Since it was over 70 degrees on November 1st, our Alfas hit the road on this impromptu road tour

ell, we did it again. This is to say that, for the second Saturday in a row, we went for a spirited back-roads romp out in western Massachusetts! This spur-of-the-moment event, dubbed the AONE Indian Summer Sortie, was the inspiration of club Director Peter Walker one Wednesday in late October when he heard the weather forecast for the following Saturday, November 1st—sunny with temps in the 70s! Since he’d spent a lot of time growing up in western Mass, he had no problem putting together a great route for us to drive, and we issued an email Call To Arms. (Didn’t get it? For shame! Send an email to webmaster@velocissima.com to get on our list.)

We met at 10:30 AM at the Fillin’ Station Diner in South Deerfield—the exact place where the previous weekend’s Reservoir Ramble ended! For people who were on that tour with us, it was like picking up where we left off! For people who missed it, it was their second chance! Nine lovely Italian macchina grouped up, namely the six kamm-tailed Spiders of Peter Walker and Meg Anderson in their white ’77, John Paradiso (organizer of the Reservoir Ramble) in his red ’92, Tom Freiberger in his silver ’74, Kevin Murphy in his green ’74, Gene Durso (and his soon-to-be-AONE-member and neighbor Scott Navaroli) in his yellow ’74, and Dave Pratt in his yellow ’74. Joining us from AROC-CT was Frank LaSala in his sharp, red ‘58 Giulietta—delighted that you came, Frank! Rounding out the field in Lesser Cars were Tom Ducibella and Angela Nannini in their red Ferrari 330 GTC (only because their ’69 roundtail Spider was on the blink) and Bruce Murray in his beautifully restored dark green Fiat 124 Spider. (Well, OK, calling them Lesser Cars is a bit of a stretch.)

After a little hobnobbing and photo shooting, we set off through the back roads and hills of Franklin County, up Route 116 to Ashfield and Plainfield (one of the all-time great sports car drives in Massachusetts), and then looping onto some real back roads (sans route numbers) in Hawley and Buckland. (What—you never heard of Ashfield, Plainfield, Hawley, and Buckland, MA? How about Cummington, Savoy, Windsor, and Drury?) It was a terrific, long route with absolutely no other cars to get in our way, so it was nine rapidly moving topless (except for the Ducibellas’ Ferrari) Italian works of art. 

We then returned to Peter’s family house in Ashfield, where we whipped out the pot luck pass-around lunch fare that we’d brought along, while enjoying the gorgeous view overlooking a valley with the Berkshires in the background—stunning! We got to share an eclectic mix of tasty victuals that included smoked salmon, fettuccini, quiche, chicken wings, burgers, followed by homemade apple pie and brownies, washed down by cider and other beverages. It was a great way to fortify ourselves for the rest of the afternoon—thanks, Peter and Meg, for hosting us, and for planning the route and promoting this terrific event!

As we were getting ready to leave on the second half of the tour, a guy drove by in his pickup truck, stopped to look up and down our row of parked cars, and said "I’ve got one of those—can you wait ten minutes?" We said, "Sure!", so he went home to fetch his white ’73 Spider and joined us for the rest of the trip! Looks like we found us a new member—welcome, Ken Shapiro!

With our numbers thusly augmented (and our nourishment replenished), we set off on another loop, taking Route 116 west to Adams and some more terrific unnumbered back roads, still with no other vehicles to scrub off our speed. After an hour and a half of automotive hijinks, we made our way back into Charlemont, ending up at the base of the Berkshires East ski area for a final photo op before we all went our separate ways.