[RallySnake]

Slither,

What did you play? I was a flute/piccolo/sax/clarinet player for years in bands and orchestras, until I started building this car. Living on the edge automotively is much more exciting than living on the edge musically.

The main thing that's changing in the valley is the prices of the homes. It's very hard to find anything under $300K anymore. A nice house is at least $450K. Values have doubled in the last two years. My wife and I offered $425K on a "fixer-upper" in a nice Chatsworth neighborhood last month. It was in terrible shape, yet it sold for $519K! It's just rediculous.

Yeah, I like it here. So many car activities that I cannot do half of them. I focus on rallies because they are the most fun for the expense involved. I run the 90 minute First Friday Night Rally in North Hills every month and the four Monte Carlo Rallies every year. I try to get to the Tri-Counties Cobra meets in Ventura because it's fun to talk with other guys who built (or are building) their cars. I do like to go to at least one of the Ford meets to talk to Cobra owners and buy a new shirt, each year. I run the occasional Solo2 event at Hollywood Park or El Toro. I sometimes go up to El Mirage to see the Land Speed boys do their thing, to Irwindale for the circle track stock cars and California Speedway for NASCAR events. I've only been to Pomona once for the Winternationals NHRA finals. They're up to 7,000 horsepower and 325 miles an hour in the quarter mile, now. What's not to like?

There are so many events I cannot get to, like the weekly meets at the Northridge Flames restaurant with some great hotrods and custom cars every Friday night. There are huge hotrod meets at least once a month in the area and I've been invited to exclusive car meets that happen once a month. There is the Old Town Pasadena car meet every week, too. Then, there is the Shelby Cobra Club that meets every month. There's always somthing going on at the Peterson Museum and every weekend at Los Angeles County Dragstrip. It's not far to Willow Springs or Buttonwillow road courses, either. There are Mopar meets and other brands too, that put on huge shows at Woodley Park in the summer and, of course, the annual new car show at the convention center every year.

The terrain is fantastic and diverse in this area, where the mountains meet the ocean. There are amazing canyon roads with rock formations, waterfalls (in the spring) and mountain views. On our rallies, we drive the best of them and also see interesting homes, movie sets and sports cars. For a car guy, there's just no place like SoCal.

Paul