T
HEARTTHROB By TOUR Lionel Neff
he morning of Saturday, February 19, was a cold one, even for midwinter in southern California. However, the temperature always appears to warm up once I get behind the wheel of my Porsche 911 Turbo. My early morning drive to Porsche of Santa Barbara served as the prelude to the Heartthrob Tour, held as close to Valentine’s Day as we could get. The plan was for all participants to meet at the dealership at 8:45 a.m. for a 9:30 “lift-off.” I must extend a note of thanks to Sales Manager Rene Verbrugge who did an exceptional job at making our entire group feel welcome with a wonderful spread of fresh fruit, sweet rolls, juices, and various coffees—all well beyond the call of duty. Thanks, too, are to be extended to Doreen Pankow, Doreen Shinn, and Art Shinn for assuring everyone signed the liability waivers and received their meal tickets. The plan for this drive was a bit different from the past. The vehicles were divided into two groups: on the left, led by me, were all drivers with last names starting from A
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DER AUSPUFF May/June 2022
through L, and, on the right, led by distinguished club President Rod Hersberger were all drivers with last names from M through Z. There were 40 vehicles divided equally in left and right lanes. The plan was to have the groups leave ten minutes apart. At 9:30 all drivers were at the wheel of their cars, motors running, with hearts throbbing in anticipation of the adventure ahead. We drove out of the dealership and northbound onto US101. So far so good. We whisked ourselves past the pristine views of the Pacific Ocean and the verdant green hills along the Camino Real. The scene is captured very well in this magazine’s cover photo taken by our own Gary Krueger. At 38.9 miles we exited at Santa Rosa Rd. (known affectionately by locals as the road to nowhere). Let the fun begin; and so it did over curvy farm roads through vineyards and cannabis fields until mile marker 55.6, where we intersected the famous Hwy. 1.
