It's Fiesta season in San Antonio, and that calls for one of the city's growing car meet organizations to host at the zoo. What I thought would be a cold and breezy day turned out to be a sweat-soaked damp Sunday in my thickest jacket from my wardrobe. Quite a bit was going on in the 'exotic' section of the lot that had me running left and right catching moments like a lion capturing his prey. Further up the lot housed common sports cars and a few oddballs for when I got bored of seeing the exotics.

The usual sounds of the zoo involve bells and whistles from the kid-friendly attractions. Apparently fireworks are standard in this area as far as I'm concerned. A roaring scene of cars with straight pipes dominated the audible atmosphere, so much so that normal zoo-goers were puzzled at the site's event in the parking lot wondering what the hell was going on. The action took place here for two hours. 10 AM to 12 PM precisely. There was initial hype for a supposed 'GT3' race car to arrive on-site for display, but due to the weekend hail harrowing the owner's plans arriving from Austin, they could not make it to Social Sundays in SA. This is in promotion for GT World Challenge America's event race weekend in COTA from April 24 - 26. From what I was told by the SRO representative at her vendor, a Ford Mustang GT3 was intended to replicate a Dollahite Racing entry granted the actual car stay in Austin for race weekend prep. Aside from this unfortunate absence of the Mustang GT3, the other vendors are kind as always. Prestige, The One Payments, Spotless, Ferrari, Espino, Abzmotors, and all the other ones I can't think off the top of my head. Some of you have neat freebies you give away.

The crowd is versatile when it comes to these meets. Normally a long line of people fill up a sidewalk to record show cars congregating out the lot and onto a public road to then upload the 'revving' moment on social media. Since the show area is next to the zoo driveway with city police present, there wasn't gonna be a way to catch anyone burn rubber out the area without notoriety. So why not lineup near the parking lot exit and have cars mildly rev their engines by request of a spectator? That's exactly how the crowd behaved in this one. They especially don't have to be on-foot to be designated 'spectators' for Social Sundays. They could be someone in a Audi RS7 going around the lot aimlessly showing off the sound of their V8T engine. Regardless, other show cars leaving the lot followed suite in the revving tradition long before the event's signature tradition was about to take place: a convoy cruise through the zoo grounds.

Similar to last year's outing, the first 40 participants who signed up to drive through the zoo grounds had to be initially lined up roughly in rows of 3 at the exotic show area in the parking lot. At 12 PM on the dot, the convoy was set to cruise slowly into the zoo and out next to the public parking garage where my own parked vehicle was coincidentally facing the convoy road at the time! Dumb luck for me to catch an instance of the last of the 40 cars in the convoy just as I was wrapping up my day. Well before this, the 40 participants gleefully left the show parking lot in fashion, giving an eager crowd on the zoo sidewalk a taste of a rumbling herd of luxury exotics, JDMs, American muscle, and a slice of regular people movers. I obviously wasn't gonna pay the zoo to see the convoy move inside the grounds because they were exiting at a public road where they could do whatever they want without being under a noise limit. Still, seeing them stroll to the end as I was tucking my backpack in my car gave shivers down my spine knowing I had company essentially waving "Have a nice day Mark!" before I got to start up my engine.

My thoughts leaving the parking garage?

Aside from the typical crowding near the exotic cars, this show had a great turnout for what was technically a huge lot stretching along to empty parking. In no way did I find the site short of attractions as the San Antonio Zoo is chockful of them. A kiddie train set, tour bus, tejano music, and an amusing gorilla statue are a few among the many signatures to the Fiesta theme ongoing in San Antonio for the month of April. There's definitely no better alternative to celebrating our heritage than at the Zoo, except if you also consider The Alamo. That might be a good idea for a car show site if the city is okay with it. We'll hopefully find out in the future if I don't get a hint from the organizers themselves. Stay dry if you're north of SA, reader.