Mr. Viper Club

Now here's one of my favorite people, Jess Hackney.
Jess is the pres. of the local Viper club, Motor City Viper Owners (a chapter of the Viper Club of America).
All clubs thrive on active members. A key to active members includes people willing to put in the time and effort and put up with the day-to-day trials of group activities. Jess does a great job of doing that without taking himself too seriously. The result is a club and a bunch of people that have a great time with each other and, of course, with their cars. Here's a video to let Jess put it all in perspective.
Enjoy,
Bob

More Cruisen' Friends

I've rattled on about some of the good cruises this last summer and among those the "Back to the Bricks" week's worth of activities in Flint, Burton, & Grand Blanc. Now I'll add that the folks we meet were friendly and very nice. And I know where the "bricks" reference comes from now.
Enjoy your crusin'
Bob

Car Clubbing

Clubs, I gotta talk about clubs. Car clubs, of course.

I think they are great things, actually. People willing to get together with similar interests helps build "community" for sure. It's nice when you can blend similar automotive interests among a group.
I'm active to widely varying degrees in about 4 car clubs. My favorite is the Motor City Viper Owners club. Why? Lots of reasons. Of course, we all love our cars. It's a great bunch of folks from literally all walks of life. We're spoiled because here in what I say is still THE Motor City there's lots of Team Viper members and retirees in the club and willing to be available to the club as a resource; love it! They/we have good events; some are strictly social (good for winter activities) but most involve driving as in driving cruises, drive to a restaurant and eat cruises, fall color tours, maybe a drag strip visit occasionally, tech days for good info, and autocross and some road race course time during the summer, and always, good contacts for help with anything about the cars. Depending on the nature of your favorite car, your club of choice will do similar things; maybe throw in a swap meet or a dyno day or a tune or polish day.

Don't get me wrong, if clubs just isn't your thing, so what? Stay the "Lone Wolf" to enjoy your ride. Just don't "dis" the other guy doing his/her thing. And, sure, some clubs seem snooty or maybe it seems they stack the deck at trophy time so their buddies claim all the shiny brass. Please don't paint all clubs and club members with that brush; just drive on and let them slide around in their own oil drippings if that's the way it seems to you.

I'll work in a "club" related video or 2 soon but in the meantime, have fun with your club or consider checking one out some day. Yeh, that applies even if it's a Studebaker; the Stud-y folks have a right to think their car is cool too.

Happy Trails,
bob

A Great Benefit Cruise

Here's a good Cruise coming up for you all to consider.

My cruisen' buddies, Jerry and Rose, will host a benefit Cruise on Sept. 22 from 5 to 8 PM. It'll be at the Airway Lanes bowling alley in Waterford (4825 Highland Road).

All the proceeds will go to benefit Ryan Miller and his family. Ryan is 6-years old and is being treated for inoperable cancer.

Jerry and Rose plan to include a bake sale (I love those!), 3 gift baskets will be available, and the usual fundraiser activities. Again, all proceeds go to the "Ryan Miller Fund" (sounds like a good phrase to put on a check for a free will contribution too).

It's a great venue and the regular sponsors have agreed to keep the music going and making it a great cruise besides the good cause they also support.

As a sidelight, Dad's Deli located in the bowling alley is a fantastic place to have an outstanding deli, pizza, or grill dinner - with all the trimmings!

I'm in. How about you?
Bob

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".

Mr. Chassis

Now here's some good news from the WDC:

"Fast Tuesday" was another great event for my Dream Cruise week. And one of the guys responsible for both a great little event as well as a significant contributor to the world of speed as represented by the Dodge Viper is Dave Buchesky. Dave was kind enough to give me/us a little interview at the Fast Tuesday party and here it is.
Keep 'em Tight on The Bottom,
bob

Let's Make Nice

Here's the deal: I'll have lots to compliment and praise the Woodward Dream Cruise and all the associated celebrations in upcoming blogs; this one is a gripe. And I think it is a serious gripe so hear me out on this.

I got some negative reports from what I consider an important group of people in the heart of "Dream Cruise Country". And it was in Royal Oak of all places. What happened is that among the many people who parked on local streets so they could walk in, several individuals had rude, sarcastic, and otherwise unwelcome and unprovoked insults for the local homeowners. This is bad form in any circumstance but at the WDC it's bad for lots of reasons.

First reason is that unlike all the jokers in minivans, SUV's, late model sedans, and other non-cruiser cars that choose to clog the streets just to look at the cars, my "good guys" instead choose to park a block or two or more away and walk in to spectate. I love those guys. More people get to see the rolling show and fewer cars choke traffic. But the few that talk trash at the homeowners and their guests stinks. And somehow I can see the cranks that seem to control city hall in RO may just decide to slap some temporary "no parking" restrictions on the side streets; their cops are already well practiced at passing out statutory bad attitude none of us need to give them a reason.

Secondly, the WDC has an absolutely shining reputation for good behavior of all the participants. And why not; we get a total orgy of great cars, something like 13 communities get taken over for most of a week or two, shopkeepers close up with an apology to their regular customers but still have the courtesy to post WDC posters in their windows. Who could ask for more. But I betcha that lots of those shop owners and store employees live close by. And some blow-hard has to hurl insults for no reason other than sheer stupidity. Bummer.

Thirdly, didn't their mom learn them any manners? I know they likely aren't cruisers but the folks sitting in their own front lawn see them as Dream Cruise participants. In the spectator sense they are participants, but now they've painted ALL participants as with the color "jerk".

So now I've got my rant off my chest.

To all you cruisers and in this case especially the "walk-in" spectators, I love ya.

Enjoy the cruise and make nice with the local population, please.
Happy Trails to You,
bob