Comfort found with other
addicts
By
Jeffrey Fazio
Special Sections Writer
We
all have our addictions; at least I hope we all do. Please, tell me
I'm not the only one.
Okay,
I'll start. I'm addicted to the Toyota MR2. I've been obsessed with
them for well over a decade. Okay, okay, maybe it's closer to two
decades. Currently I own three of them, but I swear I can stop anytime
I want too.
Although
I have been fixated on MR2s longer than President Bush has been
fixated on Iraq, I somehow never managed to attend one of the MR2
Owners Club's (MR2OC) national meets. The list of excuses and reasons
as to why I never made it to one of these huge events is very long,
very detailed and very boring. Let's just leave it at that. I have
never went to one -- at least until this year.
This
past July, I made the pilgrimage to Kingston, Ontario, Canada, for my
first big MR2 meet. It was a three-day event that included track time,
a car show and a beautiful cruise through the mountains of Canada.
Even
the trek up to Canada was filled with MR2 fun. My girlfriend and I,
along with another "MR2 couple," left Reading early on the
morning of Friday, July 23 for the 6 1/2-hour ride to Kingston. Just
over three hours into the trip, my friend in the other MR2 made phone
contact with a group of six other MR2 enthusiasts that were about 20
minutes ahead of us on Interstate 81. Coincidentally, that group was
just 20 minutes behind a third group MR2s on the same interstate.
After
a few rounds of cell-phone tag, a meeting spot was choreographed for
all three groups to meet up prior to crossing the border into Canada.
Our sortie of two MR2s instantly grew into a fleet of 13.
Our
long weekend started out Friday night at Shannonville Motorsports
Park, 45 minutes from Kingston. The organizers of the MR2 meet had
rented out the Fabi Circuit at Shannonville for three hours so we
could have some track time. The Fabi Circuit is a 2.23 km road course
that features nine turns and a 1/4-mile front straight. This was a
superb opportunity for us to safely enjoy the limits of our cars,
which many of us did.
Saturday
was a much more casual day. After a huge group car wash in the
morning, we all headed out to Raxx's Bar & Grill for lunch and the
MR2 car show. There were well over 100 people at this event and they
brought more than 65 MR2s. Having that many more people than MR2s is a
fair indication that there is plenty of codependency in the MR2
community.
After
years of boring friends, family and co-workers with every detail of my
MR2s, it was a pleasure to be around such a diverse group of people
suffering from the same uncontrollable enthusiasm for the MR2. They
understood me.
They
all understood me in the same way that strangers at a Star Trek
convention immediately understand each other. People who share the
same addiction just have a way of recognizing and accepting each
other.
The
schedule for Saturday evening included a long cruise through some nice
twisty mountain roads. As evidence that I do indeed have some control
over my MR2 addiction, I opted to have dinner with my girlfriend on
the coast of Lake Ontario instead of going on the cruise. As life
would have it, our night was not destined to be without MR2s after
all.
Downtown
Kingston has many restaurants that offer outside seating directly
across the street from Lake Ontario. Just as we chose the restaurant
we were going to dine at, we heard a familiar buzz in the distance. As
the buzz grew louder we smiled knowingly and turned to watch the
parade of MR2s swarming through downtown Kingston like bees returning
to the hive. It was an ironic moment since we were both part of and
separate from the MR2 meet all at the same time.
Sunday
morning, many of the MR2 owners gathered together for breakfast and to
arrange the caravans for the trips home. Unfortunately, a good friend
of mine and fellow MR2 enthusiast had broken down Saturday in
Syracuse, N.Y., on his way to the Kingston meet so we left early to
meet up with him to offer assistance. After helping him as best we
could, we got back on the interstate to finally head home.
After
all of that, I guess it is no surprise that we still managed to catch
up to three other MR2s on I-81 for the rest of the ride home.
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