Amerivespa 1999

7th Annual National Rally
July 8th - 11th
San Diego, California

Review by David McCabe

Seattle to San Diego all for scootering.

What do you get when you combine hot weather, over 180 scooters, the insanity of one man named Eric Dutra, and a Portuguese social hall: Amerivespa 1999 in San Diego, California, July 8-11, 1999.

July was a month jam-packed full of scooter events for us. Dave and I started the month by trucking our scooters up to Seattle for Seattle Scooter Insanity, a VCOA sponsored rally. After returning from Seattle, we took the week off from work and trucked down to San Diego for Amerivespa. This, our first VCOA national rally, took place the following weekend. After Amerivespa I had to work on the rally in Portland: The Rally from Hell III, July 23-25. (Unfortunately, we were too busy to make it to Salt Lake City or Denver. Maybe next year.)

In preparing for the trip south, we concluded that our puny Toyota diesel truck was not up to the task of making a 2,300 mile round trip from Portland to San Diego and back. (What if the engine blew 1,000 miles from home?) We decided to rent a Ford Ranger. Unfortunately, when we arrived at the car rental agency at 8 am on Monday morning, they were out of Rangers and we were offered a Ford F250 "4 bah 4". This is the new kind with the suicide doors. Ugh, visions of terrible gas mileage danced in our heads until the counter person offered us a free tank of gas. What could we do, we needed a truck. All in all, despite the extra gas money we spent, it was well worth it. The big truck had no problem getting up the Siskiyou Mountains and we didn't have to worry about schlepping our belongings from the truck bed to the cab every time we stopped off at a restaurant or checked into a motel. Still, it was a really strange contrast. There was something strangely out of proportion about carrying two practical little scooters in the back of an over-built gas-guzzling monster.

We arrived in San Diego to a bit of rain and checked into a motel within easy walking distance of the Portuguese SES Hall. The Portuguese Hall was the central location where many of the events either were held or started from. Most all of the other out-of-towners stayed in the Travel Lodge, also nearby, so we probably missed the fun late night hotel parties.

We settled into our hotel room, watched some TV news (all about the rain!) and rested before the Thursday night "meet and greet". Unloading the scooters was a minor terror. We lifted the rear wheel off the back of the tailgate. Lowering the rear to the ground, the scooters were nearly vertical with the front wheel still on the rear of the truck. Fortunately there was just enough space still for the rear scooter tire to roll, making unloading a cinch after all.

We got on our scooters and rode the two or three blocks over to the Portuguese Hall. Eric Dutra deserves credit for buying a round (or two) for the all the early arrivals. After our trip, we certainly appreciated them. One early arrival was John Bettencourt from Santa Cruz (Vampires SC) who pulled up on his GS VS5. He had just ridden down from Glendale (Los Angeles area), California.

The cocktails hitting our empty stomachs made us realize we hadn't had anything to eat since the early AM. We headed across the street to the Boll Weevil restaurant, a popular local San Diego burger chain. We ate with Robert Volz of Portland Oregon and Nicole and Jay Tellier, a local San Diego scooterist couple. We had great conversation. Later in the evening the entire crowd scooted off to a near-by beach. A bonfire was lit with excessive amounts of gasoline making for some fun short-lived excitement.

The next day on Friday, after the business meeting, there was a ride through the city of San Diego. The ride was designed to make stops at all of the local scooter shops. These included: Vespa Supersport/Motorsport, TJ Scoots and West Coast Lambretta Works. The first stop was Supersport/Motorsport. Fabio Ballarin (VCOA #127), Alex Cohn (#59), and others had FREE half-liters of synthetic Motul two-stoke oil for all those who asked for them! They also handed out goody bags that including nifty postcards, refrigerator/scooter magnets and such.

We hung around for a while in the scorching sun, a new experience for us after suffering through a protracted rainy spring in Portland, Oregon. Luckily, there was a close-by convenience store that did a brisk business selling popsicles and Gatorade to the thirsty masses.

We headed off to TJ Scoots, which is hidden away in a typical California light industrial park. The somewhat anonymous storefront was deceiving. Inside was a very serious scooter and motorcycle shop with immaculately restored scooters. One scooter shop owner (who will remain anonymous) was overheard saying, "Wow! This puts us to shame." Tim Stafford (#1033), TJ Scoots owner, has a well-deserved reputation for quality work. He is so careful that he matches the primer color on his restorations. It was very evident that Tim Stafford is on the forefront of taking scooter restorations to a new level of integrity. I encourage all to visit his shop. Two of TJ Scoots' current restorations were a Messerschmitt Vespa and an early handlebar Vespa.

We then went on to West Coast Lambretta Works for a quick stop. WCLW pulled out a Lambretta racing sidecar. The vehicle made a fast trip through the parking lot, inadvertently hitting a parked truck, breaking off the license plate holder. There was no harm done and all was well, though it was good for a laugh. The group had gotten a bit smaller by this point and the remaining scooterists went for a somewhat scary (because of the freshly laid gravel) ride up to the top of Mt. Soledad. This was a real treat for us out-of-towners because we had a great view of San Diego and the Pacific Ocean. We could even see the burning tire-fires of Tijuana! Thanks to the ride leaders Monika Seitz (monkey) of Metro Menace SC and Dan Dubrow of Secret Society SCSD for leading the ride.

After the ride we headed over to Nicole and Jay's for a tasty BBQ dinner. Nicole and Jay, discovering that we had never been to San Diego, took us in, acting as very gracious hosts to their home and their lovely city. Jay showed us some beautiful scooters that he was working on in his back garage. He unveiled two P200s that had been restored to as-new condition. We had never been so impressed by Ps. (Jay Tellier is the J from TJ Scoots. The T is for Tim Stafford. They are no longer business partners, just friends. It was clear that Jay shared Tim's bug for extremely high quality restorations.) Friday night UV Transmission performed at the Portuguese Hall. We missed this event so I can't report on it.

Saturday, we woke up and attempted to find a traditional cholesterol and grease-laden breakfast. We were unsuccessful and settled for a healthy (read: yuck) muffin and headed over to the Portuguese Hall to for the many scooter shop display tables, the concours d'elegance, raffle, gymkana and other events.

It was Saturday's activities at the Portuguese Hall that turned San Diego's Amerivespa into such an extraordinary event. In particular, it was having scooter shops and scooter-related vendors from all over the country showing up in one place. This, to us, made the whole trip worthwhile. It was an exciting atmosphere, a rich environment for information exchange. Having so many important people in the scooter scene gathered together in one place, certainly did a lot for strengthening the entire U.S. scooter scene. In addition to the Vespa Club of America table there were: 200cc (a vendor of official Piaggio-licensed gear, clothing and sunglasses) Scoot! Quarterly, Vespa Motorsport/Supershop (San Diego), Sportique Scooters (Denver), First Kick Scooters (San Francisco), Classic Vespa of Phoenix (lots of choice old items), Scooters Bellisimo (Pasadena), The Speedo King, The Scooter Shop (Orange County), Vespa Cart Girls, Scooterworks (Chicago), and West Coast Lambretta Works.

While the tech sessions didn't pan out and Eric's reportedly incredible collection of scooter memorabilia did not get displayed, it was great talking with shop owners, meeting other scooterists, and admiring all the great looking bikes. The afternoon raffle was full of interesting and useful prizes generously provided by all the shops and vendors present. (There was stuff given away from absent shops too, such as Big People Scooters of Seattle.) Some unfortunate person won 3 Amerivespa t-shirts! Probably the best VCOA T-shirt to date, but the winner surely had hopes for a little more variety in his winnings.

It was great to see all the different well-restored scooters. According to rally officials, there were over 180 scooters in attendance on Saturday. (Certainly small by San Francisco standards, but the largest San Deigo rally in recent history and the largest VCOA rally yet.) Impressive were the three Lambretta LDs owned by John from WCLW, Mike Prost and Steven Aldana. All were on the road and running well! Steven "SpeedoKing" Burdette's (VCOA # 596) split headset Allstate was a dazzling custom. I liked the especially Californian touch: a tropical print speedo face. (yes, he sells these, and they are totally awesome.) There were two nice VS5 GSs including Zach Matthews's Cushman GS. James Carman's minty-green handlebar scooter was another nice scooter.

Our favorite in the oddity or in the "its-not-quite-what-it-seems" category was Charles from Monterey's Rabbit Junior. He let a bunch of people ride it, which seemed a bit odd, until I found out that this Rabbit was mounted on a Riva 125 frame and engine.

One scary sight was my husband, David McCabe (VCOA # 583), who changed into his baby-blue polyester jumpsuit, dorky cap, ascot, and bitchin' early 1980s Vans sneakers in preparation for hanging out with the supposed RV-drivin' scooterists. He was quite a contrast to Eric, a very tall mod who looked impeccable. Unfortunately for David, he was the only "old fart" in the bunch, and soon returned to his usual costume to cool off.

Having all the different vendors in once place was fabulous, especially for those of us without a full-time scooter shop in our town. We can tell our personal story as an example of the incredible networking that was took place on Saturday: We found a used, but correct, (split number) speedo for our VNA at a table manned by Bob Darnell. Bob sold this to us, very reasonably for $30, but before exchanging money, he let us take it next door to the SpeedoKing for a quick assessment. Steve pronounced it good mechanical condition and restorable. We went back to Bob's table and made the deal. We left the Speedo with the Steve Burdett (SpeedoKing). In a week he had finished a beautiful restoration and it arrived at our house in Portland. All told we spent about $90 on the speedo, way cheaper than buying new plus we had the proper hard-to-find speedo model to go with our scooter. Other good deals were to be had at the various shops and vendors that were in attendance.

During the Saturday affair, Time magazine was interviewing people. They had a seriously PRO photographer taking photos of people's scooters. Every once in a while, someone with a particularly nice scooter would get the "tap on the shoulder" and an quiet invitation to bring their scooter over behind the dunk tank for the full-on professional photo shoot. The next day the Time photographer showed up for the ride sitting in Eric Dutra's Cosa sidecar. The Time photographer took some precarious shots of scooters as he hold his insanely-expensive camera off the sidecar and close to the road while Eric quickly wove between the pack of scooters.

We spent much of the time, meeting with people, showing them photographs and trading scootering stories. David had a great time showing off his 3-D scooter photos and a photo album from 1952 full of scooter pictures of a couple on a honeymoon tour through Italy on a Vespa (an article should be in an upcoming issue.). It was great fun seeing old pals, and meeting the faces behind internet loudmouths, notables, and friends. (We loved you all.)

The gymkhana was set up in the corner of the parking lot. It was quite challenging but fortunately, the only minor incident being Pamela Anderson's (VCOA #432) cowl, which fell off during the ride. It was a bit scary for the spectators who sat only a few feet away from the course. The course was set up by Rolf Soltau (VCOA #385), now our official FIV/VCOA Ambassador. Rolf said the gymkhana was loosely based on the official FIV standard course, but that he made it a little easier so people could have fun and actually finish it. He says that it is his goal to, each year, make it a little harder and closer to the FIV standard course. We thought that there were some really talented riders who, next year, will be up for the challenge of a tougher course.

Soon enough evening was upon us. A DJ kept us entertained while dinner was served, although I think playing the Banana Splits song was cruel and unusual punishment. Eric Dutra (VCOA # 16) did an excellent job MCing the Saturday night dinner, though he did deserve every dinner roll thrown at him for not mentioning Oregon's representation at the event. I was especially pleased to hear him read the latest fax from the new U.S. Piaggio representative. (See elsewhere in this issue.) The new Piaggio rep said that scooters should be arriving shortly including P series scoots! I believe it when I see it, but I'm always a sucker for encouraging news like this.

At the dinner, prizes were given out for "best of"s in many categories including Best Vespa which was won by Mike Frankovich (VCOA #1521) with his artfully restored (some tasteful, but non-original chrome) Rally 200. The scooterists from San Jose, were very deserving of their award for "best area/club turnout" because, not only were there a lot of them, they made enough noise for the entire state of California. As a San Jose native, I was proud to be (almost) one of them. John Gerber (VCOA #5) from Boston received the award for furthest traveled VCOA member. The farthest ridden went to Gordon Loui (VCOA #286) who flew from Hawaii to San Francisco, and then proceeded down to San Diego on his P200, accompanied by his brother on a rented Helix.

Bud "Budinski" Ford won the ET4 raffle. David said that, "the only thing keeping me from being jealous of him is seeing how excited Bud was." Bud's first move, was to call his mom! "Mom, I just won a scooter!" Awwww! One other good note about this was that his winning ticket was the one that everyone one got just for registering for the weekend. The next day Bud was on his new scooter for the ride. Colin Shattuck (of Sportique Scooters fame) had the tickets on either side of Bud's. That must have hurt!

Sunday, we went on a very nice ride led by the guys from Secret Society Scooter Club through San Diego including snooty La Jolla. Chaz Walker (Continental Kings SC, Oklahoma) was ticketed for blocking traffic and running a red light. Not too bad considering the number of scooters there. Again, it was fun to startle the mellow surfer dudes and blonde Californians. We stopped at the Cabrillo Monument, which afforded an incredible view of the Pacific Ocean. A really nice chopper, showed up for this ride. It was well detailed and would have been a shoe-in for an award if it had been around for Saturday's judging and awards.

One last funny story. Bob Darnel almost got his ass kicked by some passenger in a car. This was at the end of the Sunday ride. The scooters were making an extra circle around a roundabout right near a beach where the ride ended. Bob pulled in front of some cars to block traffic for scooters. All I was able to see was that the first to car to be blocked was full of old people yelling at Bob. One threw a plastic water bottle at him, while a big hairy old man got out of the car and grabbed Bob's arm. When I circled around again Bob and the car were both riding off, so I don't know exactly what happened. It didn't look like anyone got hurt. The ride ended up on the esplanade (or whatever that's called) and people hung out listening to the tunes coming out of Eric Dutra's Black Doobie Cosa sidecar rig until there were only a few die-hards remaining. We too eventually had to leave the idyllic scene and get on I-5 for the ride home.

We had an awesome time in San Diego. The rides may have been old for Californians, but for out-of-towners that had never been to San Diego before, they were fantastic. Nice long rides with good views of the city.

Even though this was our first VCOA national rally, we think it is safe to say that it represented a milestone for the club. Eric Dutra made a conscience effort to model the event after a EuroVespa. This was evident in the gymkana, shop tables, FIV banners and flags, and most notably, the gala dinner. The gala dinner created a great sense of scootering camaraderie. It never got too out of hand, and the warm group atmosphere created sense that we were all part large national scootering brother/sisterhood.

Also having scooter shops and related vendors set up outside on Saturday turned the event into something like a national scooter tradeshow. This was a new departure from the typical ride and drink rallies that all of us are normally used to. My guess is that few shops actually made money directly in terms of sales at the event. The benefits were indirect. This was first in exposure of the shops to new potential customers. (I got to meet face-to-face many people who I had ordered parts with over the phone.) Second, and more importantly, it had to have been helpful for all of the behind the scenes gossip, deal making, and information-sharing (technical and otherwise). We got the sense that there was a warm relationship between the shops and related vendors. This was good to see, since coming together like this once a year can only make the scooter scene/market larger for all involved. Too bad Piaggio and other scooter companies weren't there to appreciate it. Maybe next year.

Again much praise is due to everyone that helped organize this thing. It looked like Eric Dutra pulled a lot of this together on his own. Also, Michael McWilliams, Gretchen Whitworth, Teela and Creston Coates (and Teela's sister-in-law) did a fabulous job manning the registration booths and keeping everything running smoothly. We had a fabulous time. We look forward to attending next year's rally.

My most memorable moment was overhearing Zach Matthews (mobboss) say something to David in his big-Texas LBJ-like accent. After they both marveled at a particularly nice and loud scooter riding by, Zach turned to Dave and said, "Dave, we've got one hell of a hobby here!"

© 2004 Vespa Club of America