Timing is everything.

This past weekend I joined a gathering of Porsche enthusiasts known as P.O.G or the Porsche Outlaw Group. I had heard, through social media Magnus Walker would be in appearance at the event. If you don’t know who Magnus is, he was the star of a documentary film titled Urban Outlaw, it featured his personal collection of Porsches and beautiful scenes of him blasting throughout downtown Los Angeles and the surrounding hills in his vintage 911. The film touched perfectly on the emotional connections of of us who’ve ever owned or driven a Porsche, especially the early 911’s. 

I headed down to the OMSI parking lot on my old GPZ to check it out. It was a perfect November morning. Meaning it wasn't raining!

Lots of cool cars showed up for the event. There was an excellent representation of new, vintage and modified Porsches on display.  A couple days later a friend noticed a picture a photographer had taken at the show on his Instagram feed. Guess who made it into the shot? It was perfectly timed. 

After I saw the photograph it got me thinking about timing. Like being in the right place at the right time.   When I look back on where I am today, a lot of it was just timing and luck. Just like the picture.

Perfect timing. Photo credit@ryansova

Perfect timing. Photo credit@ryansova

Magnus Walker

Magnus Walker

A gathering of Porsches

A gathering of Porsches

Back at the Track

I've had a busy summer full of trips to visit old friends and to work car auctions. So with a weekend at home, I headed out to the Portland International Raceway to watch the Sportscar Vintage Racing Association Vintage Car Races this past Saturday. It had been a few years since I'd made my way out there and this year did not disappoint. There was a great mix of cars and a couple even had a local connection to Portland.

If you've never been to Portland, the PIR is actually managed by the Portland Parks Department and is located 10 minutes from downtown Portland. It's also connected to the MAX, Portland's public light rail system. With the exception of temporary road courses built for one-off events, it is the closest racetrack located in or to any major city in the USA.

Along with Porsches, Corvettes, stock cars, MGs and other British racing cars; there were lots of open-wheel cars and a couple of vintage Indy cars. The one that I was most interested in was the car that Jim Clark last raced here in the States. The race was at Riverside in the Rex May 300.  It was 1967. Two months later, he would die in an accident in Europe. This particular car was built here in Portland, Oregon by the legendary car-builder, Rolla Vollstedt. Rolla built many of the cars which competed in the Indy 500 races of the '60s.

I also got the chance to meet two of my childhood racing heroes. Both Al Unser Sr. and Al Unser Jr. acted as grand marshals for the weekend's races. I have always been a fan of them both, throughout their storied racing careers. They were gracious enough to let me grab a photo with them. I got their autographs too.

Cars Yeah: Podcast 345

This past summer, I recorded my first podcast. It was fun and a really good experience.

Basically it started as a connection that I had made through LinkedIn. I noticed a guy named Mark Greene, also from the Pacific Northwest. We had some contacts in common. They were mainly collectors of vintage cars and guys in the business. So I reached out to him. We emailed back and forth. Then he asked, "Would you be interested in joining me to do a podcast?" I wasn't sure what I had to offer compared to all the well-known car guys that he had interviewed and recorded in the past. I felt pretty honored to be invited to do that. I thought to myself, I'm just another car guy!

So we went through the process. Mark did his magic on the editing side. Then early this fall, my first ever podcast hit the internet. Check it out here for yourself at Cars Yeah:

http://carsyeah.com/ourportfolio/345-steve-dorsey/.

Graphic by carsyeah.com.

A Week in Monterey

I just finished up a big week in Monterey, California. For those of you who are are not familiar with Monterey Car Week; it is what would be considered the Superbowl of car auctions. Not only are there six separate car auctions happening simultaneously throughout the week; there are the vintage races at Laguna Seca on the weekend, and then on the Sunday, the granddaddy of all car shows - the Concours d'Elegance on the grounds at Pebble Beach.

This year, I had the opportunity to be involved with a start-up auction with the JR Auctions team. We conducted our back-to-back auctions for 4 days in a row between 1 and 4pm; in a format that had not been tried before in Monterey till now. Our auctions took place on the grounds of the Monterey Plaza Hotel and Spa. The auction block offered our spectators a stunning and complete view of Monterey Bay. It was truly the most spectacular auction block I have ever worked. With the sun beaming down on hoods and hubcaps, clear blue skies above us and the ocean breeze on our backs... You get and appreciate the picture, even if you're not a car buff.

It was exciting to be involved with Jeff and Robert on this new venture. We offered over a hundred cars, of all varieties, old and new, priced from only a few thousand dollars to well over a million. We thought we might and came so close to selling the Porsche 918 Spyder. When it came down to it; this car was worth holding onto because with its high demand, they are hard to come by.

We got business done and we had fun. We learned a lot and got too much sun! I'm already looking forward to see what's in-store next year.