| The first Sunday, the 8th of April 2002 was indeed a good day in the car world of Martin. All though I took over a hundred photos I still couldn’t describe all the incredible cars I saw that day. I have seen many of theses same types of cars before, and even a few that were exactly the same ones I had seen before in the past, and luckily there were also some I had never seen before. Nevertheless, I always feel an incredible rush of emotion when I see some of the cars I saw that day. One in particular was the Pagani Zonda. Actually, there was two. One was all carbon graphite with no paint, and the other was a deep sparkling blue, both with a monstrous 7.3 liter motor! Now, of course I am partial to Pagani cars; let me explain why. I arrived a little early for the show and there was not much going on, but then I heard the blue Pagani fire up! Damn, what a spectacular rumbling idle. Naturally, I got closer and I saw a man I thought looked familiar. To me this looked like Mr. Pagani himself. I had read an article about him in Car and Driver about four or five months ago and I could luckily remember what he looked like. I started to get really excited at this point. This man parked the car and then walked over to his wife and started chatting. So I went over to where he was to make sure he was who I thought he was. I heard him introduce himself to a man in passing and sure enough he said the words “Pagani”. So, I pumped my ego and calmly introduced myself to him. My Italian isn't stellar by any means, but I have enough knowledge of the language to where I can keep up a conversation. So I introduced myself and then I complimented him on his cars. I told him I was an avid "car nut" and why I was in Italy. I chatted a little bit with him and his wife and then we went our seperate ways. Afterwards I was upset at myself for not trying to "angle" some kind of way into getting a job. So twenty five minutes later I talked myself into it. I went over to him and said that if he needed someone to clean his factory or whatever, I would do it. Then I gave him my cell number and after he said thanks and his wife said "Che carino" , roughly translated as "what a cutie", we said goodbye and that was it. Well, no call yet, but at least now I won't beat myself up for passing on a golden opportunity. |
