History of
914 SIG Events
Written by Charles Davis, Past
AdvocateBefore the
914 SIG was formed in 1998, there were several groups organizing events. The
current Mid US 914 Rambles have borrowed ideas from several of these prior
events.
The first big Porsche event
in the world, was the Porsche Parade, first held in 1956 by Potomic Region
of the Porsche Club of America. This event has grown to be the Premier
Porsche event in the world. It's format and name have been copied by clubs
around the world. In the US, many PCA Regions put on "mini-Parades" each
year. Many of these multi-event, multi-Region activities are quite famous
and historic, having been started over 30 years ago.
In the 914 arena, several
Clubs started inviting other owners to get together in the mid-'90's. In
1995, Perry Kiehl organized an event in Lake of the Ozarks, Missouri. In
1996, Rich and Diane Johnson took over and held one in Hot Springs,
Arkansas. The next year, they again held one, but this time in Branson,
Missouri. Unfortunately, the 1998 event didn't happen. These first 3 events
were organized under the "914 Renegade Club" umbrella and called "Renegade
Festivals".
John Dunkel and Ed Villela
also organized a 914 gathering in 1997, held in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
John called it a "914 Ramble". Another Ramble was held in 1998, in
Woodstock, Connecticut. These East Coast events were sponsored by Rennlist,
since John had some influence with them.
Alan Barrilleaux wanted to
meet some of the people he talked to on the Rennlist, so he suggested that
the owners in the central part of the US again organize something
(everything else seemed to be on the two coasts). Charlie Davis suggested
that we form a Special Interest Group, as a part of PCA. This would give us
access to liability insurance coverage for the activities we anticipated.
The 914 SIG was founded in
late 1998 as a part of PCA. We asked John Dunkle to allow us to use the
"Ramble" name and he graciously consented. Thank you, John! We really like
that name. In 1999, the first Mid US 914 Ramble was held. All the previous
ones on the East Coast (and the future ones, too) became, by default, East
Coast Rambles. We tend to refer to them by the shorter ECR and MUSR handles.
Note that the ECR was the inspiration for the original MUSR, and that
without RennList and PCA, the event would not have happened.
There was a 2000 914 event
on the West Coast, organized by John Larson. It was initially called a "West
Coast Ramble", but someone revised the spelling to "Wramble", because they
are mostly attended by wascally wabbits? Thus the initialism is "WCW". This
event was not sponsored by any club or organization.
Rich and Diane Johnson were
an integral part of the MUSRs, having experience with the earlier Renegade
Festivals. The first MUSR was in Hot Springs, Arkansas, the second in
Fairfield Bay, Arkansas, and the third in Solana, Texas.
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