George and Paula Dolak wave for the paparazzi as they skirt along the Atlantic Ocean on their way to victory

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Perhaps the globe is warming, or perhaps it was just a fluke, but, whichever the case, January 7th turned out to be a perfect day for the AONE January Thaw Tour! We’re prepared to run this event nearly every year, but only occasionally are we granted sufficiently balmy weather falling on a weekend to make it worthwhile. Such was the case in early January, and on Friday, the 5th, we made the call: The Tour was on for Sunday!

At around 10:30 am, a bunch of Alfisti and four Alfas gathered in a Dunkin Donuts parking lot in Newburyport, on Massachusetts’ North Shore. George and Paula Dolak were in their Spider (top down!), Dave and Vi Pratt in their Giulietta (top up), Nick and Robin D’Eri in their 164S (with studded snows!), Greg Stidsen in his GTV (what great paint!), and Kevin and Diane Murphy in their BMW X3 (a Lesser Car that cost them points in the rally). Later, Stephan de Pénasse and his sons Alex and Christian would meet us at the restaurant, but that’s getting ahead…

The sporty winter wheels on the D'Eri's 164 shod with sporty studded snows

We weren’t the only ones out taking advantage of the wonderful weather. As we were chatting in the parking lot, we spotted a yellow Lotus Elise, a mid-‘80s 911 Targa, and a nicely-restored MGB wafting by. Out on the route, we saw more Porsches and MGs, and a lot of various motorcycles. Again, we’re getting ahead…

Part of the January Thaw Tour is a low-key gimmick rally, and directions and entry forms were distributed to the contestants. Basically, the rules were thus: If you brought an Alfa, you get five points. You get another point for each correctly-answered question. You lose a point for each mile that your total odometer reading differs from ideal. And you lose five points of you have to open the "Emergency Kit", which contains a map of the whole route, the cell phone number of the people who planned the junket (Dave and Vi), and the phone number of the restaurant where we were to end up.

Then, starting at 11:00, the cars were sent off at approximately three-minute intervals, in order of oldest to newest (on the theory that the newer cars behind could pick up the pieces that fell off the older cars ahead).

The itinerary took everyone up along the New Hampshire coastline and provided the tourers with some delightful ocean views, with a couple of jogs inland to get some questions answered. Dave and Vi snuck up ahead in order to snag some photos of the rallyists as they drove by.

The route went through an abandoned-for-the-Winter state park and included a stop at a beach for a brief walk to break up the drive. Eventually, it looped back around to end up at…

Saunders Restaurant at Rye Harbor, the rally’s destination. This is where the last January Thaw Tour finished, five years ago, and the food and view were so outstanding that we decided to go with a good thing.

We stayed for a leisurely lunch, and the rally scores were quickly tabulated. Several valuable prizes donated by the AONE Club Store were presented to the winners. Alas, there was a tie for first place: George and Paula had all of the questions right but were off by one mile; Nick and Robin missed one question but their mileage was spot-on. Next was Greg, hampered by the fact that he had no copilot, and then Kevin and Diane, hampered by the fact that they had no Alfa. (Hey, da rules is da rules!) Congrats to all of the "winners"!

We dawdled over dessert and coffee for a while before heading off mid-afternoon into the low Winter sun. ‘Twas a most enjoyable way to spend a Sunday!

Well, with the temperature plummeting into the single digits as this report is being typed, it sure looks like we chose the right weekend for the January Thaw Tour—brilliant blue sky and 50-degree temps. To those of us who got their Alfas out for a mid-Winter fling, Spring doesn’t seem so far away…