Archive for month: October, 2025

You are here: / / / October
, ,

2025 Dow Rally Recap

Sponsored By

This year’s Dow Rally visited Rhode Island and Southeastern Massachusetts and took place on a gorgeous Fall Day. Thirty drivers made their way around an interesting 50-mile course while their navigators attempted to spot the answers to intentionally deceptive questions. This year we had one car with three passengers and it was Erik and Daryl Dow and daughter Hannah – yes, the Dow family that the Rally is named after. Great that they always participate, driving Charlie’s 911, to honor Charlie and Martha – two of the founders (in 1959) of our PCA region.

Participants enjoyed a tasty lunch at Rachel’s Lakeside

This year many of the questions were particularly obscure (although every question was answered correctly by at least one participant) and the winning team answered 25 of 30 questions correctly. There were four competitors with 24 correct so the second-place winner was decided on a tie-breaker and it went to Kimberly Lynch. 

But the winner of the Rally was Lisa Van Gorder (Team name OK’man – very clever!). Lisa claimed she had not done any NER events before – proving that the Dow Rally is a great entry point for the slippery slope that is PCA.  We’ll have her on the track soon!

Rally winners Lisa Van Gorder and Kimberly Lynch

The Rally also featured two other contests. While the participants were waiting to start, they were given the chance to answer the question “What was your most amusing automotive interaction with the law?” The three best answers (according to the subjective scoring of the organizers) were then given the chance to tell their stories at the end point luncheon. Robert Gomes, Tom Tate and Adam Wells all entertained the audience with their tales but Adam was voted the winner by the crowd.

Adam Wells was winner of best story

Finally, our course creator Ann Strong picked Gary Hebner for taking the most professional line entering Rt. 6 to start the Rally.

Ann and Gary Hebner

Thanks to Ann Strong, to Anker Berg-Sonne for doing most of the work and to our sponsor Assabet Advisors.

/by
, ,

PCA NER Meets the Treffen at Sea

I want to start with an apology! Between planning and attending events, this post is long overdue. Now that I have that out of the way, I wanted to recap an amazing event.

PCA Treffen at Sea was an event that brought together over 900 PCA members on a cruise ship from all over the country. The cruise ship docked in Boston on the Monday of the long weekend September 1st.

Preparations began long before that. I attempted to contact the port authority, and simply received the run around. Phone calls were made, emails were sent but no one responded. I went to the Raymond L. Flynn Black Falcon Cruise Terminal, to investigate where we could setup our PCA tent and perhaps show some cars. When there are no cruise ships docked the place is a graveyard. Following that attempt we decided that all we could do was show up on the day and pray that we didn’t upset any authorities and give a good showing.

Come the morning of the meet and greet and events were still conspiring against us. With help from Vu Nguyen and Manny Alban we found a spot that seemed appropriate. With help from Peter Palermo, we setup our tent and began parking some cars.

No sooner than we had setup, we were approached by officials who began to tell us that we were not allowed to setup here. But Vu saved the day and all was copasetic.

Over the course of five hours we met and greeted what felt like all 900 people off the cruise. We handed out refreshments and gifts courtesy of Hagerty as well as information about NER.

 

The rest of the day went without a hitch. As always, I would like to thank everyone that volunteered to help by manning the booth or bringing their wonderful automobiles. Thanks to Glenn Champagne our President, Betty-Mae Mosley our Secretary, Peter Palermo and Kevin Moran our VPs of Communication, Rich Archambault, Gary Cooper and Ashley Romeo. Apologies if I missed anyone.

Many accolades were received on the day and we received a personal thanks from PCA national for putting on such a great reception. Including this from Vu PCA Executive Director.

/by