The Best of WDC ?

Yeh, I'm still basking in the memories or WDC past. Save for a little dampness in the AM it was a great year for the WDC and me. And I gotta admit, "Back to the Bricks" in Flint was the overall real highlight.

You bet, poor old, down on it's heels, unemployment capital of the unemployment center of the universe was the best. In all honesty I couldn't find anything wrong with "Back to the Bricks" except maybe for the name "Flint" being associated with it. To all the organizers and workers in Flint that made it happen, I salute you and encourage you to keep up the good work.

Here's what I liked about it.

Short version = everything.

The details:

Rolling Cruises - great concept. You could cruise the from the south end of Burton through Grand Blanc to the city center of Flint and back; lots of folks on lawn chairs viewing and partying. There were a couple traffic choke points but you creep through for a couple traffic lights or so and you're back to rolling. And there were sponsored stops along the way. We stopped at the Grand Mall and were treated to 4 lanes of nice diagonal parking for "show" cars only, a pass-through lane for cruisers and spectators, a good DJ, a goodie bag with a couple nice coupons for local businesses (along with the usual ads), and the expected friendly people. It was busy but not jam-packed crowded. Heavenly.

Easy parking on Friday night. We drove up there in a regular car and parked about one block from the center of the action. By then (6:15) everything was in full swing but no hawkers "selling" parking space; we parked on the street for free.
Friday evening was a good show. 8 blocks of Saginaw street had been closed and were packed with show cars exclusively; diagonally along the curb and one or two wide parallel along the center stripe. Plus, every side street was closed off and filled with diagonally parked show cars. Lot's a cars to see, so little time. (And the few cruisers that wanted to leave were able to creep through the crowd and go on their way! Nobody got trapped in the show.)

The Music (live with big screen tv) was all at one end of the street. You could get up close and get your ears blasted with a mass of humanity or step back 1/2 block and take it all with the cars and the music.

Food was good, a varied selection, reasonable, and in one spot where you could sit down (maybe even have a table), rest your feet and enjoy it. All the souvenir vendors were in one spot too, handy, organized.

Even the "port-a-potties" were top notch. Clean, available, and (honest) didn't stink!

Bottom line: Flint LIKES cruisers and treats them like real welcome guests. Take THAT Royal Oakies!

Sure, we went to Woodward on Sat. And we'll probably go down Woodward next year, But here's my plan, cruise WDC fairly early, break out of that traffic mess heading north, view Pontiac (always exciting), then continue the cruise on up the Dixie into or near Flint. Then maybe take in "Back to the Bricks" for a while. Now that sounds like a "Cruise" to dream about for the next 11.5 months. Maybe we can start a tradition of cruising Woodward from xx-mile, up the historic Dixie Hwy, and into Flint (or the reverse); now that's a "dream" for Cruisen'.
Happy Trails,
bob

PS Please DON'T do what I do. STAY AWAY from "Back to the Bricks". Just maybe if there's too many people & cars descending on Flint in future years it will become just as congested, trashy, commercialized, over-rated, and controversial as the official "Woodward Dream Cruise".