Held annually for the past five or six years (we skipped 2004 because of Giulietta Giubilee), the South Shore Fun Run has become a latter-day institution. Hate to say it, but we’ve never been rained out (or even rained on), and this year was no exception. July 16th was a hot, hazy, typical New England summer day.

Eight sweet Italian cars (seven Alfas and a Fiat Dino Spider) and their occupants convened in a Braintree, MA parking lot for the start of this year’s outing. Competing (if you want to call it that) were Jim & Mary Murphy in their red ’84 Spider, Mel & Marion Dunn in another red ’84 Spider, Mark Ziburis in his red ‘92 Spider, Peter Walker and Meg Anderson in their white ’76 Spider, Carlos Caldas (our newest member) in his red ’87 Spider, Fred & Missy Frey in their red ’68 Fiat Dino Spider, Rob Rizzo in his red 164S, and Dave & Vi Pratt in their red ’61 Giulietta. (If you noticed the word “red” appearing quite often in that list, you’re absolutely right—seven of the eight cars were red!) Fred & Missy and Rob are Long Islanders who came over via ferry to join us for the event! Also at the start were Pete & Carole Marino & family—our revered rallymasters—in their black, beefy Mustang convertible, and AONE Pres Tom Lesko in his silver, beefy BMW M5.

At around 11am, Pete mustered the troops for the driver’s meeting, where he explained the nature of our upcoming adventure. Basically, we were to follow the printed directions that he handed out as precisely as possible, while jotting down the answers to questions about landmarks we were to encounter along the way. We would be judged on how many questions we answered correctly, how much our distance traveled varied from the prescribed route, and how much our elapsed times varied from the optimum.

Then we were sent off, spaced at three-minute intervals. The first leg dispatched us a few miles down Route 3, where we quickly encountered a standard South Shore summer phenomenon: a bottleneck of traffic headed for Cape Cod. Drat—there goes our time! But before long we exited onto a less-congested thoroughfare. Our itinerary then took us through an area not often seen on the rally circuit: a shopping mall parking lot, where a lot of clues had to be answered by peering at the storefronts. What next, we wondered? A sachet through the local area gravel pit? Will they be sending our convertibles and us through an automatic car wash?

Our fears were unwarranted, however, as the rest of the journey was pleasant indeed. The route took us along the South Shore coastline, past gracious homes, through shaded woodland—you get the picture. (Well, we got some pictures too.) Occasionally, we’d have to stop (or at least slow down) to unearth the answer to one of the questions on the rally sheet. Strangely, the Fun Run directions ended us all in the driveway of Tom and Kathi Lesko’s attractive contemporary home in Hingham. The time of our individual arrivals, however, varied wildly.

Tom already had the barbecue grill going and, after the sun-drenched jaunt, we were all grateful to down some of the copious cold beverages in the ice chest and bask in the cool comfort of their air-conditioned house. Tom was grilling marinated chicken, hot Italian sausages, hamburgers, and hot dogs. Kathi had prepared delicious tomato & mozarella and potato salads, and there were lots of other relishes, mustards, bread, chips, and other condiments to boot.

After we were sated with food and drink, it was time to face the music. Pete Marino went through the answers to all of the rally questions, and we were told what the expected Fun Run mileage and elapsed time were. Based on some formula involving these factors, we were able to calculate our scores to see how we did. For the second year running, Dave & Vi came in first, which only goes to demonstrate that random events often involve repetition (the same team came in dead last out of fifty entrants at last April’s SCCA Cape Cod rally). Peter Walker and Meg Anderson placed next, and went home with a nifty spotless car wash system. In third place were Jim & Mary, who won a 1:18 scale model of a black GTA. The other rallyists got to choose from an assortment of merchandise that included AONE baseball caps and coffee mugs based on the order that they finished. No one went home empty-handed (or hungry or thirsty)!

Later on, Kathi brought out some Italian ices, which were greatly appreciated since the temperature was still in the high 80s. Eventually, we called it a day, fired up our sonorous Italian engines, and sped off in the various directions from which we came (some to catch the ferry back to Long Island!). Thanks, Pete & Carole, for putting on another fun Fun Run, and thanks, Tom & Kathi, for hosting a great post-rally cookout. Where were the rest of you?

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	A few shots of our mostly-red Alfas (and a Fiat Dino) taken at the Fun Run starting point
	As 11:00 nears, the rallyists begin to swarm
	Eager to get on the road (mainly because the breezes generated in so doing would cool us off), the contestants pay rapt attention to the rally instructions
	Rallymaster Marino demonstrates why they put the “Pete” in “compete” (his two children, to the right of him, are repetes)
	The Fun Run was the first road test of the freshly-rebuilt six-cylinder Ferrari engine in Fred & Missy’s Fiat Dino
	Alfa babes—Missy, Vi, Carole, and Meg (L-R) appear without their insignificant others in this obviously candid shot
	After launching all of the contenders, Pete always camps out somewhere along the route to take photos
	Peter Walker and Meg Anderson fishtail across the finish line in their Spider, the only non-red entrant
	Multiple Alfa Romeo and AONE banners greeted us at the rally’s end
	A few of the cars at the Fun Run finish in front of the stylish Lesko residence (Tom’s a talented architect, as is readily apparent)
	Tom’s talents don’t end with architecture, as he wows us with his expertise at the barbecue grill

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