Past WyCROC Rides
This the latest from the Golden Cruise night – August 7, 2010
With the weather initially threatening to rain, the Golden Cruise night turned out all right. All right other than the Cadillac Group beat the Datsun Truck group to the Golden Realty Lot. We ended up taking over a small lot just north of Golden Realty Office and managed to park 5 Datsun classic trucks, including Darrell Hoffman (he didn’t bring the Z), 4 Z cars and 5 Roadsters. From the WyCROC group we had Gary Lasater, driving Gordon’s 1969 Red 2000, AJ Lasater, with his Copperhead ’70 1600, Gordon Maness Franken monster cobbled together 5 speed 1600, Ruth and Wayne Hill with their white ‘69 2000, and Greg Cheer with his ‘69 red 1600. From Zroad there was Daniel Bailin’s 240 Z, Dave Hulslander, with wife Jacqui with their Black Pearl ’78 280Z, Mike and Michael Guzinski with Michael’s 72 240 Z almost back on the road, Gerry and Jonnie Lynch, with their Green ’74 260 Z. Lastly Tim Reinhart with the Impala who also has a Z.( 1971 240Z - 2.8 install in progress - LT1 in near future). John Bilodeau rode with Daniel Bailin - no Z that night.
Towards the end of the evening, most of the group joined the parade up and down South Golden Road with a lot of comments for the roadsters of “is that a Datsun?”. Z cars got some good stares, but all and all it was a great time for all that were able to make it. Need to do this again sometime soon.
As you can see from some of the shots, things were tight, but we managed to cozy all the cars together and watched the parade of cruising cars. Okay we didn’t post any pix from the cars – you’ll just have to go yourself and see the extreme wide range of hot rods, rat rods, classics, sports cars, mini buses, and the list goes on.
Here’s the first update for the June 12 Pine Grove Rhubarb Festival event and parade:
Yes the weather was miserable between here and there, but once we drove down into the Pine Valley, the rain and misting stopped and we had a fun day in Pine Grove. Four roadsters made the trip with Gordon Maness driving his 1968 Red 2000, he lent his 1969 Red 2000 to Gary Lasater (who’s 1500 roadster is just about done having the bottom end of the motor rebuilt), AJ Lasater drove his Copperhead colored 1970 1600, and not shown in the pictures was Kevin Maness maroon ’66 1600 (he made it to Pine Grove but Gordon and Gary where able to determine he blew a valve in the #2 cylinder).
They had a place for us to park the cars, offered free breakfast of pancakes, eggs and bacon. Walked around the vendors and area merchants, listened to good music and watched the belly dancers, then at 12:30 after they announced the winners of the Rhubarb cook off, everyone lined up for the parade and drove down the center of town while the Sheriff's Department stopped traffic at both ends of the route.
Afterwards we were invited over to the parade organizers house for some drinks and bbq turkey, brats, hamburgers, and hotdogs.
Only one tragedy, and that was Gordon Maness son Kevin's 66 1600 sucked a valve on the way to Pine Grove and had to leave on the back of a flat bed.
WyCROC 10th Anniversary Car Show, Aug 8
All we can say is WOW. This is the first time in the WyCROC history,
that we had a total of 24 Roadster's show up for an event. The event
started early Saturday morning with Eric Frisbee, Dan Neff and Gary
Lasater (original founder's) meeting at Gary's house. AJ Lasater, now
18 and driving his own 1600 join the group and we headed off to the
original meeting place, the Castle Rock McDonald's. We had a total of
8 roadster's meeting at the first stop on the road to Greeley. Our
first early Z from the ZRoad group (a mixture of early Z's from 1970
to '78 and roadsters) joined us at the starting point too.
Next, we all cruised up I-25 to meet the central roadster owners at
Brooklyn's near the Pepsi Center in downtown. To our surprise, we
meet another 9 roadster owners to bring our ranks to 17. That took
the breath away, since our previous record was 13 roadsters at one
event. Unfortunately, we had a couple that had previous commitments
and were unable to make the trip to Greeley. Additionally we had
invited our newer (at least to us) brethren, the early Z's, and we had
several more Z car's join us at Brooklyn's.
Our next stop was the McDonald's in Brighton where we picked a couple
more roadsters and Z cars. Unfortunately we had a causality with one
of the 1600's apparently overheated on the way and cracked his block
and had a rather large quantity of water flowing out of the exhaust
pipe and on the ground. But, he took it in stride using this as
excuse to upgrade and talk about options leaning towards a KA
conversion.
(Insert brighton pictures here)
We finally arrived at Erlich's Nissan in Greeley shortly after noon to
meet up with the northern contingent and after everyone arrived found
parking spots we ended up with 20 Roadsters, 8 early Z's and 3 late
model Z's for a showing of 31. Erlich graciously sponsored a BBQ and
gave out awards for early and late roadsters, Z cars, People's Choice
and Dealer's Choice.
(insert greeley pictures here)
Finally, we would like to thank our original Founder's for coming out
10 years ago and starting up a rag-tag bunch of roadster
enthusiasts. (From left to right) Eric Frisbee, Dan Neff, Gary
Lasater, Gary Boone, and Greg Nelson were able to make the show. Eric
drove 1000 miles towing his '70 Blue 2000 (the original 1600 didn't
make the trip but he still has it). Dan unfortunately is without a
roadster right now but we're working on getting him back with one, but
for the event, he drove Gary Lasater's yellow and black '69 2000.
Gary Lasater brought his 1500 from the original meet along with his
son driving his '70 1600. Gary Boone brought his newly working EFI
blue 2000 ready for the race track again. Greg Nelson's roadster is
being put back together after some much needed repairs are being done.
Unfortunately, Mike Koken and his car was unable to make the event.
The Wildlife Preserve Run, July 25
Saturday July 25th made a great day to get together with the WyCROC
group along with the early Z cars and the Z car club. WyCROC members
along with the early Z car owners have formed an informal group called
ZRoad, ranging for 63 78 Datsun Sports cars. We had 9 total cars
show up at the Pepper Pod Restaurant in Hudson over I-76. There were
three roadsters, two early Z's, and four late model Z's.
We chatted about cars, events, and life in general over a nice lunch
then caravanned together out to
the Wild Animal
Sanctuary. This is a truly amazing place who has rescued 150
lions, tigers, bears, wolves and even a couple of Emu's. Everyone who
went, highly encourage anyone by themselves or with family to have a
truly fun time to go visit the Sanctuary.
10th Annual Tax Decompression Ride, March 1
This was somewhat of a strange event with two parts. First off, the
original event was postponed due to Spring Snow from the 18th to the
26th. Next, we invited the early Z cars from the ZRoad group
to join the fun and they showed up at the beginning but didn't enter
the car show. We had one Roadster and Four Z's on the ride up Coal
Creek Canyon, through Nederland and down Boulder Canyon. We actually
had slow pokes on the way up, pull over and let us roll. Gordon
Maness with his red stroker 1600 (a melted together series of years)
meet this group about one quarter of the way from Boulder and we
rolled into Boulder with Roadsters as book-ends (lead and rear) on the
four Z's. We had Gary Lasater in his 1970 Yellow 2L in the lead with
Mike Gard with '73 Brown 240Z, Ken Peralez, '73 orange 240Z, Mike
Klitch '77 Orange 280Z, and Tom Nash with 736 White 240Z (with 350
Chevy). We had nice weather on the hour and half ride. Tom Nash's
350 powered Z had some starting problems in Nederland, but got it
rolling and away we cruised.
Once we hit the CU Sports Car Club show event, the Z group pulled into
the garage and Gary and Gordon joined Scott Sheeler and his wife with
their gorgeous black '68 2000 and Dave County with his silver 67.5
1600, to display our classic tin. Weather turned a little
intermittent with some sprinkles and Scott and wife booked it home
early due to leaving the top back at the house. Had a lot of fun and
sorry we missed the rest of you (our gain, your loss).
Blue Bonnet Lunch Meet, Denver, CO, March 1
We had a good group of roadster and early Z car owners show up at the
Blue Bonnet Cafe on Sunday March 1st. As indicated, not all brought
their cars, but we did have three roadsters and a Z car show with Tim
Dolan, Gordon and Kevin Maness, Gary Lasater bring their roadsters and
Daniel Balin with his Z.
The group was Gary Lasater (69 2000), AJ Lasater (official now 18 but
having the clutch rebuilt in his 1600), Gordon Maness and his son
Kevin (68 1600). Bob Bragg (several roadsters), John Over (soon to be
SR20 roadster), Dave Country (67.5 1600), Matt Langbauer (70 1600),
Tim Dolan (67 2000 conversion) and Daniel Balin (73 240 Z). It was
great conversation about cars in general, good food and finally
chatting about the rides this season. We all agreed it would be nice
to have a ride a month. Have rides that encompass the north group
somewhere between Denver and Ft. Collins, the southern area Denver to
Colorado Springs and eastern, Denver to Ft. Morgan. Check out the
ride schedule for 2009 and volunteer to plan a ride in your area if
there is nothing on the schedule. We need help for some of the
planned rides too so step up and volunteer.
more past rides
