[Shotimes] My Convention Experiences

[Kurt Metros]

Since some people are looking for some highlights from the convention I
thought I'd post some of my experiences. 

I met up with some of the NESHOC guys (Kirk and Fred among others) for
breakfast on Monday in South Bend, where they had spent the night
Sunday. I happen to live there, which was obviously convenient for me.
We met up with Ron Porters existing caravan as it came through, stopping
for lunch in Chicago and picking up another 10 or 15 cars.  From Chicago
to Madison we had a caravan of about 25 to 30 cars.  I'm not sure I'd
call that leg of the run fun, but more of a harrowing experience.  We
got in about 4:30 or so.  

Registration was busy as most of us came in on Monday.  By the time I
got to the welcome reception I got 2 pieces of cheese (image that -
having cheese, that is) and a piece of bread.  No biggie as it was more
fun just to catch up with some people.   Afterwards several of us went
out to the Great Dane brewery - a nice local brew pub found by John
Hrinsen.  From memory John and his fianci Beth, Phil Sandford, Sergio
and their wives joined us as well as Dave Kegel, Kirby and some others.
Good food and some beer that was so thick that it ooozed down the glass.
Oh yea, and a real cooperative waitress.  ;-)

Tuesday was car show day.  I was up early and cleaning (again).  Dave
Kegel was out before sunrise, waxing his struts with a flash light.
Well, ok, just kidding.  :-)  Most all of the cars looked great.  A
couple of highlights were a Gen2 pickup truck (a SHO front end matted to
a flare side Ford Ranger bed), Dan's (I don't remember his last name)
Red 89 with 8,500 miles (GenI best of show), Paul Thomas's Red Gen II -
voted GenII best of show, and an all aluminum bodied diesel/electric
hybrid that started life as a SHO that was on display by the U of W
engineering school - yes, Mark Nunnely was drooling.

After the car show there was a tech session held by Doug Mellum of
Performance Plus at the hotel.  Here, as well as a couple of other times
throughout the convention I had an opportunity to speak with him and let
me just state how impressed I am with Doug.  Highly knowledgeable and
down to earth without a hint of arrogance (unlike others I know).  He is
truly a first class individual.  

Tuesday night we took a nice long 1.5 hour drive through the country for
a family style dinner at an old mill.  The majority of the caravan left
early, but a few of us (myself, Ben Bentley and Dan) stayed back and
left late to avoid the crowd.  This kept the drive a little more
interesting than it otherwise might have been.  The drive was awesome,
reminiscent of the one we took through southern Indiana a few years ago,
except Ron didn't hit any trees (he was one of my passengers).

Wednesday was Blackhawk Farms day - the track!  What a great day.  We
got a bit of a late start, but that was mostly due to a storm that came
through the night before, leaving debris on the track.  Sessions were
busy with close to 20 cars on at once, but all in all it seemed to work
out well.  Tom Wallenhorst gave us the most excitement of the day,
sliding back and forth about 5 times before making a complete 360 in
front of an applauding crowd.  Good stuff.  Then, Mark Nunnely, with Tom
in the car, come into turn one at the end of the main straight away at
about 115 and late braked - white smoke, cones flying, long skid
marks....the works!  I guess Mark was showing Tom how to really do it
with style.  I didn't see it, but I remember coming around turn 7 and
seeing the reminiscence of white smoke at the end of the track.  Once I
got down there and saw the long skid marks and missing cones, I knew
something exciting had happened.  The Intermediate group proved to be
the most entertaining group of all, really pushing themselves to the
limit....and beyond in some cases.  Overall, I think everyone had a good
time - nah, I know they had a good time!  Wednesday night dinner was
just up the road from the hotel at a nice little local restaurant.  

Thursday was drag day.  More good stuff.  Josh's blown SHO provided the
most entertainment as he 'warmed' up his tires.  I'm sure there will be
some pictures of that floating around soon.  If you CAN'T see a car
through all the white smoke, you know you're looking at the right
picture.  Both Josh and Fred Hurder were running mid to low 13's all
day.  Some other SHO people that brought other cars ran too - a couple
of Cobras, a Viper and a 300Z TT.  I got a ride down the 1/4 in Steves
Viper too.  Gotta get one of those.  :-)  After morning runs was bracket
racing.  Most of the people were eliminated via red lights, but that's
ok since an MTX car one overall - quite a feat.

After the convention we took our group picture.  A novel idea, with the
exception of the Ford F350 crew cab pickup truck in the front row.  That
beast took up the majority of the picture.  Literally.  My car is the
white spec in the back.  Not sure why or how that thing got put in the
front row - no, in the picture at all - but none the less it was.  So
much for a picture of the group.  No way I was going to pay $35 for a
close up of Doug Lewis's pickup truck.  The fact that he won the non SHO
bracket race is irrelevant to me.  What does that have to do with our
group picture?  Am I supposed to buy a copy of the picture and explain
to every one that sees it that it was a 16.8 second truck that earned
the front spot????  This was supposed to be a group picture of the SHO
convention, wasn't it???  Do I sound bitter?  Well, I am.  No group
picture for me this year.  Uuuugh.

Thursday night was the banquet.  As always, lots of fun.  Mixing and
mingling, perusing the silent auction tables, etc.  The food and company
was great.  We did awards and learned more about what George Forchy has
in store for us next year in San Francisco.  I think we ended up raising
a little over $4K for the Red Cross, bringing our total to over $55K
over the years.  Kris Angermeyer won the hard luck award for having a
set of struts start leaking and for loosing her front brakes at
Blackhawk.  Get this - George Forchy drove her car the 1.5 hours back
from the track using nothing but engine braking and the e-brake to stop
the car!  Way to go George!

As always, many many thanks to Don, Jan and Ken Mallinson for all of
their efforts.  The work they do is long, tedious, and I'm sure
sometimes thankless.  They do a job I'm not sure that I could ever do,
but without them, we wouldn't be able to do this.  I truly do appreciate
everything they do.  Kudos also go out to Ryan Pasch from the SHOCago
club.  For a youngin he did a great job....really an impressive kid.
I'm sure Joseph was a lot of help too!  Again, thanks to all!

My pictures will be ready on Monday, so hopefully they will be posted
soon afterwards.  I'm sure others will be posted soon to.

I know I forgot to mention several people, names and things that happen,
but hopefully others will chime in.

Oh, and for those other non-believers, Kirby really does in fact have a
SHO.  NOW I've seen it.  :-)

Kurt