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use the same procedure to get back onto the freeway, but then I would have to stop on the side of the freeway, and jump out to rotate the shaft into the third and fourth gear plane.  But that meant I had to slip the clutch to start out in third gear.  It was a pain, but I managed to make good time anyway.  These little problems were an annoyance, but it is these sorts of things that make you get to know your car.  The most memorable part of the drive was driving through eastern Colorado on a two-lane road in a rainstorm.  It was raining hard, but the car gave one of those awesome experiences of being one with the machine when I drove about ninety miles per hour through the turns.  The turns weren't mild at that speed, and in the wet, but the car was totally communicative and I could feel exactly where the limit was and I could even drift the car under complete control through the turns in the rain because the car responded to every input in a predictable and behaved manner.  I pulled into my hometown in Colorado about ten at night of the second day of the trip, so I made good time considering the layover for the distributor cap.  I did have to pull over to catch a couple hours of shuteye here and there also, and I found those reclined seats were fairly comfortable to sleep in.   I arrived tired, but just in time to join the last (and most fun) part of a wedding reception party.  I had missed the wedding, and I was tired, but the party was fun anyway!  I left the car in Colorado and flew back to California, leaving the Europa they're for about six months.  The story of the trip from Colorado to California will appear in a future issue!
Well, those of you who missed the last GGLC meeting at Fantasy Junction missed a great venue!  What a great selection of cars!  However, there was only one Lotus there, a small Formula car…don't know what Formula.  I thought the prettiest car there was a Jaguar E-type roadster, and the place was packed with awesome cars.  Thanks to Jon Rosner for setting the venue up for our meeting!  The meeting this month is at my warehouse in Burlingame.  Our esteemed editor always gives extremely confusing directions for how to get places, so here is the simple way.   My shop is one block north of the Airport Hyatt Hotel, on Old Bayshore Highway just south of SFO.  Take Broadway or Millbrae exits (just south of SFO) east to Old Bayshore Highway, and look for the Hyatt, or the Shell station across from my warehouse.  I'll have a Lotus on the side of the street as a marker.
By the way.  I was just reading my Pantera club magazine (I have a Pantera also), and now I know why people think Pantera owners are different.  I read a story about a Pantera owner showing his car at a nudist resort!  I couldn't even believe there was a small picture of a couple naked guys with the Pantera (thank God it was a small picture).  John Zender, don't get any event ideas.
In the March Chapman Report, I started telling the story about the 1973 Europa I bought from the original owner in West Virginia, and I left off where I flew out, checked it out, paid for it, and started the long drive from West Virginia to California, with a long stop in Colorado.  Sounds crazy, but remember, I brought my toolbox on the plane with me, so I was prepared.  The car ran great as I left the seller's house, for about 100 miles, when it quit running!  I got my tools out, but I couldn't get it started.  It had spark at the points, but none at the spark plugs.  Everything looked fine, but it wouldn't start, so I had to call for a tow to the nearest town.  It was late afternoon, but 
luckily a nearby shop looked at it.  We figured out after much trial and error that the distributor cap was bad, even though it had no cracks or visible problems.  And they had no Lucas parts on hand, so the new cap had to be ordered.  I had the pleasure of staying in a cheap motel until the next day when my part arrived.  Well, a day lost, but I was back on the road.  I drove about 400 more miles without a problem and I realized for the first time just how comfortable Europas really are.  I cruised around 80 mph and didn't get any speeding tickets, but once, I missed my exit on the freeway, and I made the mistake of backing up for a couple hundred feet on the side of the freeway to make the exit.  About ten minutes later the highway patrol stopped me.  One of those good buddy ^%.&* truckers called me in to the cops.  I've had truckers call me in for speeding before on their CB's, so you have to look out for that when speeding these days.  That and people with cell phones.  After that ticket, I was off again.  I had another breakdown about half way to Colorado.  For some reason, I lost the ability to get the car into gear properly.  I could move the lever forward or back and get third or fourth gear, but the side-to-side movement of the lever didn't do anything.  Had I known the car, I would have known that a small tension pin had worked its way out, and I would have fixed it easily, but not knowing, I decided to soldier on.  I only had about a thousand more miles to go, and I knew I would have to stop a few more times for fuel and maybe some shuteye if I got too tired.  So I learned a system of coasting to a stop near my destination, then jumping out of the car with the engine stopped and the tranny in neutral, then rotating the shaft on the back of the tranny by hand, then jumping back in and starting the car with the car in gear and clutch in to get started in first gear.  I could then only shift up to second, but that worked, since I only needed those two gears near my stopping point.  I would 
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