Where did this bunch of folks we call the Olympic Peninsula Region (OPR) Porsche Club come from? The obvious answer is that this group split from within the Pacific Northwest Region Porsche Club. But if the answer were that simple then there wouldn’t be much use in creating this page would there?
Most of us are familiar with the geographic layout of Puget Sound region. One way to look at it is to divide the region into two parts. The eastern part would include Everett, Kirkland, Bellevue, Seattle, Renton, Federal Way, Tacoma, … You get the picture, all the stuff on the east side of the Puget sound. The western part would include the area from Port Angeles and Port Townsend down through Bremerton all the way to Gig Harbor. Pretty simple right?
The Pacific Northwest Region (PNWR) Porsche Club originally included members in both the eastern and western parts of the sound. Knowing the area as I’m sure you do, you know that driving from one side of the Sound to the other involves either a ferry ride, a trip across the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, or a long trek down to Olympia.
The majority of PNWR’s members live on the east side and it makes sense that the majority of the club events are held there as well. But back in the 2003 an interesting thing was happening. There was a group of 10 – 15 families that lived on the west side of the sound and they seemed to show up at nearly all of the PNWR events. I’m told that this group became known as “The Far Siders”.
By now, you can see where this is going. The Far Siders had to make a trip of an hour or more each way to get to events. Take the length of time for the event and tack on a couple hours of commute and you have a long day. The Far Siders started organizing events of their own on the west side of the sound. (you could say, the better half…) As the Far Siders grew in number it became clear that there were a sizable number of Porsche owners on the west side. This was what initiated the process of forming a new region in the Porsche Club of America.
Thanks to the efforts of Alex Raphael, Randy Baisden, Gary Hoskins, Gloria Mellon, Brett Burroughs, and others, a new region of the Porsche Club of America was formed. Our little region grows stronger every day. As more people move to the west side of the sound the number of Porsche owners grows and our club grows too. We’ve experienced the growing pains that I’m sure all clubs go through. But slowly with the help of charter members and new faces as well, we are growing the size of the club and the base of experience required to keep an operation like this in business.
So let’s wrap this up with a request. If you’re reading this and you aren’t a member already, come join the Porsche Club of America. It’s easy, just click on the “Join Us” tab and follow the instructions. If you’re a member of the Pacific Northwest region but you live on the west side of the sound and you want to join the fun over here, drop a line to our membership chair who can help you get on the right track. Finally, if you’re already a member of the Olympic Peninsula Regions, we would love to see you at our next event.
Thanks for reading and we’ll see you out on the road.
