Friday’s KINOD was a particularly welcome end to the first week back suffering work’s accelerated ramp into 2019. The 90-ish mile round trip delights on relatively clear LA freeways in stark contrast to 10-12 lanes of the usual stop and go traffic. As always though it is all about the people. I managed to park up next to Jon B’s NC with its stunning Mazdaspeed body kit.
Gabele showed up and had brought me a length of Design Engineering fire sleeve for the little hose coming off the actuator. The one I was lamenting the week before because it had rubbed through and burst before and looked like that could happen again. So incredibly thoughtful. And then Nico showed up. With a present, wrapped and all. Inside was a print of my favorite picture he took of Benny on our Dec 31wts cruise. And it was framed! It’s been a delight to have someone both passionate and talented with a camera to capture and share their work but this? Sometimes you just get blown away by the best part of humanity. True surprise and delight. This crazy little roadster tribe really does have the best people. Good people. Kind people. Caring people.
After the trip home it was after 1:30 when I finally retired knowing that I had a 6:30 wake-up call for the first Miata run of the year. I’m really really happy these are starting to become a regular thing. In the early days when KINOD was formed it stood for “Krispy Kreme, In-N-Out and Drive”. The three integral components of the meets. We’ve been booted from KK’s parking lot and for those that can meet for dinner beforehand I don’t think I-n-O has been a choice for years. And serious hard parking and visiting has replaced the trips to Azuza canyon.
The next morning I was awake before the alarm and off just after seven to meet up at Seal Beach. It had poured buckets just after I’d got home the night before and nearly unthinkable for SoCal was a forecast calling for more rain. On the way to the meeting point at Javintini’s espresso I got my first opportunity to start exploring the dynamics of Rain + R888’s + turbo.
We were off just after 8 running ten cars deep. Even more than NYE, great to see that the weather wasn’t the deterrent I was expecting. We had to stop for a couple cars to fuel up but as the station was empty a full takeover seemed in order. Just enough time for some pics before we cleared out for the perplexed drivers waiting for a pump.
And then the heavens opened up but that had no impact on the smiles on our faces as we could see whenever we passed each other.
Thanks to Kadin for grabbing some rolling shots in the wet