On Saturday, Steve & Terri Besore in their 50 Chevy PU, friends of the club Rick & Kim Fernau in their 79 Corvette and former club members Frank & Rose Svancara in their 40 Ford Convertible joined Michelle & I for the drive over to Alpine AZ. for the 9th Annual Blast From The Past Car Show. The weather was great, running in the mid 70s with gentle breezes keeping the temps even in the sun down in the moderate range. I am guessing that the show drew a bit more than a hundred entries. Frank & Rose picked up a 1st place in the Convertible Class and Rick & Kim had a third place in the 1949 and newer Production Car Class. Michelle & I were very pleased to receive the 1st Place award for the 1949 and Newer Modified Car class.
Larry & Brenda Besore and Dave & Ann Bennett were scheduled to make the run up from the valley but car problems kept them both home.
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Blast From The Past!
Next up will be the Cruizin the Rim Show in Show Low on the 2nd & 3rd of June.
Steve & Terri Besore joined Michelle and I for the run down the Rim from Show Low to Payson, AZ where we met up with Larry & Brenda Besore and former club members Jeff & Vicky Bacon and Frank & Rose Svancara. Also in attendance was Paul & Judy Nolte who were up in Pine working on their cabin, they came down to join us for lunch.
The weather could not have been too much better! Mid 80s, sunny skies and light breezes to help keep the temperatures down in the Casino parking lot.
Saw a number of old friends that we had not seen for a while and met a number of new folks that were very interested in all of the cars. Frank & Rose and Michelle and I won Top 20 Awards chosen by peer voting. The Best 49 and later MOPAR was won by a beautiful 1964 Plymouth with a 426 Hemi. Also of note was the 1956 Ford Victoria Hardtop with a 427 cuin SOHC sporting Hilborn EFI. All in all a very nice group of cars in the field of about 200.
Next up for Michelle and I will be the usual round of White Mountain car shows, Blast from the Past in Alpine on May 27, Cruizn The Rim in Show Low on the 3rd of June, Holbrook on the 10th of June. Round out our summer will be the Big Bear Fun Run in Big Bear, CA on the 9th -13th of August.
Last weekend while Michelle and I were driving around the state, Alan & Cheryl Mitchell and Charlie & Danise Cover were down in Tuscon driving a quarter of a mile at a time at the Tucson Dragway Reunion.
Alan brought down his 1939 Chevy Gasser Coupe, Blown BBC sporting a new Turbo 400. Charlie had his 1937 Ford Street Rod, powered by an injected LS3/4L65E Plug & Cruise package from Chevrolet Performance.
Alan & Charlie at the Track
In Alan’s own words…
“Charlie ran test & tune and turned a best of a 12.3 or 12.8 (I think) . He made 4 or 5 passes trying various techniques at burnouts and shifting. By the way the Speed Sport guys were all over his car. They totally loved his car as well as every female that walked by. As Charlie said, he did not realize he built a “chick magnet”.
As for us, after all the changes we ran a best of 10.8. Not what I expected but all the new parts worked good. Was entered into the eliminations, but being the rule follower I am, I had installed an engine diaper which held in a lot of block temp and thus heat-soaked the starter when we were in staging getting ready to run, so had to withdraw. So will get rid of the diaper, and install another battery. The driver did “ok” with the new parts, have a few little bugs to work out but nothing big.
Weather was terrible with winds in the 20mph range, no track prep and lots of dust so track was greasy. All in all good times, nothing broke on either car and all was safe. Looking forward to our next event, don’t know where yet. Maybe next year we can get a few more cars out to Tucson for T&T. Tech was pretty easy so with just a few checks we should be able to get more cars on the track.”
I was quite happy to see the kind of times that Charlie was turning. I have the same drivetrain in my 1940 Ford Convertible build. Looks like it will be a pretty fun street machine… 😎
I would like to thank Alan for sending me the photos and his write up. The club has been doing a lot of very neat things lately which Michelle and I have not attended due to our living 180 miles away. It would be great if more members would send me their photos and some notes on the activity that they attended.
Michelle and I will be in Payson this Saturday for the car show. We are not entered, just coming down for the day to see our friends…
One of the more fun car things that you can do in Arizona is to participate in the annual Route 66 Fun Run from Seligman to Topock Arizona following one of the longer remaining stretches of Route 66. This was the third time that Michelle and I made the run, and this was one of the best ones yet. As I recall the total entries numbered close to 900, which did not take into account all of the folks that made the run without signing up. There were several large Corvette and Mustang clubs in attendance including a group of 24 Mustangs driven by French citizens from Paris. A large number of Germans were aboard a variety of Harley Davidsons. The event has become quite popular with both the Australians and New Zealanders as well.
This year Michelle and I traveled the Mother Road with a group of friends from Show Low. We all met at the Mustang Gas Station on the corner of Rt 60 & 77. Making the trip with us was John & Jan Corder in their red Mustang Coupe, James & Sharon Johnston in their Chevy SUV, Ed Turner in his 1956 Chevy Wagon, Tom and Connie Kakavas in their white Corvette Coupe, Dave and Lydia Larson in their black Mustang Convertible, Jim Morse in his white Thunderbird, Bob & Linda Shultz, in their Dodge Ram Diesel Pick Up, Paul Edwards & Lynn Felton in Paul’s yellow Cadillac Hard Top, Sylvia Carruthers in her Honda Coupe and Dan Goude in his Nova. Terry & Sheila Ringey in their orange Boss Mustang Coupe, met us at the Cracker Barrell in Flagstaff.
Michelle and I were leading the group on the 1st leg of the drive. We were about a mile up Rt77 from the gas station when all of a sudden a very large cloud of dirt swept over the road in front of us. When the dust settled we saw that a very large cement mixer that been heading south on the highway had for some reason swerved on to the shoulder then proceeded to roll over and skid around so that when it came to rest it was headed north and was lying on it’s side. Fortunately the driver’s side was still in fair shape. By the time that I got to the truck, a couple of gentlemen had gotten the door open and had helped the driver to his feet. He had a pretty good scrape on his forehead but was otherwise in decent shape. Soon after Show Low PD arrived on the scene as did the paramedics. Of course during all of this, my camera remained on the back seat and my iPhone was in its cradle… sigh. Here is a link to the article from the White Mountain Independent.
Thankfully no further excitement was to be had on the rest of the trip!
After lunch at the Cracker Barrel we drove into Williams were we spent the night. After registering at the hotel we walked up to Main Street i.e. Route 66 and had a great time visiting the shops and seeing the sights.
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The weather had been great on Friday and it continued being nice throughout Saturday. After breakfast we loaded up and drove down I40 to Seligman where we joined all of the rest of the participants. We had about 1 1/2 hrs to spend before we took off at 10:00 AM for Hackberry. We had lunch at the General Store where we ran into Tom & Val Altgilber. Tom & Val have been regular participants of the Fun Run for a number of years, they were driving the Suburban and were having a good time! While walking around taking pictures I noticed that the 1957 Corvette that had been a fixture at the General Store for years was gone. Somebody finally made the owner an offer he could not refuse! Kind of sad to see it gone…
Seligman – Hackberry – Kingman
After a rather good Pulled Pork Sandwich we continued down Route 66 to Kingman, AZ. After checking in to the hotel, Michelle and I went to the car show that was set up in the downtown area. We were the only ones that had preregistered for the Fun Run and by the time that we got to Seligman they had sold out and were not taking anymore entries, so it was only us doing the Show & Shine. We had a lot of interest in the wagon from a number of spectators and entrants. It is really a lot of fun, owning a fairly rare car that is not often seen. Lots of questions and comments!
Kingman – Oatman – Topock
Unfortunately, over night a cold front blew in and we awoke to cloudy, overcast skies and gusty winds… oh well. We had a nice drive down to Oatman were we spent time window shopping and sightseeing. The Donkeys are still an integral part of life in Oatman, which made Michelle happy… After Oatman, we headed down to Topock to look at the awards hoopla and the rest of the crew headed off to Laughlin NV for some Casino fun.
The Award Ceremony was held inside the Golden Shores Rec Center so we could get out of the chilly wind for awhile. I was very surprised to see the number of winners that were no shows… I am guessing here but I think almost 1/3 of the awards went unclaimed.
All in all a very fun relaxing trip, mainly due to the great group of folks that we were with. Lots of laughing and storytelling! What’s not to love.
Until next time! Stay safe and keep it on it’s wheels… don’t be that cement truck driver guy… 😎
Last Saturday, the Show Low contingent of the OTHG Phoenix Steve & Terri Besore and Michelle and I braved the snowy and icy US60 hwy to headed over to Springerville/Eagar Round Valley High School. Our goal was to attend the Chrome in the Dome Car Show that is held for to raise money for local charities. Over the past few years the show had gone somewhat downhill with declining attendance. This year the management of the show was taken on by an experienced car show guy, Mike Campbell, and the results were greatly improved! Entries were right at 90 cars & trucks this year which is almost double the past few years turn out. I am very sure that the entries in coming years will grow from here.
The show management decided to keep the class structure rather simple with only 11 classes, which allowed them to offer some really special trophies that were made by the High School shop class.
I have to say, being at an indoor venue at this time of the year has a lot going for it! Up until Saturday we had been having beautiful spring weather with temperatures running in the high 60’s to low 70’s. The weather turned on Friday evening and by Saturday morning the south end of Apache county was covered with up to 4-5 inches of snow. By noon it had mostly melted and by 1:45PM it began snowing again… By the time the show was over at around 3:00PM it was dry and clear in Apache county, but snowing in Navajo county. By suppertime, all the bad weather moved out of Arizona… as we like to say, “Dont like the weather? Wait an hour and it will change!”
Both Steve and I ended up in two of the larger classes. Mine was Custom & Modified Cars from 1942 to 1964. Steve was in the Custom & Modified Trucks 1959 and Earlier. Michelle picked up a Second Place Award for our 1956 Dodge and Steve made the walk for a 1st Place with his 1950 Chevy Pick Up.
Michelle and I were very pleased to pick up the Award for Best Interior. The Award was made from a pinion gear with a broken bearing, which I think was quite apropo since the pinion bearing is the only bearing in the rear axle assembly that I have not had to replace. No more Chinese bearings for me…!!!
As a special treat we met Larry Besore’s son Ron, and his lovely wife Sherry. They were on their way back to Phoenix from Colorado and heard that Steve and Terri were at the show so they stopped by for a visit. They joined us for an early dinner in Show Low.
Mike Campbell should be applauded for the great effort that he put into getting this event back on it’s feet! We for sure will be coming back next year…
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