Issue link: http://digital.nexsitepublishing.com/i/120214
clubs, and in the mean time I was in contact with Betsy Robertson of King 5 TV to gather information about the event and some of the logistics. I filled her in on the competition, and she was happy to see the two car clubs take part in the event to help make the large goal they had set forth. As the food drive was drawing nearer I was contacted by Christie Johnson of King 5 Morning News. Christie handles the lighter side of the news in the morning and wanted to highlight the challenge of the two car clubs on the morning show December 2nd. Trust me, I tried to see if we could tape something the day before, but as they say, "It's Live TV" So Thursday morning, Dec 2nd, Sherrel and I got up at 3:45 in the morning to be at Seattle Mini at 5:45 am. And let me note a "BIG THANK YOU" to Kyle Canalizo, the general manager of Seattle Mini for opening the dealership and having hot coffee for everyone when we arrived. As we pulled up to the dealership, the King 5 News truck already there in the middle of a sea of Mini Coopers. That morning Greg and I where joined by a handful of club members from both sides and had a lot of fun doing the live TV shoot for their newscast. Christie Johnson was a lot of fun to work with, and I will say for getting up way before the crack of dawn, she has lots of energy! We did our three time slots, two of which were a competition with a Mini and a Porsche parallel parking in a spot just a little larger then the cars, Oh, they also had a cup of water on the hood of each car so we couldn't make any sudden moves and spill the water. A big thanks to Bill Bauer, he did a great job and won both events for us! (View the video at http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=Rsash1ihIYw) As Greg and I talked everything over we had no idea how big this was going to get. The hard part was that we had no way of knowing how many cars and people would show up; Greg was thinking that the Mini club would have around twenty to twentyfive cars or so, and I was hoping somewhere around forty to forty-five. That was as long as the weather would hold out and be nice and sunny. Not like ten days earlier with the snow for Thanksgiving - that would have been my biggest nightmare. Friday night was like Christmas, my birthday or flying to Phoenix to pick up my new car all in one; it was very difficult to sleep, not knowing how Saturday would turnout. How many cars would the Mini Club show up with? And how many Porsches would show up? How much food was dropped off at Park Place Ltd in Bellevue? So many questions, so little time! First thing Saturday morning we had our annual planning meeting at 9 am, and after we were done with our planning meeting we made our way to Park Place. To my surprise, we had quite a stack of food in Ryan Vanderwel's office. Sherrel and I loaded up the Carrera, and luckily Eric Kent was right behind us so we also topped off his 928 with the rest of the food that we couldn't hold. I wanted to run by Redmond Town Center January 2011 11