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Porsche Club of America
The Northeast Region

By Bruce Hauben, Bruce993@PorscheNet.com
NOR'EASTER Online - December 2000

Another Driver's Ed season has come to a "successful" end. Successful in many ways but first and foremost the 911 and its two drivers finished the season incident free, we don't count spins with no contact involved and a rebuilt transmission which was not a result of track driving.

Joyce and I recently returned from Road Atlanta along with eight other cars and twelve other drivers from the NER. This was our first trip there and the second for some of the others, and I've already entered next year's dates in our track calendar, both DE and Club Race. The track is fantastic, thrilling, exacting, technical and fun. Every kind of corner and turn is encountered with great elevation changes, along with a straight in excess of a mile. At the end of that straight is a chicane with two 90o corners leading to an up-hill, blind crest, under a bridge. You get the exciting picture.

Yes, it's a long drive to get there but well worth the haul. I for one particularly enjoy learning new tracks, the new experience and the new challenge. So this season was also "successful" in that we drove Mid-Ohio and Pocono for the first time. Some in the NER did even more "new" tracks than we. I'm hoping to get us to Mosport and VIR next year, maybe even Summit Point, while keeping Road Atlanta, Mid-Ohio and Watkins Glen in the schedule. Guess that means fewer trips to Lime Rock and Watkins Glen.

For those of you not having experienced a similar long trek to a track, part of the fun is the caravan and camaraderie with like-minded friends and the discussions on the CB that inevitably ensue. We're all hoping that Mt. Tremblant will be finished in time for us to run our own NER event there in 2001. It was a great track and the renovations should make it that much better. I urge anyone contemplating a trek to a distant track to consider this one to get your feet wet. It's an easy one-day drive (7-8 hrs.) and once there, the venue is very enjoyable. In addition to the excellent track, we stay in condos in an Alpine type village with restaurants and shops right there.

Now that the 911 has been delivered to EPE to be prepared for my first excursion into Club Racing next year, what is there to do with one's time? Allow me to give you newcomers to the area (and maybe some of you old timers too) some "off the beaten track" ideas.

Joyce and I have had season tickets to Harvard hockey for many years. Yessss, Harvard Hockey; they won the NCAA title in '89. And we've recently discovered women's hockey, Harvard won the national title in '99. Right here in Boston we've got some of the best "pure" hockey being played in the country with BU, BC, Northeastern and the rest of the ECAC and Hockey East teams coming to town, not to mention the Beanpot every February.

The NCAA East Regionals are always held either in Boston, Worcester or Albany with top Mid-West schools playing the best of the East. And this year the NCAA Frozen Four will be in Albany. We were lucky enough to get tickets in their lottery and even some extras that you can look for on EBay in the spring.

We also live in the midst of a musical hotbed here in Boston and I don't necessarily mean the conventional venues and groups. The Berklee College of Music is a world-renowned four-year training ground for all forms of music endeavors, not just performance. Graduates go on to music business management, music therapy, movie score writing, etc. Throughout the year students and faculty (all world class jazz musicians themselves i.e. Gary Burton, Lin Biviano, Greg Hopkins, Paul Schmeling) give free performances in recital halls and the Berklee Performance Center on Mass. Ave.

The students from all over the world continually amaze us with their music skills, if you close your eyes you'd swear you were listening to musicians in their forties, not late teens and early twenties. You can check out all these free concerts at the Berklee web site www.Berklee.edu or write to them at 114 Boylston St., Boston, MA 02215 to get on the mailing list for the monthly calendar.

The New England Conservatory was founded in 1867 and is another of our Boston gems.
In addition to another outstanding jazz program headed up by Allan Chase it's also a classical music-training venue. Everything I've written above can be repeated for NEC.
In addition to the various recital halls, Jordan Hall is its main concert venue, a visually beautiful place as well as acoustically excellent with no "bad" seats in the house. You can check out happenings at its web site www.newenglandconservatory.edu or write to them at 290 Huntington Ave., Boston, MA 02115 for the monthly calendar.

The Huntington Theater is "Boston's leading professional theater, in residence at Boston University." The last performance we saw was an excellent performance of "Dead End". A gritty melodrama of class differences, brought on as luxury apartments encroach upon a broken-down neighborhood in New York City in the '30s. Surprisingly they created a representation of the East River large enough for cast members to often jump into, splashing the first row of audience wearing plastic rain gear. Their web site is www.bu.edu/huntington for schedules and points of interest or 264 Huntington Ave., Boston, MA 02115.

The Trinity Repertory Company is in Providence and one of the outstanding theater companies in America. It's a rare performance that I've missed in the approximately twenty-five years I've lived in the Providence and now Boston areas. Every production is a superb combination of great acting talents, top-notch direction, and set and lighting designs that are second to none. Joyce and I are always thrilled when we see an alumnus/alumna in a major motion picture or TV series and there have been many.
Providence is only an hour from Boston, great restaurants and an easy city to navigate. You Rhode Islanders have no excuse for missing out on Trinity Rep's great plays. They are at www.trinityrep.com or 201 Washington St., Providence, RI 02903.

Enjoy your winter, track season and Porsche weather will be here sooner than you think.

Porsche Club of America The Northeast Region

Porsche Club of America
The Northeast Region