First Sunday each month – Cars & Coffee – Vintage Oaks, Novato

Third Sunday each month 356 Registry Cars & Coffee – Vintage Oaks, Novato

Attention Redwood members!!

Redwood's "RUN FOR THE CRAB" is looking for a volunteer who would be willing to co-chair this year with Sharon Castle Rogers with the intention of taking the lead next year.

Interested please reach out to Sharon.

We're looking for a webmaster to maintain our club's website. If you have experience and would like to join our volunteer team, please reach out to Stacy.

Hope you enjoy this month's der Riesenbaum.

If you have an article you'd like to include in a future issue, please email me.

Happy New Year! I hope you had a wonderful holiday season and are ready for an exciting 2024.

First, a big Thank You to your 2023 Board of Directors,

event chairs and everyone who volunteered to make it a terrific year for Redwood Region. We say good-bye to Rona Stefani as our Treasurer and Ben Davoren as our Past President. We truly appreciate both of your efforts on behalf of the Region and look forward to you continuing as active members.

I am honored to introduce your 2024 Executive Council. I am your incoming President,

Pat Burke is Vice President, Eileen Gaines is Secretary, Don Magdanz is Treasurer, and Vern Rogers is Past President. Every appointed Board Member has agreed to continue in their positions. I will acknowledge them after they are confirmed at the January board meeting.

We left 2023 with a rocking Holiday Party at the Washoe House in Petaluma.

The die-hards danced till 11PM to the music of "Void Where Prohibited". Even our event coordinator and bartender were dancing.

2024 Kicked off with the "One One Fun Run" to Northwood. Both events were the

largest turnouts in recent years. The upcoming "Run for the Crab" is sure to be a

sell-out as well. Don’t miss out. We have an exciting calendar of events for 2024.

Watch the newsletter, website and social media for details and sign up early.

We have two dates to watch for the National PCA calendar. The registration date for Treffen Wine Country is January 10th and the 1st phase registration for the Porsche Parade in Birmingham, Alabama is January 31st .

Later in this issue you will see I am celebrating by 49th anniversary in PCA this month. You don’t do anything that long unless you truly enjoy it. I am looking forward to another fun year of activities with PCA and Redwood Region.

Questions – email me.

Sharon

Happy New Year from your new Vice President Pat Burke.

A portion of my duties as Vice President is helping with the planning and scheduling of our region’s events! We’ve started out 2024 with a bang! Our first event of the year, the

"One One Fun Run", was a great success.

(You can read all about it in this edition.)

Our next BIG event, the 2024 Run for the Crab, will be on Saturday, February 24th at the Marin Yacht Club. This is a Porsche-only tour. We’ll start out the day with a 60+ mile tour through the beautiful back roads of Marin County and return for a fabulous all you can eat buffet with fresh Dungeness crab! What a treat! This is sure to be another sold out affair so purchase your tickets early! There is a link to the registration page in this newsletter.

We’d love to see you for one of our many events that we have scheduled. There are mid-week opportunities as well as weekends. We have several Rally’s planned and there are group driving tours to several wineries in our Region in July and August, the gold country in September, and in October is our annual Concours in Sonoma Town Square and our annual Holiday Party in December, just to mention a few!

Our website calendar is up to date with events that are held within our region, PCA Zone 7, as well as auto related events in our area. Please visit the calendar for the latest happenings. If you would like to add or suggest an event, I would be happy to hear your ideas. Please reach out via email and I’ll be in touch.

I’m extremely honored to be your Vice President for 2024 and I look forward to seeing you at one or more of our future events and, if we haven’t met, please introduce yourself. I’d love to meet you!

It’s going to be a great year in the Redwood Region!

Questions – email me.

The Zone 7 Awards, Autocross Series & Concours Series Awards Dinner to be held Saturday March 2nd. Diablo Hills Golf Course, Walnut Creek (Now open for Registration Zone 7 Awards & Dinner ) Please join your fellow Zone 7 Members at this gala event. Registration is now open (see link below).

Treffen Wine Country, to be held in Sonoma, April 21st to 25th hosted by the Redwood Region. Info and link below. This event is expected to sell out in under 5 minutes. If you want to attend, you will need to be on the website as registration opens. Registration opens January 10^th.

Parade 2024, June 9th to 15th will be held in Birmingham Alabama. If you have not attended a PCA Parade it is jam packed with something for everyone. This parade will be bookended with a DE at the end weekend. Registration opens January 31^st.

2024 Treffen at Sea. It may have been the plan all along, but I have been pushing hard with PCA Treffen team and Princess Cruises to do a West Coast departure cruise. I may or may not have been an influence, but it is here. Alaskan Adventure (Alaska Inner Passage) July 28th to August 4th, 2024. Seattle departure and return port.

Werks Reunion, Monterey, August 16th, 2024, Again at the Monterey Pines

Any questions, please email me.

Zone 7 Website Loads of info and links.

Zone 7 Facebook main page

Zone 7 Facebook Autocross page

Zone 7 Facebook Concours page

For a list of upcoming PCA events check out pca.org/events/

April 21-25, 2024 - PCA - Spring Treffen – Sonoma, Ca. - Treffen website

-----Registration typically opens about 3 months prior to the event.

Porsche Parade, Birmingham, AL, June 9-16, 2024 - Porsche Parade website

-----Registration opens January 2024.

Shasta Region Tour, June 20-24, 2024 - Registration opens 2024.

Werks Reunion, Monterey, August 16, 2024 - Werks Reunion website

-----Registration opens May, 2024.

Porsche Parade, Oklahoma City, OK, 2025

Register - Zone-7-Awards-2024

The Porsche Club of America (PCA) 

As we watch 2023 disappear in our rear-view mirrors, I would like to take a moment to wish everyone a very Happy New Year!

Normally, I use this monthly column to focus on welcoming new members. While I will continue to do that, I want to start the new year by reaching out to ALL our members. Last year we welcomed many new faces to our meetings and events, but I’d like to see more involvement. As you will see by our Calendar of Events there truly is something for everyone! Dust that two-door or four-door off in this, the Year of the Dragon, and join us! I was recently struck by a page on the PCA.org website that deals with inclusion and diversity – not in the workplace or in your kids’ schools but in the PCA

organization. It addresses the comment I heard recently, “I can’t join PCA, I drive an SUV”. That person, and their Cayenne, are now Redwood Region members. I encourage you to click here and read the page…

My member quote of the month was heard at Monday’s One One Fun Run:

“This is our first time at an event, and we can’t believe how much fun we had

– can’t wait to see you all again, soon”.

We recently held our annual, and spirited, event planning meeting for 2024! I promise you the calendar promises to be chock full of terrific events. I encourage you to attend some of our events in the upcoming months which can be found in the calendar section of our Region's website.

Our events are a great way for you to meet other PCA members and have some fun

with fellow Porsche enthusiasts and our amazing cars. There are, and will be more, events for everyone from Autocross to Twisty Tours; from Tech Sessions with our sponsors to Rallies! Our third annual weekend in Murphys for the Ironstone Concours D’Elegance will happen in September! Keep an eye out for our Run for the Crab in February (no it’s not a 10K). If you’re interested in Redwood Region philanthropy, we have plans to work two days this year at the Redwood Empire Food Bank – last year we bagged eight tons of groceries in three hours which translated into 12,000 meals!

On behalf of the entire Redwood Region of the Porsche Club of America I would like to extend a warm welcome to our new members and transfers enrolled in the months of November and December!

If you are a new member or have transferred into our region from elsewhere, you will soon be receiving a complimentary Redwood Region name badge. Please wear your badge to our events and meetings. Also, if you’d like to order a name badge for your associate or family member, check out our website for full details and instructions. Also included with your badge will be a PCA decal to display on your Porsche identifying you as a Porsche Club Member…

In November 2023, 41 Redwood Region PCA members celebrated anniversaries in the club! Fifteen members celebrated anniversaries of 11 years or more! Two members,

Scott Polisson and Richard Elb are celebrating 32 and 36 years respectively!!

The Porsche Club of America thanks you all for being such dedicated members!

For the month of December 2023, 43 Redwood Region PCA members celebrated anniversaries in the club! Eighteen members celebrated 11 or more years!! Three members celebrated “big” anniversaries: Raymond Bonneau (44 years); Jon Lail (49 years) and our own Club President, Sharon Neidel (49 years). Thank you for being such dedicated members!!

Our Board Meetings are held the last Tuesday of every month at Mary’s Pizza Shack in Petaluma. Details can be found on our events calendar. Our board meetings are a great way to meet other club members and your input on all things Porsche Club is always welcome.

As always, please send any and all questions about membership, email me.

Pat Burke

The Redwood Region started off the new year with a very successful event early Monday morning, New Year’s Day!

A large group of enthusiastic Porsche owners gathered in a parking lot in Petaluma for a meet and greet before the planned 80-mile drive. After a brief driver meeting, the 40 plus cars were divided into three groups. Each group had an assigned lead car and a designated sweep at the end of the pack. The groups were separated by 10-minute intervals for departures as to not over crowd the midway “bio-break.”

As we left our meeting location it was a chilly 45 degrees and shrouded in heavy fog. After

heading west towards the beautiful Sonoma coast on some amazing back roads, the fog

disappeared, and we were all treated to a beautiful sunny day along a stunning portion of

California’s Coastline. This planned route will be offered as an exclusive driving tour to the

National PCA members who attend Treffen Wine Country the week of April 21 st – 25 th which the Redwood Region will be hosting in Sonoma.

We arrived in Bodega Bay and continued north on Highway One heading toward Jenner and points beyond. The elevation changes we encountered on our drive offered dramatic vistas along the exciting two-lane roads filled with twists and turns. When we reached the northern most point of our tour, at Timber Cove/Fort Ross, we headed south on Highway One back to Jenner. At one point along this portion of the drive we reached at elevation of about 1500 feet with views west over the Pacific Ocean as far as the eye could see!

Arriving in Jenner, the tour then headed east away from the Pacific towards Monte Rio along River Road. This part of the tour brought us through redwood forests along the Russian River.

As we arrived in Monte Rio, our planned lunch location was the Northwoods Golf Club. This beautiful 9-hole course was designed by the world famous, Dr. Alister MacKenzie who designed Augusta National among others. We were treated to a fabulous lunch and shared stories from attendees from our exciting tour. After lunch, we all departed with smiles and anticipation for the next Redwood Region driving tour!

If you haven’t attended a drive in the past, please consider one of upcoming drives. It’s a

benefit of the club and a great opportunity to meet fellow Porsche owners and experience the thrill of driving our amazing back county roads of the Redwood Region of the Porsche Club of America!

The remaining 10 were held on tight, temporary street circuits. That meant that the Portland track had the highest average speeds of any of the circuits raced on this year. Another unique aspect of the ePrix series is that qualifying is held on the same day as the race. Consequently, I was able to make it to Portland, catch qualifying and the race, as well as have an excellent salmon dinner along the banks of the Columbia River and be back in Sonoma County-all in one day!

Now, back to the question of Porsches in a forest... If you have been to PIR, you may have noted that it is built in an area where the back side of the track butts up against a forest. This is where I went, along with a multi-generational Porsche legend, Mr. Vasek

Polak, Jr. to watch the qualifying. Although the grandstand at this part of the course was technically closed, we were able to carve out a seat in one of the tarped-over grandstands to watch these sophisticated marvels put through their paces. The key word here is “watched”. We could see the cars approaching in the distance but when one approached, it would pass just in front of us and disappear into the distance as quickly as it came. All you heard were squealing tires as these world-class drivers fought to hold their lines through the curves. Having had the opportunity to watch traditional Formula 1 cars from Long Beach to Monza, it was a very different experience. Vasek and I were in agreement;

unless you were totally into the technology or other aspects of ePrix, it was far from the most exciting way to spend an early Saturday afternoon.

However, something quite exciting for myself, as an architect and Porsche fan, was waiting for me during the approximately 6 hours before the race was to start. What to do in the meantime?

Not a problem. Portland is now the first location for a Porsche Studio in the USA. The Porsche Studios is a remote branch of a standard Porsche dealership. In this case, Porsche Beaverton. The studio is a smaller version of a dealership in a downtown location. Porsche Studio Portland is located in the lively, brewery-laden, Pearl District. The studio has a coffee bar featuring locally sourced treats, locally sourced java drinks and, of course, there are shelves and racks brimming with Porsche-themed items waiting to be escorted to a deserving home. If that’s not enough there’s a room for cobbling together your virtual dream Porsche and another room to peruse physical examples of available “Paint to Sample” colors which you can match with swatches of leather dyed in shades from subtle to vibrant. Even though this is a Studio, there is still more. While there is no service conducted on-site, there is a bay entered by way of a high-speed vertical garage door.

The space serves double duty. It can be used for dropping off your Porsche to be carefully transported back to the Beaverton mothership for service or, if time does not allow for you to trek the 9 miles to Beaverton, the same space can function as a delivery site where you can take the keys of your previously conjured up dream Porsche. This space even triples as an event space available for rent. In the case of the celebratory grand opening party that occurred just days before Vasek and I visited, it was the site for

a performance by legendary Bay Area rockers, Journey, as well as revered Nike shoe designer, Tinker Hatfield. The Porsche Studio Beaverton is a great place to create your Porsche fantasies or, even better, turn them into a reality!

But now, the race start is approaching so it is back to the forest. Except, PIR was no longer a forest. For the race we found seats along the front straight, just down from pit lane. Instead of the sponsor laden grandstands of the backstretch, the stands were packed with thousands of ePrix fans and no doubt, a healthy sprinkling of the just curious.

Twenty-two cars lined up for the start and four of them were new Gen 3 Porsche 99Xs. But only two were racing for Porsche. The other two 99X’s were campaigned by the Avalanche Andretti team. Yes, that Andretti. Well no, not that Andretti; Michael Andretti. The two Porsche Porsches started in 7th and 18th place. Meanwhile the Andretti Porsches started on the pole and in 8th place.

Once the green flag dropped and 22 electric motors propelled the cars towards the nasty chicane inserted 3/4 of the way down the front straight all thoughts of the lackluster qualifying were forgotten. The race was tremendous. In contrast to an F1 race where the sound of engines turning 20,000+ RPM dominate, at the ePrix you hear the very real sound of 22 cars shoving the heavy Portland air out of their way to create a following

slipstream. This was dynamic racing. For the most part, the cars traveled in a pack with passing occurring up and down the order throughout the race. This was no single-file procession led by red bulls. As would be expected with such close racing there were bits and pieces of carbon fiber dislodged from the combatants throughout the course of the

event. Unfortunately, many of those bits and pieces belonged to Porsche’s at the race’s start.

When the checkered flag flew the P7 Porsche, driven by Antonio Felix da Costa claimed the podium’s third step. Pascal Wehrlein surged through the pack from his 18th place grid position to finish in 8th place. When all of the points were tallied at the end of the day, Porsche headed back to Europe as the team points leader.

As for the Avalanche Andretti Porsches, pole-sitter, Jake Dennis dropped one place to finish 2nd while Andre Lotterer had a day to forget tumbling down the order to bring his Avalanche Andretti Porsche home as the final finisher, in 19th position.

Would I attend the Portland ePrix when it returns to Oregon on Saturday, June 29, 2024? Definitely. However, I think that I would change things up and spend qualifying on the

front straight, across from the pits and steps away from the lively fan zone, leaving the back side of the track to the trees to sort out an answer to a 21st century version of a question philosophically posed centuries ago.

We didn’t take the autobahn because the backroad was a more direct route for us, but Ike admired the autobahns. During World War II, General Dwight Eisenhower was impressed by how the Germans used the Bundesautobahn to quickly move troops from one area to another. Later, when Ike became our 34^th President, he developed our Interstate highway system to, among other things, help us quickly reposition troops if we were ever invaded.

On October 8th, the Redwood and Golden Gate Regions joined forces for the second

year to sponsor a scenic drive through Marin and Sonoma Counties for our Lady

Drivers.

We met at 8 am in San Rafael and had a wonderful time catching up with old friends

and meeting new ones. We had about thirty cars and fifty participants. The first group

left at 9, and the second and third groups left at 10 minute intervals after. Our first stop

was at the beautiful Drake’s Beach on Point Reyes. It was a gorgeous day to visit the

beach.

We then drove through Sonoma’s fantastic backroads to Tolay Restaurant at the

Sheraton Sonoma Wine Country in Petaluma. A scrumptious brunch was prepared by

the restaurant. Each driver received a T-shirt with the caption “Drive like a girl.” At the

end of the brunch, Sharon raffled off the flower decorations.

A very special thank you to: Sharon Castle Rogers and Judy Maggiore, who arranged

the lovely room at the Sheraton and the yummy buffet; Vern Rogers, who facilitated all

aspects of the day; Cheryl Spott, who arranged for the free T-shirts donated from

Access Uniforms; and Gilbert Bouzeid, who did everything necessary to make the day

happen. Another very special Thanks to all our volunteers for helping to make this a

successful event.

Redwood Region PCA’s albums | Flickr

The next Board Meeting will be on Tuesday January 30th from 7-9 pm at Mary's Pizza Shack, 423 N McDowell Blvd. Petaluma

If you’re interested in joining the next meeting via Zoom, send me an email and I will forward you the meeting link.  

Our goal is to get an idea of the overall needs for the event by January 30^th. So, if you are interested, or have any questions, please contact Eileen or me and let us know, at [email protected].

Visit Redwood's on-line Goodie Store here.

We encourage letters to the editor, feedback, questions and suggestions about our newsletter and the Redwood Region in general. Want to contribute to the newsletter?Submit photos and articles about Club events or related activities. Please submit your entry by the 5th day of the month for inclusion in that month's newsletter. Articles received after the deadline will be considered for the next month's newsletter. The editorial staff reserves the right to edit all materials submitted for publication.

Want to reach an audience of Porsche enthusiasts with your marketing message? Consider advertising in der Riesenbaum. Contact the editor for more information and rates.