After the tremendous success and turnout at the 1998 NorCal/SoCal Audi A4 Extravaganza in Southern California the club decided to hold our big event a little closer to home this time around. The culmination of a lot of hard work and planning by Steve Sherwood and Sean Griffin as well as the assistance of other club members was the 1999 Audi A4 / VW Passat Motorsports Exposition at Sears Point Raceway.

The event clearly topped last year's effort in that at its high point over 110 Audi's and Passats were in attendance. Most of these were A4's with a sprinkling of other Audi's and Passats thrown in.

Incredible weather and an incredible drive brought nearly sixty Audi's out to play on a fine Sunday afternoon.  The club scheduled another trip up to the top of Mount Hamilton and back down the other side.  This trip up to the Lick Observatory more than doubled the number of participants who attended for our last run up the hill in September, 2000.  As in September, we congregated at the Concannon Winery before heading out on the road.  The site of more than fifty Audi's was a little disconcerting for the winery staff but we assured them we would be leaving within ten minutes of our arrival and all was well.

 

After a quick drivers meeting to remind everyone to drive safely and to coordinate radio channels, our first chore was to get everyone out of the winery parking lot and on the road.  This was an interesting task as we wanted to keep most folks together as much as possible. To do this we pulled out then over along a long stretch of road at the beginning of the route.  While we were waiting to clear the lot another club motored by except this club was of the two wheeled and more specifically Harley Davidson variety.  Smiles and waves were exchanged between the groups as the bikes rumbled by and each group admired the other's rides.

 

The club was separated into about three groups.  A lead group that was making really good time, a middle group that separated from the lead group because of a slow horse trailer pulling into the middle of our caravan and a tail end group taking a more casual approach to the drive.  Each group was clearly enjoying themselves and to help out with drive safety and awareness, many cars carried radios to give advance warning of approaching traffic and other hazards.

Upon arrival at the Lick Observatory the first order of business was to find parking for all our cars.  It is safe to say that we monopolized the entire parking area both in front of and behind the building.  It was a miracle that we all fit in!  After a short period of enjoying the scenery and discussing our cars we heading down the hill for a very twisty part of the drive.  The switchbacks and tight corners really kept everyone on their toes!