Rally In The Rain (Almost) By Sharon Tanihara, Photos by Rick Snover and Sharon Tanihara
At 7:30 on the morning of the Austin Healey Rally at the Petersen, I was sitting in the driveway in my Healey, observing the weather, when it began to sprinkle lightly. A quick call to a friend who lives a couple of miles away from the museum in Los Angeles revealed it was raining quite heavily in that area. I decided that a trip up the 1-5 from Orange County to and through downtown Los Angeles was not the occasion to test my ìRain-X makes rain drops fly over your headî theory, so I got in my Honda and headed for the rally at the Petersen, hoping it had not been cancelled. Happily, the rain had subsided, and the event was going on as planned, with Krispy Kreme donuts and hot coffee awaiting the participants, members of three local Austin Healey clubs, plus the museum's Checkered Flag 200 club.
After the drivers meeting at 10:30, those who didn't have their cars to drive were assigned as navigators, and I got a ride as navigator in an '89 Porsche, with John, a friend of rally master Ron Rader. I guess if you don't have your Healey with you, a Porsche will do (just kidding, John! ), and off we went.
The rally was a 2-hour adventure through the tony west side of Los Angeles, hitting all the highlights, including the site of OJ's old house in Brentwood, the Pacific Palisades area, the old and new Getty mu-seums, Sunset Boulevard to the ocean at Malibu, and then on to miles and miles of beautiful scenery on the Mulholland Highway through the Santa Monica mountains. All of this would have been a lot more calm and relaxing if we hadn't been so busy looking for names of streets, recording speed limits, counting chevrons, identifying ani-mals on crossing signs and looking for numbers and slogans on buildings and signs, but who's complaining - it was a lot of fun! The rally ended at a park in the Santa Monica mountains, where a barbe-cue had been planned, but with a switch in plans because of the threat of rain, we headed back to the Petersen where the caterer was preparing hamburgers with all the fixings including dessert in a conference room with a view on the 4th floor.
After the delicious lunch, car show and rally winners were announced, including San Diegoís Sandy Leon as the unanimous Peopleís Choice for Sprites, and then participants were free to enjoy the museum, as admission was included in the rally package.
The First Annual Healey Rally at the Petersen was a multi-faceted event with something for everyone. The rally itself consisted of intricate driving instructions and 100 questions that had to be answered while following directions to the park. Congratulations and many thanks to rally masters Ron Rader and Debi Nichols for all the planning, hard work and attention to detail it must have taken to put this fun event together!