Ever arrive at a car meet too early? Asking for a friend.

Did we mix up the date? Drive to the wrong address?

We arrived at last night’s Miata night to find a parking lot devoid of Miatas.

Doh, now what?

While sitting there alone awkwardly rechecking the event page, we heard the familiar sound of loosely corked Miatas.

Whew.

A few Miatas rolled in.

Then more.

And more and more.

The …

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And the all-important gas station photo from the drive home:

On occasion I have shown up very early and it can be disconcerting.

In reply to Tom1200 :

I admit, it was. I was like, Ummmmmm, hello? 

On the plus side, since I left home a little early, I missed the traffic getting to the interstate. 

years ago, C&C was about 5 minutes from my house. I'd intentionally show up early, snag the best parking spot, chat with whomever showed up in the first hour, then leave before the flat brim crowd en masse

I showed up a week early for a PCA meeting. One car was there. No one else showed up. The two of us realized we had the wrong night. 

There always has to be someone who arrives first at a party.

I showed up at the last Orlando GRM meet at 11am only to realize it was moved to 2pm :)

stuart in mn said:

There always has to be someone who arrives first at a party.

Not sure I’ve ever been that guy before. 

People still do car meets in locations they don't have permission for and then whine when someone does a burnout leaving and they get yelled at?

In reply to camopaint0707 :

Yeah, gotta respect the site: no burnouts, no two-steps, no stupidity. 

At the last Maryland Miata get together, I happened to arrive first.  So I walked over to the nearby Ace Hardware and bought a couple of overpriced car cleaning products.  

Don't understand the attraction of burnouts and donuts. So stupid. 

calteg said:

years ago, C&C was about 5 minutes from my house. I'd intentionally show up early, snag the best parking spot, chat with whomever showed up in the first hour, then leave before the flat brim crowd en masse

In my experience there's three waves to a C&C meet that runs from say 8am-10am (exaggerated for comedic effect):

6am-9am - Group 1 - Old guys with cool cars that want to get a cup of coffee, share stories, check out each others rides.  You'll see everything from air cooled porsches to an original Shelby Cobra (once...it was a great day, and cool owner) to other odd/cool/rare/old/valuable stuff.  They leave by 9am at the latest.

8:30am-10am - Group 2 - The people that will turn into Group 1 in 20 years, currently they are either raising kids or spending lots of time at work, or both.  They enjoy all the cars and drive their daily (new muscle car, BMW, Supra, etc) or 2nd car that is something cool (miata/240/mustang/etc) that is still somewhat reasonably priced, and may be either an autox/HPDE car or cool one-off project like a v8 volvo wagon with lots of nights and weekends into it.

10:15am-noon - Group 3 - Flat brims in drift cars, dude-bros in lifted trucks, stretched Hyabusas, and weirdly, guys from exotic or boutique dealers bringing something $$$ from inventory to show off that isn't theirs.  Oh and trust fund kids doing the same things.  This group struggles to arrive by 10am, and causes 90% of the trouble with burnouts and revving/making noise. 

JimS said:

Don't understand the attraction of burnouts and donuts. So stupid. 

Its a micropenis swinging contest.

In reply to Flynlow :

You are absolutely spot on, specifically about group 3. My next door neighbor was a trustfund kid with a Gallardo. I'd be back home, then onto the gym and around 11am I'd get a text from him "aren't you coming to C&C?"

In reply to Noddaz :

I haven't been to a grid or paddock that hasn't been better than every car meet I ever attended as a teenager.

In reply to Flynlow :

While not a fan of mornings, I guess I’m in the early group–well, usually. 

I went to C&C here in OKC in January of last year. Supposed to be 8-12. It was below freezing when we arrived at 7am and there were already 300+ cars there. 

camopaint0707 said:

In reply to Noddaz :

I haven't been to a grid or paddock that hasn't been better than every car meet I ever attended as a teenager.

This.  If I'm going to stand around in a parking lot and talk about cars, might as well race them too.  And the builds are so much cooler.

Yall aren't going to the right car meets then. There are some real gems that show up at the local ones here in Atlanta. And I'm not talking about Caffiene and Octane