Article appeared in "Spitfire and GT6" magazine

Pensacola British Car Beach Bash

April 26th, 2003

John & Bette Bolton 1979 Triumph Spitfire 1500	Mike & Cherie Japp 1977 Triumph Spitfire 1500	Rick Lenoard 1980 Triumph Spitfire 1500	Doug Kirkley 1979 Triumph Spitfire 1500
Bill Hassebrock 1971 Triumph Spitfire Mk4	Phil & Kim Vessenmeyer 1978 Triumph Spitfire 1500	Spitfire row	part of the show area, east end

The Panhandle British Car Association had another successful show this year on Pensacola Beach, Florida, just a few feet from the white sand beaches of Santa Rosa Island and the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Our show featured 123 British cars sitting pretty in the Northwest Florida sun. It was a very nice day with swift breezes coming off the Gulf and temps at the beach were around 80 degrees. It's not as hot as south Florida here. We are at the same parallel as Jacksonville, Tallahassee, Mobile, Biloxi, and New Orleans.

There were six Spitfires this year and unfortunately no GT6s. Two Spitfire owners traveled far so I want to express my appreciation to them: Phil and Kim Vessenmeyer came from Montgomery, Alabama for their second visit to our show and Doug Kirkley and a friend came from Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Thank you very much!

Four Spitfire owners are local to the Pensacola area: Bill Hassebrock, 1971 Spitfire Mk4; John Bolton, 1979 Spitfire 1500; Mike Japp, 1977 Spitfire 1500; and Rick Leonard, 1980 Spitfire 1500.

The People's Choice awards were: 1st Place: Doug Kirkley, 2nd Place: Bill Hassebrock, 3rd Place: John Bolton.

Please consider traveling to our show held every April on the 3rd Saturday. I would like to see much more Spitfire and GT6 involvement at our show. The club provided a large tent on the show site for our guests to rest in the shade. The white sand beach is just a few feet away. The fishing pier and all sorts of shopping opportunities are within a short walk of the show site. This is a very popular part of Pensacola Beach with many people enjoying the beautiful surf and sand that the island has to offer.

I would like to see GT6s and Mk1, Mk2, Mk3 Spitfires at our show because they are more rare. We have not had more than one GT6 at our show since the late 1990's. A GT6 won 1st place in 2001 and another won 2nd place in 2000 and 2002. Therefore you can see that attendees at our show really appreciate the Triumph GT6.

For more information about our show, please see our website. Pictures of all cars attending our show for the past three years, the winner's list for each show, a registration form, and a map with directions to get here are all on our website at http://www.pbca1.com/. Pensacola Beach tourist information is located at http://www.pensacolabeach.com/.