SHOclub1
SHO Member
#11 is in the books now, and by almost any measure it was a success.
Early registrations were slow coming in, as of a month out, we had to make several decisions on quantities ordered, etc. Taking Maryland late registrations as a pattern, we allowed for quite a bit of slack, but we were again surprised by the number of really late registrations. We do appreciate that many took the time to at least contact us in the last few days before we had to take off so we could plan a little and make registration go quicker for everyone.
total cars topped 130, almost the same size as Maryland! Considering the economy, this was a home run, out of the park!
With help from lots of you, including Ryan Pasche who is more enthusiastic than any two or three typical people, we got everything done. Thanks Ryan, we really appreciated your help, escecially at the banquet.
Doug and Cathy Mellum and everyone at Performance Plus, helped as they could with initial planning, and were generous with their time and with door and auction items. These people run a GOOD shop and deserve every accolade and dollar they earn.
They also put on a great show at the drags with the 10 second (9's on a better air day) Mustang, Harley drag bike and Lightning truck. Great driving Cathy! I understand that was her first time driving at the drags. She is a natural.
Doug Lewis brought a quartet of cars plus his tow truck (the one that won the overall drags title!) and helped people with problems, participated when asked at the tech talk (what a kick to have the two top guru's there to help people with mechanical problems!) and was fun to be around.
We saw some truley beautifully cared for and prepared SHO's at the SHOw. Even a pickup truck.
The drive was fun, we had lots of good food at several locations. (exception was sparce food at reception. Host hotel was pricing that stuff like gold, blew what budget we could, and it was too little. Sorry, we will try, again, to do better).
Blackhawk Farms started out a bit crowded and late, but you people are a well oiled and trained track day army, and by the afternoon, I think everyone that was still out, got lots of hot laps, including the awsome NOVICE class! This was the real success of the convention I think!
Drags were great, a few people, for some unknown reason (and you know who you are) waited till after the lunch break to get to the track and then were upset when they didn't get to do time trials or be in the eliminations. We found a way to let them get some runs, but there was no way once we started elim's that we could put them back in the mix. Yes we started elims early, but rain was threatening and in fact came less than an hour after we finished. Could have come a lot earlier. Too bad they were left out, but you show up at noon, you take that chance. I have zero regrets about going along with track management to bump up elims. And it wasn't about getting us off the track, they let us run till our full time was used and let us pose for the picture.
Banquet raised over $4000 for the Red Cross. Final numbers will be known in about a week. Plenty of food at the banquet, nobody should have been hungry there.
Next year? San Francisco awaits and should be great. Jan and I will take a year off for the most part, will attend and just have fun as George Fourchey and his troups out West have a handle on things and are giving Jan and I a chance to just enjoy before we grab the reigns back for 2005. (your suggestions for that location are appreciated).
Thanks everyone for a great week. Hope everyone made it home OK.
See you on the left coast in '04
Early registrations were slow coming in, as of a month out, we had to make several decisions on quantities ordered, etc. Taking Maryland late registrations as a pattern, we allowed for quite a bit of slack, but we were again surprised by the number of really late registrations. We do appreciate that many took the time to at least contact us in the last few days before we had to take off so we could plan a little and make registration go quicker for everyone.
total cars topped 130, almost the same size as Maryland! Considering the economy, this was a home run, out of the park!
With help from lots of you, including Ryan Pasche who is more enthusiastic than any two or three typical people, we got everything done. Thanks Ryan, we really appreciated your help, escecially at the banquet.
Doug and Cathy Mellum and everyone at Performance Plus, helped as they could with initial planning, and were generous with their time and with door and auction items. These people run a GOOD shop and deserve every accolade and dollar they earn.
They also put on a great show at the drags with the 10 second (9's on a better air day) Mustang, Harley drag bike and Lightning truck. Great driving Cathy! I understand that was her first time driving at the drags. She is a natural.
Doug Lewis brought a quartet of cars plus his tow truck (the one that won the overall drags title!) and helped people with problems, participated when asked at the tech talk (what a kick to have the two top guru's there to help people with mechanical problems!) and was fun to be around.
We saw some truley beautifully cared for and prepared SHO's at the SHOw. Even a pickup truck.
The drive was fun, we had lots of good food at several locations. (exception was sparce food at reception. Host hotel was pricing that stuff like gold, blew what budget we could, and it was too little. Sorry, we will try, again, to do better).
Blackhawk Farms started out a bit crowded and late, but you people are a well oiled and trained track day army, and by the afternoon, I think everyone that was still out, got lots of hot laps, including the awsome NOVICE class! This was the real success of the convention I think!
Drags were great, a few people, for some unknown reason (and you know who you are) waited till after the lunch break to get to the track and then were upset when they didn't get to do time trials or be in the eliminations. We found a way to let them get some runs, but there was no way once we started elim's that we could put them back in the mix. Yes we started elims early, but rain was threatening and in fact came less than an hour after we finished. Could have come a lot earlier. Too bad they were left out, but you show up at noon, you take that chance. I have zero regrets about going along with track management to bump up elims. And it wasn't about getting us off the track, they let us run till our full time was used and let us pose for the picture.
Banquet raised over $4000 for the Red Cross. Final numbers will be known in about a week. Plenty of food at the banquet, nobody should have been hungry there.
Next year? San Francisco awaits and should be great. Jan and I will take a year off for the most part, will attend and just have fun as George Fourchey and his troups out West have a handle on things and are giving Jan and I a chance to just enjoy before we grab the reigns back for 2005. (your suggestions for that location are appreciated).
Thanks everyone for a great week. Hope everyone made it home OK.
See you on the left coast in '04
