Mopar Nationals
So other than the fact that I had to spend 5 hours at my car because you have to be there when the judges do their thing, It was a good first day for the Mopar Nats! The judging really is very thorough and they start by making sure that your car actually runs and then do a safety check (all the lights, brakes, etc) Then they really looked the car over thoroughly and asked lots of questions. Since I'm in Modified they wanted to know from me what all the modifications were, which was good because a lot of it was steering, suspension, frame stiffening, the A500 trans, the engine build, all of which is pretty invisible to a casual inspection.
The other cool thing was that this golf cart pulls up and an older (late 70s?) guy with gray hair gets out and starts really going over the car and asks some questions. He pulls out a camera with a big lens and takes some photos, comes over and says he'd like to take some interior shots, so I open the door. The way the car was parked the steering wheel is cranked about half way so he asks if I can straighten it for some more pics. He says he really likes the car and the story of our, now 5500 mile, road trip to get to the Nats and wants to ask me some more questions and record the story of the car and the trip. I finally asked him if I should know him, since he looks vaguely familiar, and it's Cliff Gromer (sp?, sorry) the editor of Mopar Action Magazine (the best of the bunch, IMHO). So we sit and shoot the breeze and I tell stories from our trip and he asks questions. It was really fun. Here's a picture I took of him with my car. He was a really personable guy, not snooty at all (like other magazine folks that I have talked to). Made my day!
So other than the fact that I had to spend 5 hours at my car because you have to be there when the judges do their thing, It was a good first day for the Mopar Nats! The judging really is very thorough and they start by making sure that your car actually runs and then do a safety check (all the lights, brakes, etc) Then they really looked the car over thoroughly and asked lots of questions. Since I'm in Modified they wanted to know from me what all the modifications were, which was good because a lot of it was steering, suspension, frame stiffening, the A500 trans, the engine build, all of which is pretty invisible to a casual inspection.
The other cool thing was that this golf cart pulls up and an older (late 70s?) guy with gray hair gets out and starts really going over the car and asks some questions. He pulls out a camera with a big lens and takes some photos, comes over and says he'd like to take some interior shots, so I open the door. The way the car was parked the steering wheel is cranked about half way so he asks if I can straighten it for some more pics. He says he really likes the car and the story of our, now 5500 mile, road trip to get to the Nats and wants to ask me some more questions and record the story of the car and the trip. I finally asked him if I should know him, since he looks vaguely familiar, and it's Cliff Gromer (sp?, sorry) the editor of Mopar Action Magazine (the best of the bunch, IMHO). So we sit and shoot the breeze and I tell stories from our trip and he asks questions. It was really fun. Here's a picture I took of him with my car. He was a really personable guy, not snooty at all (like other magazine folks that I have talked to). Made my day!