Pismo Beach/SLO - 08.27.2000

The Inaugural California Probe Owners Club Meet

After much planning and being put on hold, this meet finally happened!  The joint BAPOC/SCPOC meet was supposed to be like this meet, but alas, it was not.  This one was much better than that meet in January!

SCPOC Attendees:

BAPOC/SaPOC Attendees:

The weekend started out pretty uneventful.  Us SCPOC'ers who went met up Saturday afternoon at Yankee Doodle's in Woodland Hills, where Stacey was participating in a pool tournament.  She's a semi-pro player and pretty darn good!  This was not her week, as she lost most of her matches, although I think she secretly threw them so she could come to the meet.  Once that was done, Howard ran over to the local Best Buy and picked himself up an FRS radio, so we'd be able to communicate with one another while on the trip.

We got onto the 101 and headed up to Santa Barbara, where we would be spending the night and meet up with Lalo and Biggee.  The ride up was pretty uneventful, up until we got a few miles out of town when this older Acura Legend decided he wanted to play around with us a bit.  Stacey, Corey and Lino all had fun with this guy.  He was finally able to get around him and that's when Howard and I had some fun.  He did not look too happy when he came up on us and finally dropped back.

We were just a little bit out of Santa Barbara when another, newer, Legend was weaving in-and-out of traffic as if he was in a rush to be somewhere.  At first I thought nothing of it and let Stacey, Lino, and Corey have some fun with the homeboy driving it.  Lino had merged in front of this guy, then as he was accelerating, Stacey cut him off.  Clean!  So, he swings out and Corey was about to give chase when I darted out and went after him.  I had fun with this guy, moving in and out of lanes and pretty much not letting him get away.  He looked pretty surprised when I finally did pass him.  He thought I had no way to get around and, in a rather dumb move looking back on it, I went on the shoulder to get around.  Once in front, I pretty much had enough and backed off the pedal a bit to let the rest of the group catch up.  Lino decided to play with this guy a bit, so I watched as the Legend did not live up to its name.  Our stop was coming up so we all merged over, and to our surprise, the Legend got off with us.  Too bad he was going in the other direction, but I think he had enough Probe for one day.

Our accommodations for the night were courtesy of Lino's mom.  She was very hospitable to all of us.  Plus she likes to drive fast too!  We wound up having dinner at a steakhouse at a shopping center right across the street from where we were staying.  Very good vittles!  Lalo met us at the restaurant and hung out until we were done.  We got back to the house and camped out.  It was pretty cool, except for that we couldn't log onto Probetalk (Howard did for a bit, since he brought his notebook and had his cell phone) and for the little furry creature that woke a few people up!

The next day, we had a small breakfast and headed up to Pismo!  The drive up was pretty much without event and we made it to San Simeon pretty much on schedule.  Dan's directions were right on and we were greeted to a welcome site with all the Probes there.  We pulled in and made our introductions.  I got to see Dan, Bill, Shawn, and Sean again while meeting Tony, the Scamper and the rest of the crew for the first time.

SaPOC logo!

With Tony and the Scamper, that made it 3 first gen Probes that were there.  Cool.  Stacey has a low 90GL, but not as low at the Scamper's LX.  That thing was low, had a dual exhaust and had some custom upholstery work done.  It held true to its white and purple theme.  Shawn showed off his newly acquired 95 Eclipse GSX.  It looked very clean and had very nice acceleration.  Boost is definitely a GOOD thing!  Bill was there with his girlfriend and her TransAm, a FAST car!  After we had been there for a short while, fellow SCPOC'er Jason Campanella showed up.  He made the trek up by himself after finding out about it!

shawn's 95 eclipse gsx sean's 97 gt lino's hose techniques! jason's 93 gt

rear view of the group shot stacey sittin' pretty on her 90 gl sean and his 97 gt (with corey looking in)

corey and his 93 se big e and his camaro bill and his girl in her transam

the 1st gens of pismo! scamper's engine tony's 1st gen probe da scamper!

After we were done hanging out, we set out for a scenic drive along PCH.  I had thought that we were going to Hearst Castle, but we wound up stopping at some small resort.  The drive was marred a little bit by this RV that would not yield and let the faster traffic pass, so some of us more intrepid souls passed him anyway.  We stopped and had a look around before heading back down.  The scenery was beautiful.  A light fog rolled in and it felt really nice.

pulling into the ragged point inn getting out for a whiff of fresh air nice tree nice view

the ragged point inn! nice place! waiting for the green light! photo op! jason looks over the scenery

Shawn decided to leave as we pulled out, so we said our goodbyes.  Someone got the idea to stagger start us down the hill so we could get some runs in.  I passed two cars like that.  Right after the second run, we pulled into some small roadside inn that had a wide open lot next to it.  Dan wanted to take some pics of that and we all pulled in and took some pics.  There must have been at least 5 of us snapping photos or shooting video.  Bill decided to head back at this point.

bill and his girl! the group! corey sums up the day! lino talking with the guy who let us in

morrow rock! the probe invasion force! white probes! my car, gassing up!

1st gens! racy-stacey kickin' it!

Once we were done, we made our way to San Luis Obispo and the F. McLintock's restaurant.  SLO is definitely a small town.  We lost a few of the group in the maze of streets, but we eventually got back together, parked, and made our way to the restaurant.  It took the place a few minutes to put together seating for nearly 20 people, but we got our seating and we all ordered.  Howard, Lalo, and myself ordered the Baron Higuera burger.  According to the menu, if we finished it, we got our photos put up in the 'Wall of Fame'.  Lalo and I took this as a challenge and all three of us finished our meals.  I'm not sure what the other guys put in their pictures, I just put our url and the name of the meet.

waitin' ta grub!

After we were done, we went back to the parking lot where we parked and decided to call it a day.  We were bushed, so we said our goodbyes to our northern brethren, gassed up, and hit the road.

Along the way, two Integras decided to play with us.  Lalo and I were the lead cars, and the Integs were zooming in and out, weaving their way through the caravan.  Needless to say, Lalo and I had plenty of fun with both of these drivers.  Thank goodness for the FRS radios.  We hit speeds approaching 120mph and since I wanted to stop in Buellton, we had to let them go.

We got off the freeway and went to Andersen's Pea Soup Restaurant.  This place has been around for over 50 years.  They also have another restaurant on the I-5 in Santa Nella (those of us who braved the January meet, caught up with Lino there).  We refreshed ourselves, I picked up some cheese (don't ask), and after looking at the recently arrived CHP, we left and hit the 101 home.

The drive home was uneventful after that and I was very pleased with the way things went.  The BAPOC/SaPOC'ers made a good showing and we were happy to participate.  I do wish we had more people come out for this meet, but if this is a sign of things to come, I think that future statewide meets will be even more successful.

write-up and digital photos by D. Tolentino, additional photos courtesy of Scamper, video courtesy of Lalo