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SHOW or TOUR? By MICHAEL J. JONES |
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There is a dilemma that faces many AACA members who have laboriously restored
their car and taken it to an AACA Meet in the quest for a coveted National First
Place Trophy. Once an owner has committed to doing the AACA show circuit, he is
somewhat reluctant to participate in the many automobile tours that are offered
by AACA all across the United States.
Picture: Mike and Marcy's 1923 Oldsmobile Touring car, with full weather gear, including the driver's! This story is told about a car that was begging to be driven, but whose owner wanted that coveted AACA First Place oval on the front grill. Since 1976 the car had never been on a trailer and was driven everywhere – including a move to Florida, where you purchased it and made a commitment to re-restore it for show. So the decision was made! No more touring - you are going to show for now! It was time to take this 1923 Oldsmobile back up the “AACA Ladder!” The day finally arrives and it’s time to drive the car on to the show field for the first time in twenty years. Once in place, the first order of business is to size up the competition. How many other cars are there in my class and how many of those cars are going for the Junior Award? Without being too obvious you circle the other cars and compare them to your own. Geez, you wonder if that nut is correct or should it be like the one on your car? You’ve cleaned and polished and spritzed every inch of your vehicle and that moment arrives – the judging team is circling your car and there is nothing else you can do. It seems like an eternity as the team of judges look at every detail and you are wondering what they might be thinking about your restoration and how it compares to all of the other vehicles on the field. They are finished now and you breathe a big sigh of relief. Now all you can do is wait for the awards banquet to learn the results. After dinner the chief judge begins reading the results. Beginning with Class 5, it seems like an eternity before he gets to your class. When you hear your class number the chief judge reads off three or four names and then he says YOUR name and the rest is a blur! Okay, so you won a first Junior! Your wife asks, “Now that you have won
your trophy can we ‘drive’ the car and go on tours?” You reply, “Not yet
dear. There’s another level I want to pursue.” Now it’s time to figure
out which meet you are going to go to, so you can get a Senior. Repeat
all of the above and now you have your Senior! It’s over – you have made
it. At the banquet table your wife asks again, “Now can we drive the
car?” You pat her hand and say, “No, not really, because everyone has
told me what a great car we have, so it’s time to get ready for the
Grand National. Now you are in the big league! Only Senior cars get to
compete in the Annual Grand National. Repeat all of the above again and
Holy Smokes, you just won an Annual Grand National First Place Trophy
and what a spectacular award it is! “Are we done yet? Can we drive the
car on a tour?” You say to her again, “Sorry Honey, there’s just one
more thing we have to do, and it means driving to Iowa for “next” year’s
Grand National. Otherwise, we will have to wait two years because the
Grand National rotates between the East and West every other year.” Fast
forward – and yes, we did win the Senior Annual Grand National Award,
and it
Left: The 1923 Oldsmobile Touring Car in question! That September, only one month later, we trailered our 1923 Oldsmobile Sport Touring car to Mackinaw City, Michigan where we drove it on the 2001 Glidden Tour®. Our hard earned AACA badges were proudly displayed, plus those badges had been added to the National Award Tab for the AACA President’s Cup, which had been won by the car’s previous owner, Bill Lock in 1976! It was cold, it was rainy – but hey, we have a “Driver” and boy is it fun! And still today, the excitement continues!
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Interim Editor-Wayne Burgess |
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We appreciate all the good work Bruce Wheeler has done as editor of the Rummage Box for the last few years. Bruce has in the past worked through travel with his job, but that was hard. We're all volunteers, so the gears are being shifted again to shift volunteer workload. Mike Jones asked me if I could step up and get out this Rummage Box as Interim Editor. Let me give you a recap of 2008 with the Burgesses. We started our
year in Philadelphia with the Annual AACA Meeting in February. The trade
show was filled with vendors, regional meet/tour booths, and the very
nice antique cars that we expect to see each year. I helped Judy Edwards
with the Youth and Web Site Booth, along with my annual AACA Meet/Tour
slide show, which is always popular with the early breakfast crowd. Our
Publications Seminar went without a hitch with two new members this
year, June Peterson-Crane and David Devine, along with Judy Edwards and
myself as in the past few years. Seminars and meetings are important as
we plan the activities for 2008 and beyond. The Friday night auction was
exciting as usual. We also had another special Saturday night awards
ceremony to cap off the weekend. May found me in Flintstone, MD, with the prettiest show field
one could ever ask for. I met a few more members new to me, especially
Pat and Bill Lytle from Ohio. As a Publication Committee member, I had
been hoping to meet Pat somewhere on the trail. Pat had tickled me in
her newsletter Editor’s Message, when she joked about having to comply
with the new NAAP judging standards. Humor and poking fun at one’s self
in print has always appealed to me. The show field was a photographer’s
dream, with its golf course meet field and a private lake as a backdrop.
The cars were something else too, with a few unusual HPOF vehicles that
were new to me. Resting from the heat of the Carolina tour, Gloria and I finally got
in the mood for the AACA Fall Meet in Cleveland, TN in September. We had
never seen a town welcome us in such a big way before. Pre-meet
advertising was the key. I’ll give credit for that to Connie Wright,
Meet Chairman, and her crew in the Cherokee Valley Region for putting on
a meet that will surely be the standard for the future. November and it’s time for one more tour, the Founders Tour. This
Tour was in AACA President, Sharon and husband Leonard Lee’s backyard in
Easley, South Carolina. The AACA has different kinds of tours for
different era antique automobiles throughout the year. This allows
Gloria and me to enjoy meeting new friends driving a variety of AACA
qualified vehicles. The Founders Tour was a little different, as
some later model cars toured around the Easley, SC highlands. Again, my
camera was busy taking pictures of every historic site possible, along
with everyone’s well maintained antique cars in the foreground. We
toured more early American mansions, mills, and towns that had escaped
the ravages of war. General Sherman’s march through the south had
missed this part of South Carolina, which allowed the preservation of
these historic places in history. Editor’s Note: A big THANK YOU to Judy Edwards for helping me put this issue together!
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was euphoria in the Jones household. That was in August and one
of the most enjoyable AACA meets ever, held at the John Deere Commons on
the banks of the Mississippi River! “No more questions Sweetheart, we
are going on a tour!” 
