NSRA Nats North - Kalamazoo

September 11-14 were the dates of this years National Street Rod Association Nationals North Plus in Kalamazoo.  Ten CSRA members were in attendance at some point during the weekend with six of us entering our cars.  Four of those six made the GR to Kazoo trip daily while Steve drove his car down on Thursday and stayed in a local hotel through Saturday night.  Five of us traveled together on Thursday afternoon to pick up our credentials.  We arrived shortly after the gates opened on Friday morning after driving in some rain.  The temperatures were in the 40's so we had very little competition for a prime parking spot.  We set up our awning with club banners on Friday and left it in the same spot throughout the weekend.  Nice to know the event is secure and folks can be trusted to not disturb someone else's stuff!  Saturday was still chilly and we had a few sprinkles early but the day brightened to a beautiful sunshine.

This was taken Saturday morning before Pete arrived.  Left to right are the cars of Phil, Jon and Steve with Jim's yellow roadster behind Phil's 57 and Rick's yellow pickup behind Steve's coupe.  We had two events to celebrate during the weekend.  First was the first anniversary of our club.  The CSRA was formed just a year ago and the announcement was made to our former club on the Monday following the Nats North.  The second event was much more exciting!  Our own Jim Banfill's 1932 Ford roadster was selected by the Michigan Safety Director, Roy Drumm, as his Safety Pick Award!  Jim was in shock all day Sunday and into the following week.  Here's the 32 in the staging area for the award winners. 

And here's Jim accepting his award from Roy at the conclusion of the Street Rod Nats.

All in all, a fantastic weekend!  Congratulations to Jim on his selection and to all the CSRA members for making this first year a memorable one. 

Red Barns revisited & a new member

You may remember the Red Barn Spectacular coverage from the first of August where four of our members garnered Top 50 recognition.  Pete, Paul, Rick & Jon were pictured at that time holding their plaques.  Well, we were baffled that Jim wasn't also selected for his 32 Ford roadster.  Jim's car was constantly surrounded by people that day and something seemed amiss.  Some email and phone call exchanges with the sponsoring club resulted in a recount of the votes for Jim's car.  We are pleased to report that he placed 16th in the Top 50 and will be receiving his plaque soon.  Here's Jim's 32 sittin' pretty!

 

Prior to the NSRA Nationals North, we welcomed a new member to the ClassiX Street Rod Association.  Mark & Vicki Olafson own this beautiful 1938 Nash Lafayette coupe.  We now stand at 13 members with 19 cars.

 

 

 

Where did the days go?!

Hard for me to believe it's been over 6 weeks since I last updated this blog!  August and September were busy months in the world of cars.  Aug 8 was a first time show in downtown Grandville.  The Friday night get together saw about 60 cars in attendance while four of those are ClassiX SRA members.

Left to right are Phil's black 57 Chevy, Paul & Sharon's 48 Ford coupe, Jon & Cathie's 34 Chevy Vicky and Steve's 34 Ford coupe.

The next day, Sat. Aug 9, was the annual Del Shannon Show in Coopersville.  The Hansen brothers, Chip and Jon made the short trip and joined over 600 other entries on a beautiful, sunny day.

Following the Del Shannon show was a small show at a couple of North Blendon churches.  Jon stopped by for the show and a great chicken dinner provided free by the churches.  A new friend, Mark Olafson, also stopped by after the Del Shannon show.

Jon's 34 Chevy above and Mark's 38 Nash coupe below.

Sunday, Aug 10 was a great day for a cruise south to Allegan and a show at Deano's Pizza & Ice Cream.  Jon made the show and picked up a class win in the early Stock class.  Good friends Arnie Goldberger and Mark Olafson also made the show with Arnie picking up the class win in Pro Street with his awesome 41 Ford Pickup. 

Arnie's 41 Ford Pro Street pickup above and Jon's early stock class winning 41 Chevy.

Four shows in one weekend made for a busy weekend!  The following Friday, the club got a call requesting cars for a promotion event on a local TV station, Fox 17.  Six club cars and three club friends along with the car hauler from Downs Custom Performance Automotive provided a great backdrop for a brief interview with Gregg Howard, the coordinator for 28th Street Metro Cruise and club member Jon Hansen.

Left to right, Mike Spicuzza, Gregg Howard, Jon Hansen, Ron Willit, Ron's wife, Paul Dishaw, Rick Nielsen with his grandson Cameron, Pete Derridinger, Chip Hansen, Steve Melville and Alan Wright.

"Testing, 1-2-3."  Audio check as the crew gets ready to interview Jon & Gregg.

Apologies to Mike Spicuzza and Paul Dishaw for not being able to include their cars in this photo angle.

The week following the Fox 17 shoot was consumed with activities centering around the 28th St. Metro Cruise.  This year marked the 10th anniversary of the event and our club was heavily involved in the activities.  Thursday, Aug 21 was the first annual Pre-Cruise Party at Downs Custom Performance Automotive in Wyoming.  The weather was threatening and many reported rain all around us but we stayed dry at Downs.

Club cars lined up in the front parking lot.  Jon's 34 is missing as it was inside the building adding to the display of Downs bodied cars.

Thanks to Tom of Downs for including the CSRA logo on the Pre-Cruise banner.  We were listed as hosts on all the promotional literature.

Friday afternoon was the opening activities for Metro Cruise and our members were once again called upon to furnish the cars for the Pin Up Girl Contest.  Each lady was driven from the Rogers Plaza building to the stage for the opening ceremony by one of our cars.  A friend was also asked to assist and we have to say "thank you" to Andy Behro for helping fill a spot on short notice.   Saturday morning at 7am, most of the CSRA members gathered in the Rogers Plaza parking lot to line up our cars and erect our awnings for the day's activities.  Keeping tabs on my two cars and four more from Downs left little time for taking pictures.  This is the only shot I have.

Much more happened following the Metro Cruise but I'll start a new page for the rest of the fun!

Red Barns!

Saturday, Aug 2, we were back at the Gilmore Museum for the annual Red Barn Spectacular.  This is one of the largest car shows in West Michigan with car counts typically around 900.  This year's total exceeded 1100 entries!  Eight CSRA members made the cruise to Hickory Corners for the day long event with Fred & Janet Clark entering their 47 Chevy in the judged street rod class.  The other seven members entered the People's Choice area along with a friend, Paul Dykhouse, and his '99 Corvette.   Fred & Janet scored a 2nd place plaque in their class and four of the club members received Top 50 recognition.  Here's Fred receiving his award.

And here are the four People's Choice Top 50 winners.

Left to right, Rick Nielsen, Jon Hansen, Paul Dishaw and Pete Derridinger.  Picture space is limited on these blog pages so the entire photo albums from Steve and Jon are shared on the club Facebook page; ClassiX SRA.   One last photo worth posting is one showing our new banners that Pete made for attachment to an EZ-Up awning.  Another club liked them so much, they ordered a pair with their logo.

We all had a great time at this years Red Barn Spectacular!  Those that made the cruise down were Paul & Sharon Dishaw, Ron & Teresa Shooks, Fred & Janet Clark, Pete Derridinger, Steve Melville, Rick Nielsen, Jim Banfill and Jon Hansen.  As mentioned, a non-member, Paul Dykhouse, traveled with us too. 

Recovering from a busy week!

This past week has been a bit on the hectic side.  A good friend of mine was in town for the week from Cincinnati, Ohio. He's a car nut and spent as much time as he could traveling to car activities with me.  Tuesday evening was pizza and hot rods at Fricano's Pizza on Alpine.  Club members Steve, Chip, Phil & Jon made it there.  Chip had his new ride, the 48 Prefect, on display and it attracted quite a bit of attention.  Saturday afternoon we attended a car show in Hudsonville.  This was the first year that a car show was added to the Salad Bowl celebration.  Pretty good showing for a first show.  83 cars attended and 8 local businesses selected a car to receive a plaque from that business.  A large trophy was presented to the Peoples' Choice Winner.

After the Hudsonville show, we cruised to downtown Grand Rapids in time to spend an hour and a half at the 2nd annual Calder Cruise.  Nearly 140 cars assembled on the Calder Plaza prior to cruising through the streets of downtown out to Andi Leigh's Pizza in the south end.  Club member Steve's beautiful 34 Ford coupe was selected by the family of Greg Wyeth to receive the Wyeth Memorial Trophy.  Congrats to Steve!

Here's a shot of the cars lined up to start the cruise.

The 28th Street Metro Cruise is coming up in late August and part of the festivities is a Pin Up Girl Contest.  The ClassiX Street Rod Association was asked to provide some of our cars as "props" for the photo shoot which was held at the Gilmore Car Museum in Hickory Corners on Sunday.  Seven of us meet for breakfast in Hastings before cruising down M-43 to the museum.  We arrived before the girls were ready so we managed to get a few pictures of the cars without a lot of people around.

The red convertible isn't one ours.  The father of one of the contestants owns that car.

I have several pictures of the girls with the cars but I'll hold on to those until after the professional photographers release theirs.  The last event of the weekend was going to be a large show at Resurrection Life Church but the weather ended that one before we could even get there.  Wanted to pass out the fliers for the Pre-Cruise Party being held this year on the Thursday before Metro Cruise at Downs Custom Performance Automotive.  Here's the flyer.

The coming week looks nearly as active with plans to attend the Monday gathering at Gas Axe Garage, Tuesday at Fricano's Pizza and the BIG show at the Gilmore Museum on Saturday, The Red Barn Spectacular.  That's all for now!

New cars

Figured it was about time to add pictures of two new club cars.  Jon & Cathie's 34 Chevy Vicky is now pictured among the club cars.  Another new car made it's first public appearance at last Friday's breakfast club gathering.  Chip has been working on a 1948 English Ford Prefect for many years and finally had it in a drivable condition.  It still needs paint and the interior needs to be finished but it's on the road!

The weekend of July 12 was pretty much a rain out for local events although Paul & Sharon did attend the Grand Haven Jaycees show and picked up a first place in their class on Sunday.  Al won his class and Best in Show with his Willys at the Scottville show that weekend.  Thursday, July 17, the Big Boy restaurant in Grandville hosted their first show.  Jon was pleasantly surprised when the judges chose his 34 Vicky as "Best Hot Rod/Street Rod".

Steve and Jon attended the 3rd Annual US131 Martin Dragway reunion on Saturday, July 19 and entered their street rods in the Nostalgia Drag Race.  Neither made it past the first round.  Guess they better stick to car shows and cruising!

Yoopers for a few days!

Saturday, June 28 was the 39th St. Ignace car show just on the north side of the Mackinaw Bridge that joins the two peninsulas of Michigan.  St. Ignace is a quaint little town that turns into a car cruising paradise the last weekend of June every year.  Several members of the ClassiX Street Rod Association decided to make a mini vacation of this years show by heading north from Grand Rapids, Lowell, Belding, Jenison, Kentwood and East Grand Rapids on the Wednesday prior to the car show.  We arrived in St. Ignace about 1pm to cool temps and threatening skies.  Just after returning to the Northernaire Motel after lunch at Northern Lights restaurant, the rains came.  We decided to relax and sit out the showers and ended up taking the courtesy van to the Kewadin Casino for a buffet dinner later in the afternoon.

Thursday dawned with blue skies and sunshine - cruisin' weather!  Once the cars were cleaned up, we cruised into town and found the registration trailer for the show.  A short while later, we found out the t-shirt vendor was setting up shop in the vendor lot.  They weren't even open yet but the owner made his boys find the shirts we wanted and take our money!  With registration and t-shirt shopping completed, we spent the rest of the day cruising and watching other cars roll into town.

The rest of Thursday and all of Friday were spent just hanging out, cruising the streets and scoping out the other cars arriving for the show.  Saturday morning, we were up early and left for the show at 5:45.  Rick and his yellow truck led us into town and sweet talked the parking attendants into the same spots we had last year - right in front of the bank.  That spot had a perfect location for our awning with it's new club banner and just enough room to park all seven cars between side streets.

Fred and Paul knew one of the judges who happened to work at the big Frankenmuth show and we met up with him on Friday for ice cream and some bs'ing.  He stopped by our awning with Top Hat John, the other judge, and kinda let us know that last years winners wouldn't be winning again this year.  That eliminated Jimmy's 32 Ford Roadster, Fred's 47 Chevy Fleetline Custom and Jon's 41 Chevy sedan.  As it turned out, the entire club was shut out from any awards this time around.  One car in particular caught everyone's attention as we cruised the streets.  This one was parked along the street on Thursday and Friday and was selected for a special award on Saturday.  Many of us thought it was a Chrysler concept car but it turned out to be one man's dream and totally constructed by hand!

We not only secured the same rooms for next year at Northernaire but we also managed to add two more rooms for a total of seven.  Two other groups each cancelled a room and that gave us the immediate option to add them to our group.  This show is so much fun, everyone is planning to return next year for the 40th year of the show.  Sunday's caravan home was uneventful other than a couple of rain showers near Gaylord and again around Cadillac.  Everyone had a great time and we're all looking forward to next year.

A show, a bash and a cancellation!

Our weekend of June 21 started on Saturday with 7 of us gathering for breakfast at New Beginnings on 44th and the East Beltline.  Ken Boorsma, a friend to many of us, joined us in order to find the show location.  GR Auto Gallery was hosting their 3rd Annual Show and they had perfect weather for it.  Here's the 8 of us at the Gallery.

After the Gallery show, 5 of us made a short trip south to Crafty B's Birthday Bash.  Kirk Brown operates a custom fabrication shop that specializes in old school hot rods and one of a kind components.  Every year he hosts an open house, BBQ & buffet lunch and car show at his shop to celebrate his birthday.  The fun started at 1pm and lasted late in to the night complete with live bands.

Sunday, several of us were scheduled to attend at photo shoot for the 28th St Metro Cruise Pinup Girl Contest at the Gilmore Museum.  Transportation and makeup issues for some of the contestants caused this event to be postponed.  Too bad because it was a nice day for a cruise to Gilmore's.

June 13-15 - A busy weekend!

We're still recovering from a busy June weekend.  The sunny and comfortable weather made for a great 3 days.  Friday morning was our regular breakfast club gathering at New Beginnings restaurant on Grand Rapids' north end.  Friday evening we attended a fund raiser show for Veterans at the Boat & Canoe Club in North Park.  Six of us made this show.

Saturday morning was breakfast at New Beginnings in Standale followed by a cruise to Grand Haven.  Club member Pete does a lot of boat lettering at Grand Isle Marina and he was asked to furnish several cars for their open house and fun day for the slip renters.  Eight of us made it to the Grand Isle show.

Later on Saturday, several of us made a stop at John Ball Park and joined up with several other local clubs to participate in a Memorial Cruise for fallen cruisers.  We cruised the streets of downtown Grand Rapids before heading out to the south end to our favorite burger joint, Andi Leigh's Pizza.  Steve, Rick, Phil and Jon made the cruise.  Thanks to Ken Firlik (Chrome Bolts) of the Road Rodz for the picture.  Steve, Jon and Rick cruising past Spectrum Butterworth Hospital.  Check out the officer on the corner.  ;)

Sunday was a beautiful, sunny day ideal for a car show.  The annual Fathers Day show at Charlton Park near Hastings, Mi has become a tradition for many of us and now several of our family members join us for a picnic lunch.  Jon's 41 Chevy passed the NSRA inspection and received a Safety 23 sticker for the windshield.  To our amazement, two of our club cars were selected for special awards.  Steve Melville's 34 Ford coupe was chosen by the Radcliffe family for the Radcliffe memorial award and Jim Banfill's yellow 32 Ford roadster was chosen for the first annual John Moffett award by the Moffett family.  These two men were founding members of the Southern Michigan Street Rod Association.  The SMSRA is the host club for the Charlton Park Fathers Day show.  Jim also picked up a Top 25 award as did Paul & Sharon with their flamed 48 Ford coupe and Jon with his 41 Chevy 2 door sedan.  Five awards out of 8 cars in a field of 950 says a lot about the quality of our club's cars.  Here are the seven that cruised together to the show.

Ron & Teresa arrived early to grab their traditional primo parking spot in the village.

The winners!  Left to right, Jim Banfill, Jon Hansen, Steve Melville and Paul Dishaw.  Jim's yellow roadster and Steve's red coupe in the background.  Thanks to Pete for the steady hands on the camera.

Party time!

Family, friends and fellow ClassiX Street Rod Asso. club members gathered last night for a surprise birthday party for Ron Shooks.  Mary Drew and crew provided bbq, potato salad and pop at Andi Leigh's Pizza.  The meal was topped off with chocolate birthday cake and ice cream.  Ron turned 50 and needed help to pose for this picture.

Happy Birthday Ron!  Keep on cruisin'!

Ionia Show June 7

Six CSRA club members made the early morning run to Ionia to attend the annual Ionia Classic Car & Truck Show.  With 25+ classes, local judges, blue skies and sunshine, it was a great day for a show.  Over 240 cars and trucks entered the event with several more parking in the vicinity but not registering for the show.  A 7th club member, Phil, arrived late with his 57 Chevy and was among the "extras" that didn't register.   Here's the group lined up on main street.

Left to right are Fred & Janet's full custom 47 Chevy, Jon's 34 Chevy Vicky, Steve's big block powered 34 Ford couple, Paul & Sharon's flamed 48 Ford coupe, Jim's immaculate 32 Ford roadster and Rick's 348 tri-powered 57 Chevy pickup.

The group did well in the judging as Rick was second in his class, Paul & Sharon won Best Engine and Fred & Janet won Best Street Rod.  Here's the smiling trio.

 

Fred may have a bigger smile in this picture when we brought the GR Auto Gallery Gallery Girls over for a picture.

The rest of the month (June) is full of shows and activities.  Hopefully, I can post after each event.