Parking with the
competition
By
Jeffrey Fazio
DriveTime Columnist
Life
can get pretty boring if we do not try new things and I am always
looking for fresh ways to compete with my car. I’ve exerted a lot of
time and energy looking for different types of racing venues to enter,
but another way of competing has always been sitting there right under
my nose – car shows.
It’s
not that I was unaware of car shows. As a DriveTime
photographer I’ve shot several beautiful show cars. Having attended
numerous national drag racing events, I’ve wandered through the car
shows that inevitably eat up a big section of the pit areas there as
well.
The
simple truth is it’s just not something that ever appealed to me. My
interest in cars has always been driving them fast, not parking
them and wiping them down. You’re more likely to catch me changing
the spark plugs in my engine than waxing the exterior.
Not
surprisingly, my car is not particularly polished. It proudly wears
beat-up 15-year-old paint that is marred with the scuffs and scrapes
of many battles. I frequently joke that I like to drive fast so people
can’t see how bad the car actually looks.
I
have, however, always been impressed with the people that put tons of
money and hours of work into making their cars beautiful. Although
it’s not my thing, I can appreciate the endeavors of others in this
type of contest.
Just
over a month ago I entered my first car show. It was at an
international meet of Toyota MR2s in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. I
didn’t really expect to do well, but I figured I had more chances at
this car show than most since it was specific to my type of car. I was
at the event anyway so why not enter? I was surprised and delighted
when they announced that I won a first place trophy. It was a rather
inspiring moment and when I returned to Pennsylvania it was wonderful
to place that car show award on the shelf amongst the various racing
trophies.
I’m
the type of person that when I taste a bit of success at something, I
am tempted to try my hand at it a few more times. It was only a matter
of days before I was online searching for some local car shows to
enter.
That’s
when I came upon the Web site for the big Pottsville Cruise Night,
www.pottsvillecruisenight.com. This is the 13th year for
this event. The cruise, which includes a car show, has typically
showcased street rods and muscle cars. This event encompasses a
variety of activities over three days of the weekend.
This
year things changed a bit as they started the festivities a day early
on Thursday evening, August 10. To start off this year’s fun, the
first event was the "Generation X Sound Off & Car Show"
held at the Yorkville Coney Island restaurant. This was a car show and
stereo contest geared toward the sport compact and import cars. They
awarded prizes for best of show, best engine, best paint, best
interior, 3 places for loudest stereo & 3 places for best
sounding stereo.
The
event only drew about 20 cars which didn’t seem too bad considering
this was the first year for this show and it was on a weeknight. Even
with such a small grouping of cars, there were some seriously clean
cars there. It’s always interesting to see the different ways people
alter and personalize their rides. It didn’t take me long to feel
that I was a bit out of my league as some of the enthusiasts there
were obviously serious about car showing.
When
they presented the awards, I can’t explain how shocked I was when
they announced that I won for "best engine." This was a huge
surprise. This car show stuff is really kind of fun, but I could never
get into sitting around that much and/or preparing a car to
"show" level standards. Racing is just way too exhilarating
and addicting for me.
Maybe
when I’m older I’ll look into cleaning the car and sitting still
for a while, but until then, I’ll just keep moving.
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