our break, we took off again, driving more of the fun roads until our next stop - what some of the group called the "NASCAR Straights". This stretch of road was perfectly straight and flat for several miles, with little to no traffic. We stopped here and watched a few high speed runs - first by a motorcycle (120k MPG) from a nearby group, then one by the RX7 (312k MPG), and finally one by a SHO (136k MPG). Several people also took the opportunity to check out Derrick's fine example of a late model RX7 as it isn't a commonly seen car. Soon after that, we made another stop in Brackettville, but ran into some trouble when we got ready to leave and Kurt Lehmann's '94 had some problems running. It'd start, but soon idle extremely rough, then die. We figured it couldn't be bad gas since we'd all filled at the same stations all day. We checked fuel pressure, the MAF, his LPM, and watched as Bob and Sergio wrestled over who got to change the fuel filter, as Kurt looked on worriedly (since it was his ride back to "civilization" that wouldn't run!) while the rest of us (myself included) watched somewhat amusedly. We eventually gave up on the car, and Kurt and Bob decided to U-Haul Kurt's 94 back to Houston. Since we'd burned quite a bit of daylight trying to resolve problems in Brackettville, we decided to cut out the remainder of the run and head back up the way we'd come down to Brackettville and cut back east to Kerrville - hoping to make it back before dark. We made great time on the return trip, except when we (at, uhm.... speed) passed one Border Patrol (Brackettville is not far from Mexico) going the other direction, and soon wound up with another Border Patrol in the middle of our "group". When he passed one SHO but stayed behind another - we knew something was up. Within a minute, he pulled over Rhonda and Blanton Smith (who had been in the front SHO). A group of 10-12 SHOs tried to look nonchalant as we passed them by. We soon found a crossroads to stop at to wait for the Smith's (and anyone else who'd dropped behind) to catch up. The Smiths soon caught up - after a quick illegal alien and drug check and a bit of questioning ("What first attracted us to you was your excessive speed"), the BP agents let them go. Stephen Bates also had a run-in with the Border Patrol, with much the same results. We all burnt the last bit of daylight chatting there for a bit and getting a group shot (see below) before heading out on the last bit of open road back to Kerrville.
Once back in Kerrville, we cleaned up at the hotel, then met for dinner
at the Cowboy Steakhouse in Kerrville. For a group of our size, there
was a wait, so we passed the time waiting in (of course) the
bar! This also gave us an opportunity to check out some of Sam's
photography. Once we finally got our table, everyone spend a
good couple of hours eating and sharing the stories
of the day.
Here's who was left by the end of the day. ;-)
From left to right : Kerby Haltom, David Wolfe, Hugh Johnson, Jason Steffek, Daniel Bonds, David Bonds, John Vanlandingham(?), Bob Bryant, Sergio Perfetti, Paul Chapin, unknown(?), Derrick Berg, Rhonda/Blanton Smith. Not pictured - Sam Bulger, Catherine Bonds, Stephen Bates (probably talking with Border Patrol during this shot), others?.
Bob Allison
'98 White
Bill Bandiga
'92 Blue
Stephen Bates
'91 Green
Derrick Berg
'93 Red RX7
Daniel Bonds
'94 White
David Bonds
'95 Green
Bob Bryant
'92 Red
Sam Bulger
'89 Red
Paul Chapin
'91 Tan
Rob Gordon
'93 Red
Kerby Haltom
'90 White
Tim Hendricks
'94 Green
Hugh Johnson
'90 Black
Gary Jones
'90 Black
Kurt Lehmann
'94 Silver
Andrew Matjasko
'93 Green
Glen Murdock
'97 Green
Sergio Perfetti
'89 Red
Blanton Smith
'90 Red
Kevin Smith
'91 Black
Jason Steffek
SHOless -('93 White)
John Vanlandingham
'93 White
Louis Wang
'98 Black SVT Contour
Albert Yarusso
'98 Black SVT Contour
Kevin
Smith's SHO page (Fall Run is towards bottom of page).
Bob Bryant's Bandera Run
page
