Photos and recap last page(s)! 2011 DSAC WW/NBOA national meet

[twinscrew698]

wanna see it?  I've never been, either...

Here is the link if ya want to check it out guys!
I used to live around the area years ago!

http://www.achristmasstoryhouse.com/

[Aero426]

wanna see it?  I've never been, either...

I'd like to see it.

[learical1]

I went to the Christmas Story house last time I was in Cleveland (Winter 2007).  The house itself was nicely done, but you park where ever you can in the street.  A flock of wing cars might not be overly secure with other drivers looking at the house instead of the traffic on the road.

[pettybird]

reeeeeeal quick update as it's 1AM and I have to be awake again at 7:

the Solon car show was called due to rain.  Since my employer was the sponsor for the evening, we got the bad news ahead of time.  I kinda chewed the guy out on the phone for canceling, but he said it was due to possible weather.  I was pretty bummed, but I kept looking at the weather and it was clear, so I didn't really think anything of it.  Sure, attendance would be down, but cars would still show up. 

Boy, did they!  Between the meet attendees and local cars we had 14 wings and well over a dozen other Mopars in attendance!  We even had at least one bird in each color, which doesn't happen outside of Talladega.  I'll have pics up, but more will be on my flickr page:  www.flickr.com/photos/pettybird

[pettybird]

There are a lot of usual suspects (like our junk) but here are some local cars that you don't see out many places:

Steve Kay's extremely clean CA bird: 




Bill Strangwal's F6 Daytona, which was previously owned by Mason Dixon:




Joe Klima's B5 bird (now with 100% more hemi under the hood:)




Dennis Mucil's very clean EK2 bird:




Paul and Rose Prescott's cool R6 Daytona:




Dave Kroger's very pretty EW1 car, finished just today and on its first road miles!

[pettybird]

and Stu you're letting Team Green down, but there are a few to cover--Rick Edward from KY, Porter and Schellenger out of WI, and two local cars so far!

[hemi68charger]

Thanks Doug for posting the aero-candy................   

[pettybird]

I'll do a photo dump every day--just check the flickr link.  you can also save any pics in full size (big--10MP Canon 40D DSLR camera)

[moparstuart]

and Stu you're letting Team Green down, but there are a few to cover--Rick Edward from KY, Porter and Schellenger out of WI, and two local cars so far!

say thanks  to rick, chuck and doug for holding up the team green banner .
sorry again i really wish i could be there  , missing you guys !!!!!

[rainbow4jd]

Awesome!

I am going to try and come over Friday night for the show at the dealership.   Unfortunately, my Pettybird is still a few years away from being finished.   Here are a few pictures of what it was like when I bought it in 1983, my first backyard restoration, and currently on the rotisserie

[pettybird]

certainly stop by--the weather today was really nice.  I'd post more but I'm totally beat...

[pettybird]

Piles of pictures are up:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/pettybird/sets/72157626894557131/

[twinscrew698]

Great pics Doug!
Sorry didn`t get to make it Tuesday as something came up!Will tell ya about it next time i see ya!

[moparstuart]

Piles of pictures are up:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/pettybird/sets/72157626894557131/

[rainbow4jd]

It's 5:40 pm and I am leaving Pittsburgh to come over and see the cars tonight - Friday.

It will take me 2:25 minutes to get there - basically 8:00 pm

IF I should turn around (because the show will be over by then - I would appreciate it if someone would call me on my cell phone)

724-910-3457

Thanks

[pettybird]

glad to meet you, and hope you made it home safely!

[rainbow4jd]

Yes, got home just at midnight.  Thanks for sharing your car so I could take some photos. 

I have a question... are the wing braces in the trunk gloss black or flat black - can you tell?   Thanks

[69_500]

This sucks. The 3 events I really wanted to go to this year, and wouldn't you know that my son has a tournament of baseball on all 3 weekends. Luckily the event here in Indy is now going to happen and I'll be at that one so the year isn't a total wash just yet. Sorry I missed it Doug.

[pettybird]

Well, those who showed had a great time, and those who didn't missed a hell of a lot of fun. 

We had a total of 25 aeros and a pile of B-bodies throughout the week, which I was pretty excited to see.  There were even two Corporation Blue 'birds (plus the owner of a third) which simply doesn't happen.  Four local wings were sidelined (two in for bodywork, and an owner of two was out of town) but we had great local support. 

Definite thanks need to go to mom, Carol, and my sister Lynda, who did the grunt work of printing, collating, fetching and setting up for some of the events.  The weather wasn't perfect, but it was clear every time we needed it to be. 

[pettybird]

Wednesday took the group to our cultural center at Wade Park Oval.  I chose a pretty direct path, but one that ran past some of our oldest, nicest and most expensive houses. 
These were the 2nd tier mansions behind our industry captains who lived a little closer to downtown.  On our way there, a guy just stopped in the middle of an intersection, got out his camera phone, and was whooping and cheering as everyone drove by.  This kind of randomness only happens at meets!

We parked in an underground parking garage due to the possibility of severe weather, which meant it was sunny and warm the whole time we were there.  Most of the group went to the Crawford Auto-Aviation museum, which was filled with cars, and most of them were brass-era pieces.  The Crawford also boasts a restored mansion, 1800's artifacts, a number of historical flags and revolving exhibits.  This time, there were a large number of pieces set out from Lincoln's presidency.  There were beards and top hats set out for pictures, and I'm sure there are plenty of us looking as ridiculous as Stan Mcguire and I do here.

Other groups went to the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Cleveland Botanical Gardens, and a few went to the museum of natural history.  All agreed that we had a pretty decent collection of stuff for a place where the river caught on fire and went broke in the 1970's.

[pettybird]

We returned to the hotel, rested, and left for dinner at the Winking Lizard, a local restaurant chain with a HUGE beer menu and great food.  A bunch of us had the Wednesday special, which was a half slab of ribs, fries and coleslaw for $8--such a deal! 

Most of us continued on to our next event, which was far and away the favorite for everyone who played--WHIRLYBALL!  You play on teams of five, have Jai Lai sticks, and shoot whiffle balls at basketball-backboard sized targets, all while riding in dodgem cars.  This makes no sense unless you see it in action, and then it's madcap at the very least.  Go Karts are cool, but you're not supposed to hit each other.  This was competitive dodgems!  Games ran 13 minutes long, teams swapped out, and it all went again.  Thanks to an open hour after ours, the management let us have an extra game.  Most went home a bit more sore than they came, but everyone was smiling!













We finished the evening at Menchie's, a frozen yogurt place.  They give you a dish at the front, you put whatever combination of flavors you want in your dish, top it with whatever you want, and pay by the ounce.  Cool concept!

[pettybird]

Thursday, Mother Nature seemed to really have it in for us.  It sprinkled on us in the morning, poured on us in the afternoon and generally just wouldn't cooperate...until it mattered the most. 

We started out towards Stainless Works Exhaust, where we had our only minor miscue of the week--I took a wrong turn at Albuquerque and led the group down a lovely trio of side streets before returning to route.  Ah well!  The crew at SW were genuinely excited to see us, and gave us the grand tour.  We saw welding, CNC laser machines, tons of patterns and jigs, raw materials and even a WWII Corsair fighter engine they were doing work on.  It was only 28 cylinders, so it only made 4,000HP!  They had a pair of cool giveaways, both cut out on the laser table--one was a bottle opener in the shape of a shark and the other was a keychain/bottle opener/Dzus fastener tool.  Cool stuff!  Our own Mopurr (Sherri) even sweet talked one of the guys into giving her an unfinished, test-welded muffler she scored for a trash can.  As you can imagine this caused quite a bit of jealousy amongst the group!

[pettybird]

After the tour, we fractured a bit.  Mom led an expedition to a huge outlet mall while I took the rest to Summit Racing.  Mom got to a restaurant near the shops as it started to pour, and found that it was automotive themed!  Who would have pictured that?  They had a great lunch, and spent a couple hours going through stores.  Mom and Cathy Werster even found and bought bought different Petty Blue jackets.

My group headed south to lunch at Swenson's drive-in, a car hop where the kids RUN the orders around.  The whole way down the rain got progressively worse, to the point where water was sheeting across the highway and visibility was severely compromised.  I was driving the Marty Robbins car, and Mike Svec, bless his heart, didn't do a great job of planning its roll cage.  The worst oversight?  The door bars prevented the windows from being rolled up with the doors closed!  Melanie Atkins and I got SOAKED, especially when a semi drove by and killed me with water.  I had her on my smartphone, looking for INDOOR restaurants as we approached our exit.  Two miles out, the rain stopped.  At the exit ramp it was SUNNY.  We couldn't believe it!  We pulled into Swenson's, which happened to be slammed that day for lunch.  Now, Mom had called a couple weeks ago and told them we were coming, and they said they'd have extra staff on hand.  They didn't.  Poor kid ran to us with eyes bigger than saucers when he saw 30+ people pull in!  I calmed him down, they took our orders by name, and ran them over as soon as they were done.  The first batch of food arrived before the last group had ordered, so the kitchen was on point!  Mopar John even pulled a table out of his trunk to go with all of the folding chairs which sprung up around the lot!  Mike and Melanie Atkins and myself were the last to get food, and the only ones to get dripped on by the returning rain.  Partway through lunch, a cop stopped by after seeing the cars.  He called a couple more car-loving co-workers, and they had a blast running around, taking pictures of the cars.  They even stopped traffic so we could leave as a group!  It just worked out so perfectly!

[moparstuart]

  thanks for the pictures and update 

[learical1]

Any XXL t-shirts left?    My wife is in Cleveland (unfortunately for a funeral) so maybe she could get one for me and bring it back.