Giant parking lot with few lights suitable for meets

[avriette]

I spoke with Julian about the parking lot at Potomac Yards movie theatre. He said that they used to meet there until there were too many cars, and the ownership told em to stop.

I was there just by my lonesome the other night, with Sandy. I was trying to explain (she'd just read a SCC article on the internals of transmissions and had dozens of questions) how you can shift, safely, without using the clutch. I also wanted to show her double-clutching (which was really just more academic than useful), and pre-loading the clutch for a faster launch (she has started to get into the stoplight speed contest thing, unfortunately).

I noticed an Alexandria PD cruiser sitting in the lot, so I drove over there, pulled up on her passenger side, rolled down the window, and explained that I was "teaching my wife to drive." The APD officer said "great, this is the place to do it. have fun."

So we pulled over further into the south lot and did a couple of oval circuits, clutching, not clutching, slipping, and so on. Never got above 30 mph (there's not a lot of room unless you're willing to drift). Then some ass in a tercel who had to be 150 years old pulls up and starts screaming at me, "what are you doing?!" I explained I was teaching my wife to drive stick. He threatened to call the police. I said "hey, she's right over there. please, call her." He was furious. He called his security person, who is moonlighting as security, but is actually an APD cop by day. I got out of the car, shook hands, introduced myself, explained the situation, and we went over to talk to the lady APD officer. She told him she had said this was a safe place to do it. The guy said "well, you can't do it here, the management won't let you, we had a guy flip into the pond a while ago (!!!)." I said, okay, that's fine, we'll leave, but would you rather I taught my wife to drive a stickshift on route 1? Where can we do this safely?

The cops congregated for a few moments, and decided on a place that was equally safe, and had zero traffic. Apparently, there's a DOD building that is vacant (and for sale) with a HUUUUUUGE parking lot (it's got to be at least a mile long) and very few light poles. They bulldozed the parking blocks, too (you can see the scars on the pavement where they were).

Anyways, if you head from Alexandria down Eisenhower Ave, past the movie theatre, over the bridge, and go to the point where you swear you must have missed it, it's right there. There are three driveways, two are chained, one isn't. There is SO much room there. You can see that it is used for "practice driving" as there are plenty of RWD squigglies on the asphalt. It's plenty smooth and everything.

You might consider having a look if you're in the NoVA area. If this isn't the place to post this, I apologize.

[WRXWagon2112]

I know that place. It used to be home of the U.S. Army Material Command. Guess they left it for a better building.

I used to practice roller hockey in there on the weekends many years ago so I can atest to the fact that it is HUUUGE!

Good idea to use it as a meeting place. I never mentioned it before because I thought it was still a DoD-leased place and I'm sure they would never be cool about a car club meeting there. Security and all, right?

But since they're gone ...

--Alan

[complacent]

I know exactly where this lot is... I wonder if there's someone we can call to get permission to use the lot? Would make a great caravan take off point to HT's as well. The exit for 95 is just up the road a piece

[avriette]

I know that place. It used to be home of the U.S. Army Material Command. Guess they left it for a better building.

I used to practice roller hockey in there on the weekends many years ago so I can atest to the fact that it is HUUUGE!

Good idea to use it as a meeting place. I never mentioned it before because I thought it was still a DoD-leased place and I'm sure they would never be cool about a car club meeting there. Security and all, right?

But since they're gone ...

--Alan

They are *seriously* gone. The building is being demolished. They're taking the insides out with heavy machinery, I think they're gonna implode it. And, APD told me to go there, afterall. Because, you know, it's safe and all.

[Sabre]

Thanks for posting this up Alex! We've been looking for a new spot and this sounds like just the ticket.

I'll try to swing by to check the place out. Hopefully there is a sign that has info on who owns the property so that I can give them a call

[zaxrex]

Sign still says area under DOD surveillance. APD uses the far north-east corner for motorcycle maneuverability training.

I'll see if any of the detectives here can get some good info.