Sharks In The Mountains by Charles Urban

During the weekend of 2-4 June 2005, 93 Porsche 928 Land Sharks prowled the twisty roads around the town of Banner Elk in mountainous Western North Carolina. PCA Chesapeake was represented by Jim and Beverly Condax (86.5 AT), Wayne and Robin Griffith (90 AT), John Krawczyk (79AT) and Chuck Urban (86.5 5SP). The gathering was sponsored by Dave and Jeannie Roberts who own 928 Specialists (http://www.928gt.com) of Spruce Pine, NC.

Friday, we all met in the parking lot of the Best Western in Banner Elk to meet old and new friends and, of course, to check out each others’ cars. There were a lot of new cars to see from places as far away as Wisconsin, Texas, Vermont and New Mexico. We all toured the lot until it was too dark to see anymore and then filled some local restaurants where we talked about (you guessed it) Porsche 928s.

Saturday was the “Big Day” with the catered gathering of 93 Porsche 928s on the mountain. (See PIX) Our hosts supplied tents, prizes and a great barbeque lunch to 175 attendees. Dave announced several new products, but the one that interested most of us is a stainless steel X-pipe with removable hi-flow cats and test pipes included that he recently designed. There were a lot of oohs and aahs because we were all thinking “hmmm… 20 HP with the cats and probably 25 HP or even more with test pipes.” That might make the AutoX or DE a bit more fun.

We all participated in a “People’s Choice Concours” with every year of Porsche 928’s 1978 -1995 production on display. A late model GTS with ultra-low mileage took the top spot, but tied for second with another GTS was Chesapeake PCA’s own Jim Condax’s 86.5. Jim had completely disassembled his engine and cleaned it. Then he powder coated, painted or replaced every hose, fitting, nut, bolt and screw under the hood. Since my car has an identical engine compartment, I saw clean and shining places on Jim’s car that I didn’t even know existed. (See PIX) It looks like it might take me all winter and a gross of tooth brushes to even get mine close in the cleanliness department, but mine wouldn’t look the same. Dear God, he even replaced the hood hinges! We all tried to guess how long this labor of love took and Jim’s lovely wife Beverly helped us out when she said, “Jim who?” Yes, we were asking about the guy who lived in the garage for 3 years!

As evening approached, we all lined up to go try out some of Dave’s favorite twisty roads. As you might imagine, with 93 Porsche 928s in a line, some of us got separated. The short story is that there were a number of lights and detours and I led the lost brigade. I got caught at a light and the directions said to make a left on RT 226, so I did, but it was really RT 226A. On the way down the mountain, in my mirrors I saw drivers smiling and passengers laughing or screaming. (Sometimes it’s hard to tell just by looking --although Robin Griffith told me she was screaming and asked why I was driving like that. Her husband Wayne agreed that she was screaming, but he KNEW why I was driving like that.) I knew we were lost, but we dove into turn after turn. It was so much fun. About 4-5 turns after we passed the sign that said “Truckers – Turns Get Worse” there was a double-wide shoulder. I pulled off and everyone followed. The guys with GPSs then took over leading the 35 lost Porsches. Let’s just say that the technology didn’t help and we had a beautiful 30 mile drive to the restaurant that was 1 mile away. After dinner, we all went over to Dave’s and Jeannie’s house to party. The grounds looked like “Porsche 928 City.” Dave’s garage is just unbelievable –the lift, the lathes, presses, every tool a Porsche fanatic could imagine, etc. with hospital operating room cleanliness and organization. It must have been tough for many of the ladies to see grown men drool like that.

On Sunday, a very interesting thing happened. The scheduled Tech Sessions were pre-empted by car repair sessions where we all participated. It seems that SOME of us had developed problems and NONE of them could possibly be attributed to coming down a mountain at the red line in 2nd gear – no way! Then again, we also went back up the same mountain… So, Dave let us work on our cars in his shop and he and his tech guru Wally Plumley helped many of us. The worst problem was a broken crank bolt, next came some fried brakes, a couple of bad half shafts, a non-compos mentis brain, some AC problems and lastly my oil leak. Everybody who wanted to got the opportunity to learn something about how to fix our cars in a hands-on setting with a safety net of some of the most knowledgeable Porsche 928 people on the planet.

It was a weekend of great cars, great people and lots of fun. I can’t wait until next year.


See more pictures of this event in the photos and movies section of the site.