EuroSunday Thanksgiving to all:

It is Thanksgiving day and with the November EuroSunday only 3 days away, and the December 1st Cars, Kids & Toys event the following Saturday, it seems appropriate to give thanks for many things this year.

Thank you to Adam and Larry for all of their time and efforts to bring this group of car enthusiasts together, and especially for the Sacramento Child Advocates charity event.

Thank you to my family for understanding that my passion for cars requires getting up at 5am on EuroSunday morning to meet the "Breakfast Club" at Denny's just west of Hazel on Greenback at 6am.

Thank you to my parents for driving what are now classic EuroSunday cars as daily drivers while I grew up. I now appreciate why they didn't have A/C or good heat, and why not everyting worked all the time.

Thank you to my high school friends for driving mid 70's wood sided station wagons. I quickly realized that functional isn't always attractive. You could get 9 boys in the car, but you couldn't get a date.

Thank you to my father for buying me a VW Transporter (bus) as my first car. If the engine hadn't been in pieces in the back seat, I wouldn't appreciate the internals of a European combustion engine. I also learned the value of horsepower when I piled 9 boys into my own "date" magnet.

Thank you to my insurance company for telling me to purchase a '66 Porsche 912 instead of a '63 split window Vette as my second car, because the insurance rates would be much cheaper.

Thank you to my first employer for hiring me so I could afford to purchase performance parts for my cars and pay for speeding tickets.

Thank you to a certain "judge" for insisting that I join a car club so he didn't have to impound my car the next time I received a speeding ticket.

Thank you to SCCA for encouraging me to participate in "drivers education" events, even though I already (thought) I new it all. Those events have likely saved me thousands of dollars in speeding ticket fines and prevented me from totaling my car on the street so I can bring it to EuroSunday events.

And finally. Thank you to you all who actually make it to the end of my emails each month.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving and see you Sunday!

Mike Ritenour