New booklet highlights 50th Year

Gordon Maltby has just put the finishing touches on a new booklet that features the highlights of Nord Stern's 50th year.  When you read through this booklet, you will marvel at what a year it was.  The booklet will be available at the Winter Party at Carousel on January 23rd.  Your copy will be signed by David Murry who is featured in the booklet for his part in our history.  The pilot of PCA Club Racing Coaching was at our Club Race and will now be rolled out in 2010 starting at Sebring next month.

Winter Party Silent Auction Items

We will have 4 or 5 great silent auction items benefitting Courage Center at the January 23 Winter Party at Carousel Porsche.  Here is what is planned:

Book:  917X17 by Jeff Zwart  signed by featured driver Vic Elford
Sponsor:  TBD
Sells for $150 without the autograph.  Jeff Zwart set up a studio at Porsche Rennsport Reunion III and created these fabulous photographs of these fabulous cars as well as interviewing their drivers.  Certainly a piece of Porsche history as who knows if anything like this will be assembled again.

Book:  Ferry Porsche 100 years by the Porsche Museum
Sponsor:  TBD
Value: None are for sale currently - $50?  $100?  Hey, it is for the Courage kids!

This book was put together by the Porsche Museum as part of the commemoration of Ferry Porsche's 100th birthday.  It took me 6 months to get it and it is already out of print.  It contains all the great Ferry Porsche photos that are so famous as well as many other great shots you have not seen before.  Complete  record of the great man's life.  Small in size at 5 x 8 and about 150 pages, high in content.

David Murry being interviewed at Road America

last August by Minnesotan Greg Cramer.

Breakfast for 4 with former Porsche Factory Driver David Murry
Sunday morning January 24th at Hell's Kitchen in downtown Minneapolis 8 am - 9:30 am
Sponsor: Roger Johnson
Value: $1500

Here is a great opportunity to get your racing and driving questions answered by someone who has been there.  David has raced professionally for close to 30 years in everything from Formula Fords to a prototype Porsche at LeMans to NASCAR.  He has championships driving some great Porsches like the 968 and the GT2 turbo (one of my favorite Porsche race cars).   He currently is driving the Robertson Ford GT in the ALMS and recently put car on the pole at the latest Petit Le Mans against huge competition from Flying Lizards, Corvette, Rahal BMW, and Risi Ferrari.  Guaranteed to be a delightful and memorable time.  He will give you his email address so you can ask him the questions you will certainly run out of time to ask at the breakfast.  (I didn't ask him to do this but I know he will.)

Porsche GT3 chronograph watch (We didn't get it for this event.  Look for it at the Club Race.)
Value: $695
Sponsor: TBD

More to come on this item.  They are no longer available from Porsche in the US, but we hope to get one from Germany.

Of course, all proceeds benefit Courage Center and are tax deductible.  Bidding at the Winter Party or contact me or Keith Jones if you want us to bid for you.

Drivers Visiting Nord Stern

Nord Stern has had some great (actually some of the greatest) drivers come and speak over the years. Here are a few:

Derek Bell and Bob Johnson

Dave Weisel and Phil Hill

Leighton Reese, Mark Skweres, Vic Elford

Mike Jekot, David Hobbs

Of course, Jackie Ickx, fresh from winning LeMans in 1976 with a 936 came to Brainerd with the winning car.

And as long as we are name dropping, let's not forget Mark Donahue. The pit lane at BIR (then Donnybrooke) looks al little funny without the wall.

Who is this Nord Sterner?

Can you guess who the Nord Sterner is on the left? This would be from the early 1970's. The race car is Larry Skoglund's. When it was a street car, it belonged to Peter Kitchak.

Thanks to Larry Skoglund for the photo and several others I'm using here. Add you guess to the comments below.

A little history from Charlie Lloyd

Charlie in his 912 which by this time was a 911!

At Sebring with Dudley Davis' 911 and a bunch of Nord Sterners.

Last year about this time, 1970 Nord Stern President Charlie Lloyd emailed me regarding the Winter Party. That email is excerpted below. I had set it aside until recently and thought I would share it here.

I had a 1968 912 Targa which I bought new in Geneva Switzerland. After shipping it to the US, I drove it from NJ to Mpls in April 1969, making it from Chicago to our house here in 4 hours and 45 minutes!
I started racing a Speedster which I acquired from my brother-in-law that year and rolled it up in a ball at Road America in 1971, so I gradually converted the 912 to a race car. I always thought I might put it back on the street some day, but the deciding factor was in about 1975 when I sawed the wind screen off to gain some aerodynamics! My best season was in 1976 when I came in 10th in EP at Road Atlanta in the SCCA Runoffs. The 912 was always at a disadvantage because while it ran the same engine as the Speedster it was penalized about 300#, presumably because of better aerodynamics, but with the extra weight it could never accelerate with them. After 1976, I got tired of rebuilding the 4 cly, as it continued to break from trying to get upwards of 175 HP out of it. I converted the car to a 911 and raced that until 1980, finishing in the top 15 in DP in 1979. The car went to a buyer in Denver in about 1982, and I never saw it or any results with it after that.
Dudley Davis, Hank Godfredson and I drove Dudley's 911 to a 5th in GTU in the 12 hour race at Sebring in 1981, and one of the pictures you published in the Nord Stern this past year was of the three of us with that car. We also ran it in the IMSA races at Road America and Brainerd that year, finishing in 4th or 5th as I recall at RA, and DNF'd at Brainerd due to 2 bad rod bolts that let go (would you believe?; must have been from the same bad batch), one in practice and one in warm-up for the race.
I acquired a 1956 Speedster from by brother's estate in 1987, and bought Frank Hunt's 1959 Cabriolet about the same time. They were both fun, but as some will attest, required continuous maintenance. So in 2000 I sold both for enough to buy a 2001 Boxster. I enjoy being able to just go turn the key and go, without all the maintenance hassle.

Winter Party Set for January 23rd

Nord Stern is wrapping up it's 50th year with a Garage Party! What would be a better place for a Garage Party than a Porsche dealership? Carousel Porsche is graciously hosting Nord Stern. There will be a cash bar set up in the showroom for socializing and then we will have very nice sit-down dinner in the service writing area catered by D'Amico. Former Porsche Factory Driver David Murry is confirmed as the guest speaker. We will also celebrate more of Nord Stern's 50 years of history. A new booklet, autographed be David Murry, will be given to each attendee.
We will have a small number of very nice silent auction items benefitting Courage Center. One item will be breakfast for four the morning after the party with David Murry. Additional items will be announced by email in the coming weeks.
Sign up info is available on Nord Stern.org by clicking on the picture below.

By popular demand, the dress for this gala is now "dressy". Don't worry, at this garage party you won't be asked to rebuild a carburetor.

Watch for additional emails in the coming weeks!

Billy G Speedster Nears Completion

Bill Groschen invited a few people over to see his 1955 Speedster. It has been under restoration for about 20 years! There is quite a story here that you can ask Bill to recant, but the car looks good. It is a bit of an "outlaw" 356 with a 2.4 liter engine and disk brakes. Myron Cotterell did a lot of the work in the last couple of years.

Pictured here is myself, my son Ryan, and Bill Groschen.

Email recieved from an early member.

Mark Bouljon forwarded this email to me. I found it interesting in that I had given quite a bit of thought and put a lot of effort into helping the newer members understand our rich hertiage. I hadn't given much thought to the fact that the early members may not know much about what is going on with the club today. Conrad's comment about not knowing anyone after the first few pages of the booklet seems to be something we may want to give some thought to.

Hello, Mark:

Thanks for sending me the 50 year booklet for Nord Stern. After the first few pages knew almost no-one.

Attaching picture of Nord Stern gang at Parade in 1962 or 3 in the Poconos. Very hot and humid week.

L to R, Bob Schoening, Wiggy Woolery, her son Mike, Conrad Berg, and standing behind, Curt Skou, who took this picture, and Jeanne and Gordon Oschwald, once an Archie Walker Porsche salesman.

Sorry about dust, old slides hard to clean...Conrad.

Photos from 50th Dinner

We had some fun with the Spyder to Spyder theme. Tom Countryman raced an RS61 Spyder in 1962 and of course Patrick Long raced the RS Spyder in 2008. We did a little "compare and contrast" between racing then and racing now. Patrick Long was very gracious, commenting that racing those old cars was really tough on the driver because of the skinny tires, low grip, and things like the much less sophisticated components. One of the questions I asked Tom was "How many sets of tires do you take to the races for your spyder?" His response - "the tires on the car, of course!" Patrick responded that he didn't know how many they brought, but they change tires every stop or every 50 minutes.

Bruce Boeder was honored for his service to Nord Stern by Board member Rick Laverdiere.

Porsche Panorama Editor Betty Jo Turner and Panorama Photographer Leonard Turner enjoy the program. They very much enjoyed the graciousness of Nord Stern and had a great time.

L to R: Cindy Holton, Christie Boeder, Teresa Vickery, Jim Holton

Every birthday needs a cake to two.

Craig Alexander's model of his 550 Spyder and the Ferry Porsche Award

Nord Stern received as PCA Region of the Year for 2008.

Interlachen was the perfect venue for this very special event.

The lighted ice cubes were a very special touch to a special evening.

The feedback from the 50th Anniversary Dinner has been extremely positive. It was amazing to see lots of old friends we had not see in many years. We had almost 30 Past Presidents in attendance as well as two of the Charter Members, Tom Countryman and Craig Alexander. Special guests included Patrick Long, Porsche factory driver, Betty Jo and Leonard Turner from Porsche Panorama, and Doug Pierce, PCA Zone 10 Representative.

The photos will give you a feel for the event. Thanks to Kristen Fritze and and Leonard Turner for the photos.

Slide Show from 50th Dinner

I have posted the slide show from the 50th dinner here. It runs a little over 30 minutes and recaps Nord Stern's history. We also producted a printed piece for the dinner that does a nice job of documenting Nord Stern's very rich history. They are available at the parts counters of both Carousel and Maplewood and we will also have some at the Club Race. Be sure to get one.

View slideshow.