Austin Healey Northwest Meet 2009

‘Nestled in the heart of Oregon’s beautiful wine country, McMinnville is Oregon at its best. There are numerous scenic roads and beautiful vistas as well as the charming downtown area. You can enjoy delicious wine tasting, explore downtown shops or just have fun on the meandering Healey roads.’ I could not come up with a better description than John Carter’s of the site of the 2009 Austin Healey Northwest Meet. We arrived Thursday afternoon after a beautiful trip down Hwy 99 from Portland. The sky was blue, and the temperature was a perfect 75 degrees. Registration and socializing took place in the parking lot reserved for us, and at 5:45 we lined up the Healey’s for our first planned event, dinner at Golden Valley Pub and Brewery. Located in McMinnville’s historic downtown district, Golden Valley is well known for their outstanding beers, premium local wines, comfortable environment and delicious food. There were 44 of us seated in our own room where we enjoyed fabulous beer, wine and repast. We returned to the motel after dinner and continued to socialize in the Hospitality Room provided by the Red Lion Inn.
Friday was a ‘free’ day to explore on your own or pal up with others and go wine tasting, stroll through the Historic Downtown area, visit the beautiful campus of Linfield College or tour the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum. More Healeys arrived over night and more came in the morning, so we knew we would make quite an impression as we all ventured about the area. Larry and I opted to go to the Museum, knowing there was a new building recently opened totally dedicated to Space Flight and Exploration. We spent the morning touring the Aviation Museum, including a tour of a B-17 bomber and of course, the world’s largest wooden airplane, the ‘Spruce Goose’. After lunch and a glass of Spruce Goose Pinot Gris, we continued our tour of the Space Museum. There we were able to visit the Titan II Launch Room and view a 5 minute launch simulation. We returned to the motel to socialize in the parking lot again (the weather could not be finer), and learn where everyone else had gone and what they had seen. We were still getting new arrivals around 3:30 which marked the beginning of the Slot Car Races. Denis and Jan Saxon hosted this event with help and the round robin began! 36 cars raced, 4 at a time. With expert guidance from Denis, we all had a grand time with 1st, 2nd and 3rd place winning a bottle of local wine and a ‘medal’. John Carter and his ‘Idleometer’ started making the rounds at 4:00 and with the help of George Koeber, tested the idles on any Healey whose owner was brave and confident. John Carter created this ‘Rube Goldberg’ like machine which records the roughness or smoothness of your idle. We had quite a few test but the results won’t be in until tomorrow night to allow more testing in the afternoon. We all convened in the Hospitality Room for a buffet of appetizers including fruit, veggies, cold cuts, cheeses, meatballs and dessert. It was a great spread and while you were in line, you could check out the Healey-Feely bags.
On Saturday, after our daily continental breakfast provided complimentary by Red Lion, we all assembled in the parking lot. Jan Whittlesey and Glen Enright were our guides on a road tour of the surrounding area. What an incredible drive! Through farmland, foothills, vineyard and nurseries, we wound around, arriving in Carlton at 11:00 to roam around the shops, taste wine if you were inclined, or just sit on a bench and watch rest of us take a break. We saddled back up at 11:45 to caravan to Laurel Ridge Winery where we tasted wine and ate our picnic lunches overlooking vineyards. Our hosts did their best to accommodate such a large crowd and all had a good time. After lunch, some of us headed back to MAC, some continued wine tasting at Willakenzie Winery up the road. We all gathered back at the parking lot at 4:00 for socializing, testing your idle with John Carter’s Idleometer and general relaxing after a Healey tour day. At 5:45 we saddled up again for our Authentic Texan Barbeque at the McMinnville Senior Center. The theme was Western and quite a few brave souls dressed accordingly. It was fun to see the cowboy hats and boots, skirts and turquoise! We had an excellent dinner catered by Buster’s Authentic Texan Barbeque! After dinner, we returned to the motel for awards for ‘games’, raffle and door prize drawings, and socializing in the Hospitality Room. I think the first awards were given for ‘Oil Stains’. A sheet of brown paper was placed under your Healey for a period of ½ to 1 hour. Then Gary and Jan Jackson announced the winners; ‘Most Oil’ went to Phil Daniels, ‘Least Oil’ went to Michael DeWilds and ‘Most Artistic’ Oil Stain went to Dennis Saxon. The next awards were given for the Idleometer test. Tom Magnuson(45pts.) won a run away first place, John Stevens(70pts.) won second place and Michael Hartfield took third with 74pts.. And the two winners of the Questions to the Answer were Bruce and Sue Jackson for first place and Susan White for second place. Final awards going to winners of the Slot Races were Michael Hartfield with first, Bob Poague with second, and Doris Johnson won third. The Healey-Feely contest was won by Lynn Martin. Then we learned the raffle winners. We had an amazing array of items for raffle and all were very pleased with their winnings. A good time was had by all. We had a total of 108 people registered from Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, Idaho and even one couple, Terry and Patricia Bancroft from Sydney, Australia (they were driving the beautiful metallic green Cougar!). We had about 40 Healeys of various makes. All that were left were the good-byes in the parking lot on Sunday morning and promises to ‘See you next year!’ at the 2010 Austin Healey Northwest Meet at Lake Chelan!

Thanks to all who helped make this a wonderful event, especially John and Judy Carter, George and Jackie Koeber, and Glen Enright and Jan Whittlesey.
Also, many thanks to Kym Randolph for writing this article.