I know that its cold outside here in Northern CA, but ZONC (Z Owners of Northern California) is hard at work preparing fun drives for all of you Nissan enthusiasts.  This run down to San Simeon (Hearst Castle) will once again be in held in conjunction with the NSX Club of America and is to take place on the 13th-14th of February 2010, President’s Day weekend (3 day!!).

This year will be slightly different than last year as the tours of the Hearst Castle will be separate from the ZONC event.  Meaning that those who wish to tour the castle or partake in any of the other amazing events down that way will need to book an extra night on your own.  I’m assuming this is so that no one is tied into something they don’t want to do; freedom to do what you want on the trip!

See the ZONC flyer below for more information and feel free to contact them on their site if you have any questions

Just to remind all of you about the event THIS WEEKEND!!!!

Update: There is a sign up sheet of sorts on MY350Z.com to get a semi-accurate headcount as to who is attending.  Again the great folks at ZONC insist that you bring cash with you if you want to have lunch at Poppy Hill (restaurant) and for the gate entry fee for 17 Mile Drive!!  See the updated flyer below for all of the info.

ZONC will be hosting the annual Monterey/Pebble Beach Meet and Ride this year on Saturday, September 19th.   As usual we will be meeting at MY Nissan in Salinas, CA to gather most of the group before heading into 17 Mile Drive and then to lunch at Poppy Hill in Pebble Beach.

The event itself is free but there is a charge for the lunch if you wish to attend, there is also as $10 fee to drive on 17 Mile Drive itself but this is included if you decide to buy lunch.  See the ZONC flyer below for further clarification.  This is a really fun drive to make as you see tons of Zs and Gs make their way through some of the nicest beachfront neighborhoods on the west coast.

There will be more info to come in the next week or so as we set up a caravan from Z Car Garage to MY Nissan in Salinas so stay tuned for that.

Make sure you check out the post from last year to see all the photos we took.

Link:  Pebble Beach Fun Run 2008

Link:  ZONC.org  (Z Owners of Northern California)

Link:  MY350Z.com Info and Sign-up thread

(click on image for full size)

I wanted to post this while the everyone was still jazzed from the turn out at last weekend’s Treasure Island caravan.  ZONC will be hosting the annual Monterey/Pebble Beach Meet and Ride this year on Saturday, September 19th.   As usual we will be meeting at MY Nissan in Salinas, CA to gather most of the group before heading into 17 Mile Drive and then to lunch at Poppy Hill in Pebble Beach.

The event itself is free to join attend but there is a charge for the lunch if you wish to attend, there is also as $10 fee to drive on 17 Mile Drive itself but this is included if you decide to buy lunch.  See the ZONC flyer below for further clarification.  This is a really fun drive to make as you see tons of Zs and Gs make their way through some of the nicest beachfront neighborhoods on the west coast.

There will be more info to come in the next week or so as we set up a caravan from Z Car Garage to MY Nissan in Salinas so stay tuned for that.

Make sure you check out the post from last year to see all the photos we took.

Link:  Pebble Beach Fun Run 2008

Link:  ZONC.org  (Z Owners of Northern California)

I want to start off by thanking everyone who showed up for the ZONC Z Car Corral on Saturday.  It was a pleasure to see all of you!!

The weather was perfect early on Saturday and I was pleased to see that we had 8 cars a the shop ready to join us on our caravan down to Laguna Seca to meat up with the rest of the group.   Unfortunately the most of the drive to the track takes place on Highway 101 so there isn’t much room for spirited driving, we still managed to get to the track in under an hour and a half.

Once arriving it seems like the rest of the car clubs enjoy getting up much earlier than ours did because all of the other corrals from Porsche, BMW, Ferrari, and others were already nearly at capacity.  Porsche had the most cars by far, easily understandable because they were the featured marque this year.  When will it be Nissan/Datsun’s time!?!?  Are you gonna show up when it happens?  I sure am.

While the practice sessions were underway in the morning hours we walked the paddock area in search for automotive gold.  There are amazing cars at every turn at this event, and you don’t even need your sense of sight to appreciate them.   I can’t even count the times that our group stopped by a running car just to listen to the engine note and to smell the burning race fuel.

After lunch we settled into our seats just outside of turn four to enjoy the racing.  While we appreciate the older racing cars that were up for the first few races, we were simply patiently waiting for the last two races of the day which were the 1964-1971 FIA Mfg. Championship cars (mainly Porsche 917s) and the 1981 -1990 FIA Mfg. Championship cars and the IMSA GTP cars.

You can imagine that when seriously priceless cars are raced that the track time is little more than glorified pace laps,  NOT TRUE!!!!  The cars were wheel to wheel in every sense and there was certainly rubbin and bumpin going on.  The drivers wanted to win, after all when would all of these cars ever be on track again together?  It was truly a sight to behold.

I have found a video of the winner of the IMSA GTP race and it can be viewed after the “read more”.  The video is taken from inside the pilot’s driver’s helmet.  I want one of these cars.  There is also a gallery of the photos that I took on Saturday (the only day I attended unfortuantely.)  I will try to find photos from Sunday from someone who attended.  Hopefully we can get our group numbers a little bit higher next year to show how much support is out there for Nissan/Datsun products.  See you there.

(the photo below was of a really clean 240z that was just sitting by itself in the vendor’s area, we had to check it out.  haha)

Complete gallery and video after the ‘read more’

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The Z Owners of Northern California are hosting the Z Car Corral tomorrow at Laguna Seca for the Rolex Monterey Historic Automobile Races.  That was a mouthful.  We will be meeting at Z Car Garage tomorrow morning at 8:00am sharp to form up the caravan and we will be leaving shortly afterwards.

We ask you all to show up as close to 8:00am as possible so that we can leave on time.

You can email me here at ZCarBlog@gmail.com if you have any questions.

Thanks!!  See you tomorrow!!

Link: ZONC Website

Link: Official Monterey Historics Website

And just to get you all a little more hyped up about tomorrow, here are a few more pictures from last year.  These are just a few of the vintage Trans-Am cars that attended last year, this race group was great to watch.  Enjoy the pictures.  (more after the ‘read more’)

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