#200

200 hits would have been a season benchmark for Cal Ripken.  NASCAR legend Richard Petty won 200 races.  200 mph is a speed benchmark for performance cars.  During my trip to Kraków, Poland back in 2012, I learned that Rynek Główny, the city’s main square, is one of Europe’s largest medieval squares at 200 x 200 meters.  For the computer gurus out there, you may recognize 200 as part of the HTTP code that denotes a successful connection.  Over 200 editions of the newsletter, it’s fair to say that we have made a successful connection, primarily via the Saturday morning gatherings and – just maybe - by the written word.

Back on April 2, 2012, the first newsletter was sent to a small e-mail list of enthusiasts that had attended the first gathering of what was then known as Hunt Valley Cars & Coffee.  The message was set to get people fired up about our new enthusiast community…and to announce that the gathering set for the following Saturday could not take place since our gathering area would be cut in half to supply utilities to the soon-to-be-constructed Eileen Fisher department store.  After 2 months of spreading the word about the inaugural gathering, we had the gathering and immediately slammed on the brakes.  Well, there have been no official cancellations since.  Momentum is surely back on our side. :-)  

We have gathered – with that one cancellation considered – 209 times over 210 Saturday mornings.  You may ask why the weekly newsletter edition total is 9 short of our weekly gathering total.  During our first winter – the winter of ’12/’13 - the newsletter took a break since it was considered the off-season.  Near the end of the winter of ‘13, Hunt Valley Cars & Coffee turned into Hunt Valley Horsepower and from that point forward, there’s so much going on throughout the year that there really is no off-season.  Full steam ahead!

When I think about it, I have seen many of you more than I have seen my own family in the Poconos since 2012.  Then again, we are all part of an extended family with bloodlines that span our region with a thread of common automotive passion that links us together.  Our automobiles may come from different generations and different continents but the enthusiasm remains the same.  

Thank you for reading 1, 2, 10, a few dozen or maybe even most of the weekly newsletters.  May there be many more newsletters on the way!  Thank you for being part of our extended family.  See you down the road!  

Editor’s Note:  Place this into the unique numerology file.  Our community is 4 years and 14 days old on April 14…or 4/14.