It was around 4 pm on Friday when I saw Adam, Matt, and Todd pull up to the primary meeting point in their white Berettas. From there we took off towards the main meeting point in Hamilton, taking the scenic route. Bad idea. We got stuck behind trucks doing 75 km/h the whole way to the meeting point. Finally we got there to find Gor and Christina waiting for us in the parking lot. After walking around everyone's car a few times, Gor recieved a call from Ignacio. He told Gor that he's on his way. None of us expected this, because we all thought he was going to come on Saturday. So a few minutes later, a nice red GTZ pulls into the parking lot. Gor started offering people Aberfoyle bottled water as we waited for Max to arrive. Because there were a few cars seperating our Beretta line in the parking lot, every time one left, we guarded the space to put one of the Berettas in line. After calling Max and finding out that he would be a bit late, we all decided to start dinner on the restaurant patio without him, which wasn't easy because every time a white Beretta went by, we all stood up to see if it was Max. By the time Max arrived, we had already started eating and passing around the pictures. Then a few minutes later, a GTU covered in Bondo and primer pulls in the parking lot. The driver got out and started drooling over our Beretta line and started looking for our group. Naturally we waved the guy over to our group and invited him to our photo shoot at Confederation Park beach. Our photo shoot was intersesting. Besides running around everyone's car again and taking many pictures, there were some riceburners trying to sound cool driving by our group and some people even drove by and took a good long look at our car lineup. After chatting for a bit and using up some rolls of film, we decided we should go book our hotel rooms. Keeping 8 Berettas together on the highway during rush hour doing 130+ km/h is no easy task! The fun part happened when 8 tire-squealing Berettas attracted the attention of some locals in a Chrysler Cirrus asked everyone, "What's with all the Berettas?", and then they said, "Light 'em up!" So lead by Gor we all gave a little smoke show. A couple of us (including me) got a little behind the group and had to zip through the traffic doing 150+ km/h to catch up, finding that most of the group decided to follow Max. Good thing Gor slowed down a bit or we would have been lost! Along the way, now off the highway, we stopped for gas. I guess Adam didn't notice that we pulled into the gas station because he kept going down the road! We sent Max to go fetch Adam. After Max and Adam rejoined the group, we took off. Again, Max took off with most of the group, leaving Gor, Todd, Iggy and I behind. After getting lost and calling up Max, we finally got back together at the hotel and everyone collapsed on the floor and beds. After Adam and Matt passed out in their hotel room and Christina and her boyfriend went home for the night, Max, Gor, Ignacio and his son, Todd and I decided to take off to Burger King. A few burgers later, Ignacio and Todd set off to their hotel and Max, Gor and I went back to our hotel room. After a soak in the hot tub after midnight, we figured we should go back to the hotel room to wait for Dave and Cliff to arrive. Well we got back to the room and Max collapsed, while Gor and I stayed up watching TV (who could sleep when Gor had fajitas for dinner?) Around 2:30 a.m. Gor started wondering where Cliff and Dave were. Seems that they were about 20 minutes away from the hotel...doing over 185 km/h. 3 a.m. rolled around, Gor and I heard someone revving their engine in the parking lot. Sure enough, that was Cliff making all that noise. Certain now that nothing could wake Max up, we invited Cliff and Dave into our room to chat for a little while. That little while turned into 2 hours before they turned in for the night. So at 5 a.m. the TV went off.
The next morning, we were rather rudely awakened by Gor's cell phone. Gor knew it was Christina because he heard, "Guess how much I'm getting my strut tower brace for?" , for the millionth time. By the time everyone was awake and ready, and Ignacio, Todd, and Christina (with Bondo boy) came over, it was almost lunch time. Everyone was driving quite aggressively to Jack Astors restaurant (guess we were hungry) and sure enough, at a yellow light, the inevitable happened. From my view, I saw a big cloud of grey smoke infront of me and assumed Cliff was doing a burnout. But after Matt turned off the road to the right, I saw that Cliff had rearended Adam. The restaurant nearby, we pulled into the parking lot and saw the big black marks on Adam's bumper and Cliff's smashed headlight. Matt made the appropriate suggestion to stop driving like idiots and just cruise. After hiding Cliff's car and positioning Adam's car to look like a hit and run parking lot accident we set off for lunch. Everyone figured out that Gor likes beef fajitas and in the middle of our lunch, my cell phone rang. It was Mike and he was wondering where we all were. Because I had no idea where I was, I handed the phone over to Max. So after lunch we headed out to the parking lot and Mike was waiting for us. Chatting for a bit, and watching Adam take pictures of his gouged bumper, we set off for Canadian Tire, everyone making Cliff drive in front of them. Once there, Dave immediately took off towards the Auto Trader stand and Todd went to get his wheels balanced. The Canadian members of the group found it quite humorous to listen to Dave say, "Ooh!!! Tempest!!! Rare!" at every Pontiac Tempest in the book. Now Gor had his new molded mudflaps and we went to wait outside for Todd's car to be finished. Dave pointed out more Tempests and Fireflys as a couple people set off to wash their cars. Finally, Todd's car was finished, and we headed off to the go-kart track. A perfect site for a photo shoot, we spent more than 1/2 hour taking pictures and laughing at Gor doing an announcer's impression for the video, before actually going into the go-kart building. Some of us turned down the high prices and decided to watch the others pound each other's go-karts into the walls. After watching Adam do a cool burnout (adding to the many tire marks in the parking lot) we set off for the hotel, and Christina took off for home. After a little while we had a craving for pizza. So cramming everyone into 4 cars, we took off to Pizza Hut. After devouring pasta and pizza, and trying to take the Yoda statue, we once again set off to the hotel. It wasn't long before the group became bored. A movie came to mind, but the Blair Witch Project after pizza and pasta didn't seem like a good idea. So, a cruise to Toronto seemed like a good idea. The bad idea was cramming everyone into 3 GTZs and my GT. It only took a few seconds for me to lose them on the highway. To make it worse, it was pouring too. Almost certain that they took an exit and I didn't, I had Dave (who was in the passenger seat) call up Gor. Relieved to hear they were still on the highway and less than a kilometer ahead of us, I sped up and caught up to the 3 GTZs. Ignacio let me get in front of him so I wouldn't get lost again. During our drive through downtown Toronto and passing by the CN Tower with Max leading, we somehow had a small detour and ended up on Church and Wellsley. Well Gor called up Max and had him give Matt the phone and told him to look right and all Gor had to say was, "The Stable!" [Sorry Gor, I had to cut the rest of The Stable drive-by scene to keep the "G" rating.] Well the night went on and we went back to the hotels to figure out what we were going to do on Sunday was going to go. So after that, Gor took off to sleep at home and Max had to work in the morning, while the rest of us went back to the hotel rooms.
The plan was to get up at 8 a.m. to meet up with Gor, Todd and Ignacio to go drag racing at Cayuga. Well the rest of us were so exhausted that we didn't wake up! Finally, Adam and Matt figured out that it was 10:30 and Adam pounded on our door with both fists. Well I was startled and sat up only to hit my head on the table, while Cliff and Dave didn't even budge! So after calling Gor and telling him we'd be late (they had been waiting for 2 hours), we finally hit the road just before noon, only to find slow moving traffic. Finally the traffic got moving a little faster and on the Burlington Skyway, Adam pulled up beside me, rolled down his window and yelled "I'm scared!" Meeting up with the others at Country Style donuts, we set off to the Cayuga dragway, where we only got in 3 runs each because one of the pro-streeters wadded up his Firebird into the wall. There, we met up with the J-Body club of Ontario, that's 3 Z24s, one with a 3800 Supercharged, and we all handed our cameras to Todd, getting him to take pictures of the drag racing. Well after the fun time of drag racing, it was time for us all to head home. Gor, Cliff and Dave, and the J-Body club took off towards Hamilton while Christina, Todd, Matt, Ignacio and I headed towards Niagara Falls. This took longer than expected because traffic was completely stopped on Clifton Hill, and people kept trying to cut in our line. Matt and Todd took off for home when we hit the bridge over the border while the remaining 3 of us went to "cruise night." After watching riceburners and lowriders go in and out the parking lot, I decided to head home at about 10:30 p.m.
Well that's Beretta Fest Ontario '99 through my eyes, and I can safely say that everyone that attended really enjoyed the event. I'm hoping that we'll have an even greater turnout and have it more organized next year. Thanks to Cliff, Dave, Todd, Christina and her boyfriend, Matt, Ignacio and Carlos, Adam, "Bondo Boy", and Mike for attending the event and special thanks to Gor and Max for planning and organizing it. Also thanks to Max for designing and distributing the Beretta Fest T-shirts.
) next to descriptionMax, Ignacio, Adam, and Todd
Aerial view of the group and Berettas
Open-hood lineup in front of the go-kart place
Meeting with the J-Body guys at the track
Ignacio and the 3800SC Z24
Rob vs. Gorman at the drag strip
Group picture outside the go-kart track
Robin Watt and Gorman Wu
More information and pictures can be found at http://drive.to/ONTBeretta/