We don’t know how we managed to pick the hottest day of the year to hold our funkana, but we did. It was HOT. We started out by meeting at Green Lane Park for a picnic lunch at noon on Saturday, July 20th. Fortunately we picked a nice shady spot by the lake, so we could all enjoy a nice, cool, relaxing lunch before heading to the Spring Mountain ski area for the “competition.” We believe it was probably around 2:00 till everyone arrived at the slope after a short drive on back roads from the park. Dick, Tom and I had set everything up earlier so we were ready to begin. We had put up a 12×12 canopy for shade, but decided we needed the DVC’s big one – like I said – it was HOT! So the guys got that set up and everyone had some shade to sit in while watching the “entertainment.”
We had four events planned for the competition. First was a blindfolded event where the driver was blindfolded and the navigator talked him through a course which included a 3-point turn. Everyone seemed to do fairly well with this event, except ‘maybe’ Bill and Linda Boorse. We think Linda misunderstood and was trying to have Bill hit as many traffic cones as possible (which you weren’t supposed to do). Plus she kept telling Bill to follow “Dick” – hmmmmmm – that might’ve been a problem too because Bill was blindfolded. You wanted a low score for this event – your time, plus penalty points for hitting traffic cones.
The next event was a bean bag and ring toss, where the driver and navigator tossed bean bags into a box and fan belts onto a stick. For this event you wanted a high score – the number of bags in the hole, plus bonus points for the fan belts on the stick.
The third event was a serpentine, where the driver drove through a figure 8 course while the navigator grabbed a cup off the first stick, replaced the cup on the second stick with the first cup, then placed that cup back on the first stick. All the drivers were really flooring it and kicking up the gravel after that second stick! For this event you again wanted a low score – your time, plus penalty points for missing a cup.
And last, but not least was the potty seat event. We had a very nice toilet seat, with the DVC logo, sitting on the parking lot. Tom would fasten a fake dog poo on the back car bumper. Then the driver had to back up and stop when he thought the dog poo was over the hole of the toilet seat. You wanted a high score for this event – 10 points for getting in the hole and 5 points for a “hanger” – on the seat.
After everyone had finished the funkana, we tallied up the scores to determine the winners. We had a prize for the best score in each event and a prize for the best score of all 4 events combined. The winners were as follows:
Blindfolded driver event: Louise Story *driver” and Dave Schwab “navigator” did the course in 1;12 minutes without hitting any traffic cones.
Bean bag toss: Dave Schwab “driver” and Gloria Schwab “navigator” with 3 bags in the hole.
Serpentine: Steve Albright “driver” and Sue Dougherty “navigator” did it in 28.7 seconds without missing any cups.
Toilet Seat: Paul Phillips “driver” and Evonna Phillips “navigator” for getting the poo in the hole. See note below.
Overall funkana winner: Dave Johnston “driver” and Chuck Denlinger “navigator”. Dave was driving Chuck’s TD – first time ever driving a TD!
Attendees were (in no particular order):
Louise Story, Dave & Gloria Schwab ,Dave Johnston, Chuck Denlinger, Jim (Chuck’s friend), Steve Albright, Sue Dougherty, Jim & Diane Sanders, Jeff & Robin Rose, Adam & Eva Ilnicki, Pat & Patty Cawthorne, Bill & Linda Boorse, Paul & Evonna Phillips, Dick Suffredini, and Jim Taylor stopped by for a little while as a spectator.
During the short trip from the park to the ski slope, Dave Johnston had trouble with his MGB. He has an electrical problem and the car was not charging. During the funkana, his battery was on charge and his car started so he could head home. Unfortunately he only made it up to the top of the hill, stalled it and then it wouldn’t start. A bicyclist came into the parking lot and told us our friend was broke down at the top of the hill. We told the biker to go back and tell Dave we had already left (haha), but said he was heading in the opposite direction. So Steve and Tom went up the hill and got Dave started. We found out he made it to within 2 miles of his house till his car died again, so he called his wife who came out and gave him a jump and he finally made it home. Sounds like an “O’Ward” to me!
A lot of DVC’ers have never experienced a funkana. We haven’t done one since our QVR days in Wildwood. I hope everyone enjoyed themselves as much as we enjoyed coming up with the games. A big thanks to Steve for picking up those DVC tarps from Dave Schwab so we all had much needed relief from the sun that day.
Note: We had three teams get the poo in the toilet seat hole, so since we had only one prize, we put the names in a hat and drew Paul and Evonna Phillips as the winner. The other teams who got the poo in the hole were Jim and Diane Sanders and Dave Johnston and Chuck Denlinger. By the way, next time you see Paul Phillips, ask him what he won…
Jaimee & Tom