The Strawberry Festival in Troy, Ohio is this weekend. The car show is on Sunday and I'll have my 78 Cruising Wagon there. I usually walk through the show every year as I only live about a half mile from the site, and I've never seen a Pinto there, so this should be fun. The Strawberry Festival draws in about 200,000-250,000 people every year and there are some pretty nice cars there. Though I haven't done anything to this Pinto yet, I wanted to take part in the show anyway. If anyone is in this neck of the woods be sure to come by and say hey.
I did the Strawberry Festival Car Show and it was a lot of fun. There were over 200 entries of custom, street and stock cars and trucks. No other Pintos in sight, so my little purple Cruising Wagon was not only the flagship of the Pinto fleet, it was the entire fleet. No awards were forthcoming, though I did get a very nice entry plaque. There were plenty of people who brought in 05/06/07 cars and entered them in the stock category. They hadn't actually done anything to the cars other than buying them. I guess the same would be said of my Pinto; I've only had it a short time and have done nothing to improve it other than an oil and filter change. In a way though, it doesn't seem like quite the same thing. Maybe it's because the Pinto is 29 years old and long since out of production, I don't know. If I wanted to see a stock shiny 07 Mustang I could drive down to the Ford dealer and see an entire row of them, there isn't much to impress me there from that point of view. Am I wrong to think this way? I could have entered my 06 F-150 and taken home a trophy. I just don't understand. It was my first show though, and I don't know if this is the norm across the board. Anyone have any info?
FlyerPinto,
I made it to 3 events this weekend The first was very much like your strawberry festival with street rods and newer 05,06 cars wining the trophies (100 in all) about 250 cars and i agree if i wanted to see the newer i would go the the dealer ship or just to a mall parking lot to see them.The second was an antique show nothing newer than 80 alowed that was the best the oldest I rember seeing was a 1910 ford restored original they drove in and only about 6 street rods. The 3rd was a small cruse in for an elementry school about 35 cars. My sugestion is go to as many as posable and listen to the stories of how everyone rembers the Pinto This is our second year and last year we recievd 2 trophies with our stock wagon If you can go to a judged show do it they look at the car for being a car not just "eye candy" just rember keep it fun ;D
Phils toys
I agree with Phil. Keep it fun when you go to the shows. I attend as many as I can throughout the year and sometimes it's tough not to get pissed at what is winning the awards. One of the things I do is get as much info on the shows as I can to see what the class list is going to be and to see how the awards are going to be picked. Most of the time I look for the stock classes and ones that are participant voting or judged. I have gone to some shows that did not even have a class for my wagon and I had to go into special interest (Cobras, exotics,).I atteneded one last year that had me in the truck class because they considered station wagons as a form of truck. They changed that this year.
I have been doing shows and even running them for a long time now. The maddest I ever got was at a judged event with my Plymouth Satellite and got beat by a soap box derby car. No trunk, engine or interior to speak of yet the still gave it the award because it was a "local". Needless to say I have never gone back or will ever go back to that show again.
As far as the new stuff winning, that would not happen around here. Most of the shows are geared twards older cars and the newer stuff is lumped together in one class or not allowed in at all unless it's something special.
Again, go to the shows. Listen to what people are saying and learn as you go. I do every time I attend an event. Whether it's something that may give me an edge at the next event or something that I can carry over to the shows I help out with or run.
Good Luck