The 9th Annual Tour d' Orange

By Brian McMillan

The Annual Tour d' Orange used to be promoted as a morning for car guys the day after New Year's Eve.  It is no longer promoted actively because it has grown to proportions beyond anybody's expectations.  It is a combination of Cars and Coffee, Donut Derelicts, and virtually anything that rolls.

I was instructed by word of mouth to show up at a secret location in Costa Mesa.  I got there two hours ahead of the scheduled cruise start time.and it looked like I was the last one there!  There were already what looked like hundreds of cars lined up and sectioned out in various parking lots.  The Corvettes filled up an entire parking lot.  So did the Porsches, Ferraris, and other marques.  Anyway, I wandered around and spotted Lance and Shayna Stander, Bob Stockwell, Bernie Kretzschmar, Jeff Tibbets, and other familiar faces.  Free coffee and donuts were available.

The cruise route was passed out and everybody started getting antsy, so I strolled over to the beast and wandered down the road towards the beach.  I was soon overtaken by what could only be the forward scout group.  They disappeared in a flurry of exhaust, led by John Marconi in his open-exhaust Ferrari 348 Challenge car.  That thing all by itself sounds like a Formula One race.

By now the clouds were beginning to burn off and it was turning out to be a beautiful day.  I stayed with the lead group by taking some shortcuts because they were a great bunch of guys to cruise with.  Paul Westberg joined in down in Corona Del Mar. We followed the route through Laguna Canyon, around the old air base and into Rancho Santa Margarita.  I don't think we got caught at one light through town!  We drove through Live Oak Canyon towards Santiago Canyon.  I decided to stop at Cook's Corner to watch the cars come by.  The second group of cars came flying by and then the third.  I waited for the next group to come through. And Waited. And Waited.  Finally, about ten minutes later, along comes a 1959 Cadillac with about thirty cars behind it!  Live Oak and Santiago Canyons are two-lane roadways and good luck getting by any slowpokes.  It's all in good fun and nobody seemed too put out.

Everybody ended up at the secret ending location to exchange stories about the cruise.  It was hard to spot anybody without a smile on their face.

I'll be back next year.

Brian

Post your thoughts and story on the COCOAOC blog.

P.S.  During the first part of the cruise, there were a husband and wife with New Year's party hats on taking pictures at Cook's Corner.  I would love to know if anybody recognized them.  While I was hanging out with them, he happened to mention that he had a WWII plane that he and his wife always fly on New Year's Day.  I was thinking "yeah, whatever, another big talker" and promptly forgot his name.  He said it was an AT-6 "Texan", an advanced trainer for budding fighter pilots.  I asked him to do a Yorba Linda flyover when he was up (again, just going along with the story).

We were sitting on our patio drinking Mimosas and sure enough, I hear this almighty roar of a huge, high-revving engine and look up and there he was!  He did did some high-G turns, some circles and a wing wave.  Those AT-6's don't look like much sitting on the ground, but they look great in an  80-degree, 5G bank.  After waving, he headed back east toward Chino.  Still have chills thinking about it.

Who was that guy?