Ben Przekop Mercer Island, WA
996 40th Model Anniversary 2004 Year January 2018 Acquired
Winter may bring more frequent showers and shorter daylight hours to the Seattle area, but we don’t let that dampen our enthusiasm for all things Porsche!
Our Pacific Northwest Region of the PCA does a fantastic job of packing the calendar with tours, car control clinics, social events and workshops. This past month, our Teched chair John Mueller outdid himself with two incredible events, either one of which would have been a highlight for an entire year.
The first session featured Porsche legend Derek Bell, who spoke for over three hours about his racing career while he walked around a locally owned Gulf 917 that he had raced in that period. My friend Jay Gillotti, who has just published his book Gulf 917 (daltonwatson.com), was on stage with Derek to lead the discussion, and his knowledge of Derek’s career enabled him to do a stellar job of keeping the presentation focused on the topics of most interest to the 300-plus club members in attendance.
Derek autographed copies of his latest book, All My Racing Porsches (I had to get two copies for myself and son Geoff), as well as any other memorabilia folks had brought. Chris Powell, the owner of Chris’ German Auto Service, hosted the event in his workshop – the perfect setting for the occasion, the iconic 917 at home amid other Zuffenhausen machinery. It is our club’s tradition that all attendees autograph two copies of a large event poster, with one given to the guest celebrity and the other to the host, so I can now say that Derek has my autograph as well!
The second event, also organised by the tireless Mueller, featured Andrew Lennon, who since January 2015 has been the product manager for Sports Cars at Porsche North America. Andrew speaks all over the world at Porsche launches, so to get him to fly to Seattle was a real coup. Bellevue Porsche hosted this sold-out event, and the 350 attendees were treated to an in-depth technical presentation on cars such as the 918, the GT3 and GT2 RS.
As you might expect, some of the audience’s more forward-looking questions were answered with pregnant pauses and the occasional, “Uh, I can’t talk about that”, which of course only serves to keep the fires of curiosity burning during these winter months.