Woke up early, 5:30am is early when you’re retired, and motored over to the Autry Western Museum at 6:20 to meet up with a group heading for the car show at Channel Island Harbor in Oxnard. I joined Marty Hovivian, Dennis Williams, and Peter Roses for the drive out Hwy 101, but wait! Marty needed Starbucks. So we proceeded to the nearest Starbucks on Alameda Avenue in Glendale for his “wake-me-up”. Then it was on to Oxnard.
We had a very uneventful drive on the 101 exiting onto Pleasant Valley Rd as we entered Camarillo. A nice drive through the agricultural farmsland brought us into Oxnard and our first destination, The Best Breakfast restaurant. We were soon joined by Phil Caliva and shortly after by Greg Aden and Duke Hingley who had driven up PCH from the South Bay.
After a filling breakfast we drove to the show and joined Bill Hoyt, Russ Thompson and Joyce Maeda, and Chuck Lakowski and Terry Morgan who were parked in the Rarities class with their Jensen Healeys.
Duke was all alone with his Bugeye and one MG Midget while the rest of us joined five other Big Healeys on the lawn. The day was mild and sunny and everyone enjoyed the different cars and visits from car lovers and friends.
Club members who made an appearance without their cars were Larry Bryant, Charlie Hart who was NCNW (no car no wife), Rich Jones and his wife and our foreign correspondent from Las Vegas, George McHarris and wife Kathy.
By the early afternoon the judging had been completed, the raffle prizes were being handed out and everyone was ready to hit the road. In the Austin-Healey 100 and 3000 class first place went to Bill Hoyt and his 100, and second place went to Marty and his “Gray” car. So off we went heading east back to the Big City when I lost power and spark.
Russ and his friend Fred, who was driving his ‘nasty boy’ 100M stopped to lend assistance, but I ended up on the back of a flatbed for the trip home. It turned out that Fred had a failure too, a fuel pump, and also got a flatbed ride home. Platinum Towing of Oxnard made some money off of us. The good news is that within a few days Russ had us both back on the road.