4/10/06 --> Ferrari Club meet

[sameerrao]

I went to the Annual meet for the South Central Region in Clear Lake, about 30 miles south of Houston. There were about 40 cars on display.

On the agenda was a "rally" in two stages - the first stage was a photo rally wherein you were given a thick binder containing photos showing turnoffs in the road, signs, etc and were let loose in your car to get to get to the final destination - lunch at a restaurant in Galveston on Seawall Blvd. On the return journey there was another rally of a different sort.

So it basically involved about 150 miles of running. I was assigned the role of rally navigator and was placed in a red F355 Spider for this 8) ... And to top it all I had a charming female driver ... 8) 8) . As you can imagine it, the ride in the 355 was among the best experiences of my life. The only caveat was that as most of the rally involved paying close attentions to the signs to avoid missing the turnoffs, the overall speed was quite slow - maybe 90mph max on one or two occasions. The 355 sounded glorioussss at all rpms. So it looks I broke my Ferrari cherry today.

After all that driving, we went on a yacht dinner cruise that evening and had more cool food.

The next day was the Concours and most of the cars from teh previous day showed up.

I had a great time as you can imagine. The Houston FCA crowd is very friendly, down-to-earth and fun loving bunch.

The pics follow:
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[twboy1999]

damn nice pic

i love the LM wing on the f40

and the gt40 :drool: :drool:

[Erez]

OMG! :shock: the perfect GT40! god damn!
thanks for the pics man!

[Zot09]

:drool: Thanks Sameerrao!

[lorbmw69]

what's the deal with the yellow 360 with the hole in the roof?

great picks! must have been a great day :D

[sameerrao]

Its a steel sunroof - very, very few Modenas have them

[TT]

You were lucky beeing passenger in a 355 spider :love:

And you took a bunch of good pics! Some nice wideangle shots :good:
I love the 355 / 360 with sunroof one the most :!:

[sameerrao]

You were lucky beeing passenger in a 355 spider :love:

And you took a bunch of good pics! Some nice wideangle shots :good:
I love the 355 / 360 with sunroof one the most :!:

Hopefully I will get a ride in another delicious car soon

I took my Nikon D50 with the 12-24 lens - awesome for the wide angle shots.

I dont mean to toot my own horn :lol: but my favorite pics are the CS rear threequarter shot, the 360 wheel with the F40 reflected in the 6 wheel bolts and the F1 logo. I still have to learn about taking pics in general but I guess that is part of the fun. :)

[ARMAN]

:drool: what an amasing meet, lucky you to codrive 355 :P thanx for pics Sameerrao :wink:

[RF1]

absolutely brilliant
astonishing cars
Simply: PERFECT

glad to see it!!
:roll:

[Wutputt]

Lucky bastard ;)
Must have been fun to be a passenger in this rally. The 360 wheel pic with the reflection of the F40 is idd very nice! Too bad some people were running by.

[ae86_16v]

Very cool indeed! Must have been an excellent experience. Looks like the D50 did an awesome job!

[sameerrao]

Thank you all for the kind words... I took a chance on the 12-24 lens on this occasion. I bought the lens for Yosemite/Grand Canyon kinda spots but it is fantastic for close-ups where the curvature offered by the lens accentuates the curvy cars ... great effect. I need to look for a telephoto zoom next.

[spidey007]

nice pictures !!!

but ... euh ... the women you drove with ... looks like a wrestler :d

[rpantoja0]

wow!
great pics!!
made my day, thnx

[sameerrao]

nice pictures !!!

but ... euh ... the women you drove with ... looks like a wrestler :d

Shush young man! Any woman who gives me a ride in her Ferrari is a dream goddess. And considering she is old enough to be your mom - she is pretty nice - really she has a 18 year old kid :)

[stmoritzer]

Lucky man sameerrao :D
Very nice ride, awesome sunny day for a Ferrari meet
and
amazing unusual pics of these beauties (wide angle pics)
Great line-up with CS, F40LM, FordGT, yellow 360 :love:,...
The bolt-reflection-pics is indeed aupercool :mrgreen: