The Great Yankee Candle Run

You probably were feeling pretty smug, not showing up for The Great Yankee Candle Run on October 13, because it turned out to be an overcast, dreary day, right? Well, as the 18 cars-full of Alfisti (and other sports car buffs) who did turn out will tell you, you blew it!

Yes, the day started out foggy, with even a little mist condensing on our cars (and on us), but the resolute among us showed up at the prescribed hotel parking lot outside of Fitchburg, made a pit stop and grabbed some coffee at the hotel, and gathered for the Drivers’ Meeting conducted by event organizer Kevin Murphy. We were given Great Yankee Candle Run dash plaques, plus printed directions for the route, which included many fill-in-the-blank types of questions to be answered along the way. When everyone understood the plot, we were all sent off at 1.5-minute intervals toward our ultimate destination, the Yankee Candle Factory and Car Museum.

About 15 miles into the tour, we rather suddenly drove out of the cloud we were in, into a bright, blue, sunny sky! And it stayed that way for the rest of the trip! All of the Spider drivers pulled over and dropped their tops (their convertible tops) along the way (except for Alan Archer, who started with his down).

Kevin, as all agreed later, had chosen a marvelous route! It was over 64 miles of central Massachusetts back roads, with very little traffic, past picturesque farms and through colorful forests. The foliage was at or near its peak and that musky autumn smell was in the air. Magnifico!

Our various drivers all had various ideas regarding the speeds at which the tour should be executed, and there was quite a bit of passing going on, both of ourselves and of other vehicles we encountered. Two of our tourers, indeed, got pulled over by the local constabulary (no names will be mentioned), but no tickets were issued. This seems exactly right – pushing the envelope a little, with no harm done. And even if we ran into a little problem, hey – the event organizer is also the AONE Legal Counsel…

Our intent was to meet at Yankee Candle in a corner of the parking lot and take in the museum and lunch together, but it turned out that a few thousand other people had the same idea that we did on such a beautiful fall Saturday. Some of us found a lot across the street and parked together, but others parked where they found spots. We never did meet together again as a complete group, but did run into each other and did things together in small bunches.

The Car Museum was well worth seeing, especially since it will soon be closing to make room for more candles. It contained over 80 interesting cars of many types – sports cars, antique cars, muscle cars, race cars, and a few just plain unusual cars, well-presented and with good descriptions.

After taking in the museum, and perhaps doing a little shopping, we were all pretty much on our own and headed off in our own directions. My navigator and I decided to do some more touring, heading even further north and west along some more terrific driving roads before meandering back toward home. At around 4:30, we were quite surprised to run into the same fog bank we had escaped in the morning, at exactly the same place! We surmised, and verified later, that all of eastern New England suffered through a dreary, foggy day, while we AONE Fall Tourers basked in glorious autumn sunny warmth! There’s justice!

Although the day was all about touring with our Alfas, taking in the museum, and hanging out with our fellow Alfisti, there was also the "competitive" aspect of the tour (besides the impromptu over-the-road high jinks). The "quiz" part of the Candle Run was a tie between Alfisti John and Lauren DeWaele (in their tasteful ‘74 Spider) and Triumph guys Wayne Erickson and Henry Steenstra in their "TR-9" (the Healey with the wild fairing). Both had perfect scores.

We have again to thank Kevin Murphy for organizing and planning the AONE Fall Tour, for the third year running. He always gets it right, including ordering the weather.

	Kevin conducts the Drivers’ Meeting in the fog with the hotel barely discernible in the background Dave Pratt photo
	Most of the Spiders arrived at the start with their tops up. But that didn’t last for long! Gene Durso photo
	Wayne Erickson, with helmet and goggles, strikes a vintage pose in his Austin Healey Dave Pratt photo
	The view out the front of Gene and Judy Durso’s Spider was—more Spiders! Judy Durso photo
	The view out the front of Dave and Vi Pratt’s rosso amaranto GTV was—Paul and Cheryl Leone’s rosso amaranto GTV! Vi Pratt photo
	Some of the participants meet up in a remote Yankee Candle parking lot and hop the Yankee Candle shuttle bus Dave Pratt photo
	Another car club had the same idea as us—here's a long row of wild-looking (some would say ridiculous-looking) Prowlers Dave Pratt photo