I received a waxy pamphlet with my brochure, a humble note accompanying the thick book that was given to each guest as they entered the event. “DEAR PEBBLE BEACH CONCOURS d’ELEGANCE FAN,” began the sheet. The proposition offered on the note was a challenge, an objective, a scavenger hunt. Reading through it, I decided within ten seconds that I was going to give all my effort to this scavenger hunt and, consequently, the prize. My dad and I were expecting to spend the day strolling along the rows of cars carelessly, however now I was in a contest, in the running, determined to win.
The Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, highly regarded as the single most prestigious and classical automotive event in the world, is not accustomed to a then seventeen-year-old boy dashing between pre-war Alfa Romeos and 1920s Duesenbergs, tweeting constantly with suspense and enthusiasm. Monterey Car Week is the closest thing car enthusiasts have to Mecca, and although I’m not particularly religious, there is absolutely something holy about seeing a Ferrari F40 behind a Ferrari F50 behind a BMW M1 idling in stop and go traffic. The historic racing at Laguna Seca was exhilarating and the Concours de Lemons was hilarious, but the Concours d’Elegance was the apogee of this automotive rocket. On the last day at the Concours I knew that I had a limited time frame to fulfill my mission and, as a winner, receive the Credit Suisse Historic Motorsport quilted vest and cap. In order to win I had to complete a scavenger hunt of finding and taking pictures of eight specific cars, then tweet them in a specific order with the caption “#TireMeetsTurf.” My dad and I entered onto the main field at ten in the morning, looking out onto the 18th hole of the golf course at The Lodge, where all the cars were magically displayed. The air was notably chilly as the fog was rolling out into Carmel Bay. I knew I had a limited amount of time before my chances were thwarted by the other tweeters. I started out for the first car on the list.
Within twenty minutes I already snapped photographs of the closest cars to the entrance, superstars of automotive achievement ranging from “Your favorite Alfa Romeo 8C in Class Z” to an “Indianapolis Roadster in Class V2.” Nowhere else has the caliber of car been so great, no other time have I been so worried of accidentally grazing a zipper against a door. For the first time that day I noticed my battery life, now well above half but slowly dropping. I was speeding through the list of cars as quickly and intent as Ayrton Senna through Monaco with confident that I would win and obliterate the competition. I took pictures of a ferocious Jaguar C-Type, an elegant Rolls-Royce Phantom II, and a judge reviewing a car, each one bringing me one step closer to my classy, limited edition vest. Finally, with the distinct artificial shutter sound of the eight-megapixel camera of my smartphone, I photographed the final car I needed, a winning Lincoln car on the show ramp. Now, with all eight cars in my phone’s “Gallery”, the battle was on between time, the other Twitter savvy at the Concours, me, and … What?
My phone’s 18% battery life.
Sitting on the main green in front of the main show ramp, I began uploading one by one my photos, careful to make sure they were posted in exactly the correct order. First the baby blue Alfa Romeo, then the hood ornament of a vintage British roadster. The screen slightly dimmed on my phone as the battery life dropped below 15%. Uploading multiple pictures onto Twitter is an energy and data exhaustive task, causing an excessive heat from the battery that I could feel in the palm of my hand. My Samsung Galaxy S5 was struggling. Despite my quickly deteriorating battery I was confident in my victory until, suddenly, disaster. My third picture failed to upload, prompting a notification on screen and a physiological shock throughout my body. Panicking, my dad and I moved from our position in front of the show ramp, along the side of the field, and up to the main lodge, hoping for a better data connection for my phone. Battery was now in the single digits.
Darting into golf pro shops and past multi-million dollar Lamborghinis I tried to find service, anywhere, somehow. I tried reopening the Twitter app and restarting my phone, but still to no avail. The small vertical battery icon in the upper right corner of the screen now had a sliver of dark red, indicating that in only minutes it would forcibly shut down. I was getting nervous now, thinking of the other people at the Concours, worrying that someone may have already won my vest. I tried every option I could, except, of course, one. It was crazy and it was dangerous. I was keeping GPS ability off the entire time in order to conserve battery, worrying that if I got to 0% my loss was guaranteed. I knew it would stretch my phone’s energy to the limit, but my options were few: either keep GPS off and still struggle with uploading, or turn GPS on and, with the slight window of time before my phone automatically shut down, try to upload all five of the remaining photos. At exactly 5% I turned GPS on and, with fingers crossed, tried one last effort.
Several weeks later I received an email from a marketing official of Credit Suisse, saying that she was very impressed with my Twitter photos. I was dying to know, is she contacting me to deliver a sentimental apology that I did not win or, perhaps, I won my new vest? It was silly, obnoxious, daring to think that I, out of the 15,000 attendees of the 2013 Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, would be the one to win the coveted vest. At the bottom of the email I read, on my phone that I used to take the actual photos, “Where can we ship your prize, and what size vest do you wear?”