This is the Speedway crew, including Megan and Wendy who helped get us in the show and set us up.
With Terry now accompanying me, this boosted my spirits and we approached the show with twice the strength and enthusiasm. A professional photographer, Brad Bowling from Cars & Parts magazine (seen here laying across table!) struck up a conversation and we discovered we were both big movie fans, as well as beagle owners. An invitation to dinner at their house followed, reinforcing my belief that this experience had definitely turned the corner. Brad and Heather are quite a sweet couple who, with their beagle Nemo were fine hosts. The visit was entertaining and educational. Car shows are a new venue for us and each of them, along with their friend Rick (also a writer and photographer) gave forth gems of information that will help us in the future!
The weather was improving and my favorite car of the show that I mentioned earlier was uncovered. It was an original design by a guy named Joe Harmon http://www.joeharmondesign.com/
who built it out of wood. It was named ‘Splinter’, and was no ordinary ‘whittle job.’ He built a solid sculpted form, cast it to make fiberglass molds, then weaving cherry strips together to form intricate wooden sheets, pressed them into the molds along with special adhesives to produce the amazing body. Check out his site for the whole scoop!
One difference that stands out about this show is the reaction of the attendees.
More specifically, the recognition and understanding and appreciation that we built a time machine out of a DeLorean. These are ‘car people’, that REALLY like cars. Many of them attend this show in search of illusive car parts to complete their own projects. And by parts, I don’t mean fuzzy dice. I mean sections of steel body panels, rare antique wiring harnesses and raw materials to fabricate their own parts that either no longer exist, or never did! Many of them haul little wagons around with them, in hopes that they will fill it with that left front fender for their 1928 Model ‘T’ The recognition of ‘Back to the Future’ is there, but the prevailing sentiment seems to be, ‘You must have put a lot of man hours into this’ which is a common phrase, when they discover we are the owners and that we built it ourselves. After about the third time of seeming unknowledgeable about the mechanical aspects of our car, I snuck a peek at my owners manual in the glove box to look up the answer to the recurring question of ‘how much horsepower she got?’ I soon sounded like one of the crowd, proudly twanging “She got ‘bout 130 -at 5500 rpm, that is. Ain’t no racing car I recon, but she can sure git if she ‘unts to.”
Terry just smiles.
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