VALT Cars & Culture Show, Berkeley, CA

[funkaholik]

On July 23rd, while I was in the middle of redoing my whole exhaust setup, I learned about the Berkeley VALT show from Jerry (#009 on 311s). He said that he was going to meet up with some other drivers of Japanese classics and all roll into the show together, and I was welcome to join them. Sounded amazing - the only catch is that the show was the very next day, and as already mentioned, I had no exhaust system. After a few more hours of cutting and welding, I realized that I wasn't going to finish everything that night, but the muffler was on, so I put a turndown after it and bought my show ticket.

https://flic.kr/p/2nB5Hw8

Jerry and I met up at a local gas station, fueled up, and then drove to Martinez to pick up my passenger. Even with just a turndown after my new muffler, my car was quieter than it was with the previous whole system. From there it was a straight shot across Highway 4 to Hercules, where at another gas station we met up with four other drivers. We had three Toyotas and three Datsuns, all of them roadsters.

https://flic.kr/p/2nB5M9W

https://flic.kr/p/2nB5GCK

https://flic.kr/p/2nB5Gzy

https://flic.kr/p/2nAZHMQ

A quick trip down Highway 80 and we arrived at the huge parking lot of Golden Gate Fields. There were two different ticket tiers on sale: $20 for premier parking, and $12 for outside parking. Jerry and I had talked about the fact that we would have gladly paid the extra $8 for showfield parking, but it was supposedly sold out. Our companions had paid the $20, however, and when we all rolled in together, they just told us to follow the car in front of us. Not being argumentative types, we were soon all parked together in the inner showfield.

https://flic.kr/p/2nGTJyP

https://flic.kr/p/2nB7bpC

https://flic.kr/p/2nB5MaH

https://flic.kr/p/2nB7bmr

Surprise! That black Celica has a small block Ford V8 and a 5 speed lurking under the hood.

https://flic.kr/p/2nB5GtM

When I first saw the flyer for the show, I thought it was an all-Japanese show. That was only one of the flyer styles, however, and this show had everything from classics to supercars, including a 1967 Lamborghini Muira and a Ferrari F40. Enjoy some decidedly non-roadster content...

https://flic.kr/p/2nAZHFn

https://flic.kr/p/2nB7bhD

https://flic.kr/p/2nGRsCq

https://flic.kr/p/2nB8hCJ

https://flic.kr/p/2nB8hzH

https://flic.kr/p/2nGMnVd

https://flic.kr/p/2nGTJzq

https://flic.kr/p/2nGTJpq

https://flic.kr/p/2nGMnRa

https://flic.kr/p/2nGTJwK

This was an awesome event with amazing cars and great people. Many thanks to Jerry for the invite and to Jerry and Jeanette for some of the photos. I'm going to keep my eye out for thse VALT shows in the future. Maybe we can get a bunch of Bay Area roadsters there next time.

[funkaholik]

My copilot from that day just put her videos of the drive up on YouTube.



And



Enjoy.