Confessions of a Drugstore Car Guy

Elayne & I recently returned from our road trip out west; 7050 pretty much trouble-free miles. Don’t kid yourself, that many miles in a car ain’t the “pleasure” it once was; if it ever was. We were traveling in a PT Cruiser so the quality of ride might not have been quite as nice as if it had been in a big luxo-cruiser by Mercedes, Cadillac or Lincoln, for instance. But we’re not complaining; you run whatcha brung! We stayed in motels all across the country and Elayne is pleased to report not a bed bug in sight (she looked, too!)

There was a lot of family business that got transacted, what with birthdays and Thanksgiving and all but that stuff doesn’t really matter here. There was, however, quite a bit of car guy stuff too. My brother-in-law, Max, retired recently and bought himself a new Dodge Challenger with a Hemi and 20” Cragars, etc. So it was incumbent upon me to make sure he was fully indoctrinated in the car culture in his A.O. (area of operation). I kept him busy damn-near the whole time we were in the Phoenix area.

I was at a huge disadvantage on this trip because I was unplugged from the Internet; it’s amazing how much we’ve grown to depend on the web as an information source. Almost to the point where there’s no alternative. So I reconnected with newspapers, road maps and telephone books. Kind of a stone age vacation, getting back to my roots and all! As tough as it was, I managed to find car events, places to eat and other normally web-delivered info the old fashioned way.

The first weekend we were in Phoenix I convinced Max we needed to check out the drag racing and car show at Speedworld Raceway Park in nearby Wittmann, Arizona. Back in the day this was Mel Larson’s Dragstrip and the place both Max and I were first introduced to drag racing. Today Speedworld is not a whole lot fancier than it was when it was Mel Larson’s but it’s a lot more comprehensive, including tracks for motocross, BMX, short course off-road racing, sand drags and a mud bog. There’s also facilities for radio-controlled models and paintball. See: http://racespeedworld.com/

I convinced Max he had to enter his Challenger in the car show and it, along with another, almost identical Challenger, proudly represented the resurgence of the muscle car. All of the remaining maybe 100 cars were considerably older. It was a pretty good show with lots of neat cars of every persuasion. I made another reconnection (besides my return to Mel Larson’s) while at Speedworld.

I saw a familiar decal on the window of a ’57 Chevy making a pass on the dragstrip and had another blast from my past. The decal was the logo for the Arizona Drag Racing Association, both of which (logo and association) I’d forgotten long ago. Back in 1972 I got involved with the ADRA in an effort to bring racing to the Air Force base where I worked. One thing led to another and I wound up designing a logo for the organization.

Well, ADRA no longer uses the logo and no one from those days is still active but a few years ago the old logo was reprised to commemorate the 35th anniversary. That commemorative decal is what I saw on the ’57 Chevy. Since then I’ve talked with the current ADRA President and decimated his supply of logo decals. Small world, huh? Elayne actually remembers more details regarding my relationship with ADRA than I do (a mind is a terrible thing to lose!) See: http://www.metzcon.com/adra/index.htm

The weekend after our trip to Speedworld, Max and I went to the Goodguys Southwest Nationals at Westworld in Scottsdale, AZ. We walked our legs to stumps and saw maybe half the vendors and about a quarter of the cars. They said there’d be over 2000 cars in attendance and I’m sure there were at least that many. I’d have taken lots of pictures but I figured someone else already did that and I could see them in the Goodguys magazine (which I consider the best car mag around). See: http://www.southwestnats.com/.

There were several other car shows in the vicinity while I was in Phoenix and I checked-out a couple. One of them, in a Golden Corral parking lot just flat broke my heart. It was on a Saturday morning and convened to raise money and stuff for a local food bank. There were a grand total of eight cars on display and room for a whopping four more! There ain’t no shortage of show fodder in the neighborhood, just, apparently, a lack of communication. I also drove by a show that was being held in conjunction with a local carnival in Buckeye, AZ. They had a lot better turn-out and some pretty nice looking cars.

We’ve all heard about “Arizona cars” and there are lots of older cars on the road as daily drivers. I also noticed that the SUV and pickup crowd has enthusiastically embraced the Big Wheel fad; lots and lots of 22 and 24 inch wheels on late model vehicles. I even saw some of those monster hoops on regular cars. Oh well, different strokes for different folks, I guess.

While in Arizona I took a road trip with my friend Merle, to check-out some of the country I hadn’t seen in a few years. We stopped in Casa Grande, AZ to see if Patrick’s Antique Cars & Trucks was really selling off their stock of 47-54 Chevy trucks (they weren’t, according to Patrick’s son). See: http://www.patricksantiquecars.com/.

We enjoyed our visit to Arizona, especially the days in the seventies with lots and lots of sunshine. I enjoyed reconnecting with some places I remembered and some things I’d forgotten. It’ll probably be a couple of years before we’re ready to go back and I’m not sure either Elayne or I am up to making that long, long drive. I do remember how to get to and from the airport, however, having made several trips picking-up or dropping-off my kid & grandkids who were smart enough to fly.