I would like to take this opportunity to say Happy Holidays and New Year to all of you and your families. It is safe to say that 1999 was a very good year for Golden Gate Goats thanks to all of you. My message this month will focus on the many things we have been working on to make our year 2000 even more interesting. We are definitely going into next year and the new millenium with our foot to the floor. Lots of club business to discuss with you so here we go!

Club meetings in Nov. & Dec. were extremely well attended and very productive. The Year 2000 Event Schedule you see printed in this newsletter is the result of those two meetings. To those of you that were a part of this, and you gotta be 50+ strong, we cannot thank you enough. Thank you for allowing me to throw in some sarcasm and humor while chairing these meetings. Once again a team effort got the job done.

Let's review for a second. The events listed in bold type are those events that are put on by someone else. Our official club events are listed in plain type (GGuys June we consider ours as we host it ). Please notice that all of our official club events have an event coordinator. This is no small feat! A special thanks to all of you that stepped up to the plate. With 200+ members (64 new for 1999!!!!!!! ) it takes this type of effort. As you take some time and review the event list, you can imagine the kind of effort it took to put it together. We have more events on Sundays to attract members that may have been unable to attend on a Saturday, including our anniversary picnic. We added a south bay wine tour that keeps us closer to home, once again on a Sunday. Our Y2K schedule is really diverse and really should have at least a little something for everyone. One of our goals each year is to increase attendance and participation over the previous year. This event schedule looks like a home run to me!

In an effort to increase meeting attendance, we have moved to the first Weds of the month at a restaurant. Some of our meetings will be at other locations than on the Peninsula, starting with our next meeting in Feb. John Phillips is looking into a location in the Hayward area. The change in location should get a different mix to attend. As many of you know, I resisted moving the meeting away from the Redwood City area for a long time. It was the non commute direction for some of you and very convenient for me. An East bay location may be very difficult for some of us but we will give it a try. Our goal with this is to move them around month to month. We will learn as we go. I will be more flexible than in the past as best I can. GOLDEN GATE GOATS IS READY TO ROCK AND ROLL IN 2000!!!!!

Club dues are now due and payable. We held the line at a $30 yearly renewal rate. Your quick remittance makes our job as board members much more pleasant.

Thanks to the many members that have already sent in their $. Club treasurer Will Valle plans to have a 1999 year end expense report ready for next months newsletter. This will give you an opportunity to see how your $ is spent and where it is going. Our club finances remain strong. Our history of reporting club finances to the membership has been spotty at best. I alone accept the responsibility for that. I spend my time on taking input from all of you and working with the board and members on making GGG a fun club for us all. I am acutely aware of where our $ is going too and where it comes from thanks to Jim Lent and Will Valle. They both do an excellent job. I never felt there was a need to do any sort of monthly or quarterly report. We have decided to do a year end report as a lot of $ is involved and we thought it wise to make a change in direction. Nuff said.

Very exciting news on our club web site. As I mentioned last month, Skip Hendricks volunteered to take on the task of totally redesigning it. With the help of Skip along with new member Dan Woolridge and the board, we were able to get the domains gggoats.org & gggoats.com !!!!! The web site will be under construction by the time you get this. Check them out! Now we can all remember our site address! This allows us to pretty much cover the GGG name. Dan was instrumental in securing us space on a new server. Thanks to all of you. I am stoked!!!!!!!!! Want to mention here that our goal with the site is to provide as much information on GGG as possible. Members privacy is of critical importance here. Want you all to be comfortable in knowing that we have that in mind. Our opportunities here are virtually limitless. The ultimate marketing tool. Bear with us on this as we are going to walk with this before we run. Very exciting news!

Just heard from member John Phillips that Vic Hubbard Auto Parts has offered to give our club a 2 hour tour of their warehouse and offer us a discount on purchases. They have been around for years and can count many GGG members among their customers. Sounds like a win / win deal to me. John is going to try to secure a date in early April on a Saturday. We will vote on adding this event to our club calendar at the Feb. meeting. I'm confident it will carry the vote. It can be a rain or shine event.

Once we have a date on this, I will start working on our Dyno Day. My plan with this is to have it as a stand alone event and not as part of a tech talk. This will simplify the scheduling dramatically. I am going to change the focus here as well. Am not looking for a minimum amount of cars to guarantee us a discount. My primary goal here is to make this happen. If we get 10 cars we save some dough, if not that is O.K. too. This year we will try to have our dyno day at Superior Dyno, in Fairfiled, on a Saturday. Last year I tried too hard to make this event be too many things. Back to K.I.S.S. this year. For any of you not familiar with KISS, it stands for Keep It Simple Stupid! Anticipate a late March or early April date for this, subject of course to Superior Dyno's schedule. Your car will be run on a Dynojet chassis dynomometer. This reads horsepower at the rear wheels. Please keep in mind the readings will be much lower than engine horsepower. Guesstimating your output is where the fun comes in! Cost is about $80. No harder on your car than taking it to the track. A word of caution along with some common sense here. Be sure that your fuel meets the octane requirement of your engine. Those of you with stock compression may want to find the nearest Union 76 station selling 100 octane or load up on the octane booster.You can of course retard the timing but your power will be down and you will not be able to tune without upping the octane level.

Let me take a moment and outline our club Wednesday night drag schedule at Sears Point. My plan is to pick 4 dates. One in April, June, August & October. I will do this as soon as the schedule is available from the track. So racers; plan to attend the dyno session and dial in your car for next years club race series. Should be a lot of fun. We will also look into a Saturday date for a test and tune at Sacramento Raceway park if there is enough interest. More runs, less $. Lots of time to discuss this. Those of you not interested in racing your GTO can come on out and cheer on your fellow members at any of these events. It is always more fun with more people!

In closing, I would like to once again wish everyone a fun and safe Holiday season. If Santa was a car guy, he would obviously drive a GTO; wonder what year! And remember, please don't drink and drive. Not preaching here, just talking as a friend! See ya next century!

I think it is safe to say that those of us who make up the Golden Gate Goats are automobile enthusiasts, specifically Pontiac; taking it down another level, perhaps GTO or Pontiac A body performance car nuts. We all admire the GTO, (by the way, the '65 is the best year.... sorry Jim, I couldn't help it). I think we would all agree that the mighty Goat is a beautiful, and unique design. Who among us has been able to ignore one when we see it drive by? They come in different styles and colors. Some are stock, some enhanced to increase engine or handling performance, but all are beautiful in our eyes.

Some of us are happy, not to mention lucky, just to drive a classic like the GTO. Others have a desire to go beyond the skin deep appeal, and get our hands dirty. I happen to be one of the latter type (which might explain why I haven't been to a GGG event yet, you see the '65 is far from being even close to finished).

Last year I asked Jim Lent if he thought a "Show and Tell" event would be well received. The answer is of course, "I don't know". My guess is that we have a number of people in GGG's who work on their own cars, are driving their prized owner completed restoration, or currently have a rolling project in progress. I happen to have a 65 GTO post that is in the process of a body on restoration. She's a mess right now, but she'll be beautiful when she's done (which is what keeps me going and sane). If you will, imagine a rolling body with an engine that is operational, sans doors, trunk, and the entire front end sheet metal then you have an idea of it looks like. Why would I want to offer it up as a "Show and Tell" example? It's simple. I believe some of our members may not have worked on their cars to this level. Members who would be interested in seeing a Goat in its underwear. There also may be others that have already finished their projects that could provide GGG restoration amateurs such as myself, some sage advice. Whatever the reason, you are all invited to a "Show and Tell" at the facility where I store my '65 and '70 GTO's. To make things a bit more interesting, I am hoping that others would be willing to share their projects. Let's not leave out viewing all the beautiful finished cars in the club I have admired on other occasions.

What could be better than a nice Saturday drive to blow out a little carbon, and take in some country side too? My Goats are located at the Frasier Lake Airport south of Gilroy, which is a nice hour drive from the north bay on the freeway. I hope to answer (and ask) questions regarding our cars, and I would hope that others would display their projects and partake in the fun too. If your project isn't rolling yet, then feel free to bring some pictures. I have a grille down there and will supply hot dogs, hamburgers and soft drinks to those who want to spend some quality GTO time.

This GGGoats club event has been scheduled for Saturday February 26th, which gives everyone plenty of time to plan. Rain won't be a big issue with this event as the cars are located inside, and typically the weather down there is different from the north bay (better).

Here is some of the work my sons and myself have done to the 65 so far. Rebuilt the engine (389) 030 over, balanced, 67 HO exhaust manifolds with 2.5 inch exhaust system, larger hydraulic cam with roller rockers, installed power disc brakes (front) and power steering, completely rebuilt front end suspension using PST components, with new springs front and rear. I am currently in the process of redoing some of the past bodywork that wasn't done very well (teaching myself so it's slow going). Here is your chance to view some projects that you may have been considering for your car.

Directions: 101 south past Gilroy to 152 east (don't take the 152 west exit which is before the 152 east exit). When you turn on 152 it is approximately 1.9 miles from 101 to the Frasier Lake turn off. You have to watch for it, it is not well marked. Turn right on Frasier Lake road and follow it 5.4 miles (mileage is approximate). You will see the airport on your left (east side of road). Turn into the airport property, and turn right at the first row of hangars. My hangar is on the south end of the row, number A2. Just look for the Goats. Parking will be on the grass in front of the hangars. By the way, pay attention to the 50 mph speed limit on Frasier Lake road, I have seen quite a few CHP on this little rural back road.

One additional thing. Since this is an airport, I will try to have an airplane there for anyone who might be interested in seeing one close up. I hope this peaks your interest, and I look forward to meeting many of you in February. Please give me a call to let me know how many are coming. This way I can plan ahead for the food.

On November 21, 1999, it was a nice pleasant day at the Good Guys show in Pleasanton, CA. I picked up a few bargains at the swap meet especially one in particular a brand new Ram Air III exhaust manifolds for less than retail. I went both days, but on Sunday I left a little earlier. As I was leaving the show on Sunday, I was on Bernal Ave. stopped in front of a newer Mustang waiting for vehicles to exit the fairground from Gate C. All of a sudden I heard screeching tires coming from behind me. I checked my rear view mirror and said "oh sh#$!" this guy is going to hit us (my nephew was with me on Sunday). Since I was stuck behind the Mustang I couldn't escape the inevitable collision and got smacked by the Honda Civic. I estimated the Honda to had hit me at 20-25 mph. I was in disbelief over what had just happened as I prize my Goat, but my nephew did have some choice words for the other driver. As you can see from the pictures my car sustained some damages, but the Honda took the brunt of the impact. Luckily my car didn't sustain any frame damage and will just need the exhaust system, rear bumper and license plate repaired. The officer at the accident scene stated that this type of accident is very common on Bernal especially during car shows at the Fairground. So, don't let this happen to you and be careful when exiting the Alameda County fairgrounds.