Bear With Us
This article comes to us from member Steguis. Hopefully it will inspire us to get out, put the top down, and enjoy spring! -SF
As the weather starts to get warmer in the Northeast and the days slowly but surely get longer, many of us are once again excited to take our cars out, go to meets, hit the track and find any excuse possible to enjoy our cars. We are reminded of good times, hanging out with fellow S2000 owners, sharing our love for this amazing vehicle.
Late last year, Nick, one of the Metro NY COs, organized a fall cruise to Bear Mountain. As Nick put it, the purpose of the cruise was “To cap off a great season, a nice drive up the palisades followed by a good meal and a sweet ride home!” It was an incredible day, sunny with a nice cool breeze, and we had a great turnout of about two dozen cars. Many of us brought our significant others to share in the pleasure. It started out with the NY folks meeting up in Queens, NY then convoying across the George Washington Bridge to Fort Lee, NJ, where we met up with everyone else. After friendly introductions and the distribution of the fall cruise hoodies to commemorate this awesome event, we took to the streets and had a leisurely cruise up the Palisades Parkway (many of us who could with the top down).
It was an incredible 60 mile drive up on the parkway, which runs parallel to the Hudson river. The roads were smooth and winding and we had a great backdrop of trees in their fall colors lining both sides. We did attract attention of some state troopers as we passed by, but as soon as they realized we were just staying to the side and cruising, they quickly left us alone. As we moved further towards the mountain we were treated to gorgeous views of the surrounding valleys echoing with the sweet sounding exhaust notes from our cars. As you might expect, we turned heads everywhere we went. I had GoPro Hero HD cameras mounted on the front and rear of my car to try and capture what I could from the cruise while Cody (S~Factor Jr.) was in the passenger seat of a Civic Si taking photos of us along the way (video here).
Once we got to Bear Mountain, we had to cross a bridge taking us over the Hudson river and we all immediately recognized what a perfect photo opportunity this would be for us, so we all pulled over on the shoulder in one long line and the amazing spontaneous photoshoot commenced. We created a whole bunch of traffic because of this but despite us running back and forth taking pictures and basically blocking one lane of the bridge, people driving by gave us honks and thumbs up. Old and young, we all got the same reaction, friendly smiles and expression of admiration for our convoy. I distinctly remember one older gentleman who realized as we crossed the toll plaza leading up to the bridge that we were all together so he pulled aside to make sure we could all stay as one unit. When we finally stopped and he continued on his way passed us, with a thumb up out the window he yelled “beautiful cars guys”. Clearly the man has good taste!
From there we drove through some small towns, where we stopped people in their tracks as they looked down the street to find S2000s as far as the eye could see. We all behaved and weren’t doing anything stupid, just driving through making our presence known. It all ended with a final stop and lunch at Cracker Barrel where we then broke out in our own little groups to drive home. I think we’re all looking forward to doing something like this again in the near future and encouraging more of us to come along. The S2000 is a driver’s car with the heart of a true sports car. Spring is here. Time to dust the car off, saddle up and let the good times roll.
Truth.