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Hi Terry, good points however a few things thought I would bring up. As for
fees like registration, I can tell you with 11 regionals and one national (AMO)
under my belt here, that the fees go a long way for variety of things.
Pre-registration for instance helps determine how many people you 'might' get.
But there are straglers like myself who 'wait untin weather channel says no
hurricane that weekend' to sign up. Then it is more to sign up day of show. But
sometimes worht risk, as some events won't refund money if tornado spewing
volcanos and lightning from Zeus pops up in middle of showfield day of event.
The money raised also offsets costs like fees city, county, or even host area
charges. The National we did in 2001 here in Houston, we *HAD* to have X amount
of rooms booked at Radisson....or we would eat that cost! $64,000 worth of rooms
ya'll. 10 Wed, 25 Thurs 70 Fri, 70 Sat, (doing from memory, might have been
more) but each unbboked room would have cost us. Lucky for us all rooms booked
and then some, sold out whole hotel. Banquet, we locked in prices for food at
roughly $23 a plate/head, but in the time we signed the contract...and up to
meet....5 damned managers came and went at that hotel, each one attempted to
break the contract and renegotiate it.
Police. With a show of 11,000 vehicles, you will have a armada of police
presence. And the taxpayers and city will usually not pick up whole tab....the
event organizers will have to pay, and cops (at least in Houston for nightclub
door watch) are $60-$70 per hour.
There is massive advertising, tshirts, goodie bags, parking, dash plaques,
trophies and tons more I can't even get into it hewre on what it takes money
wise to pull off a event.....much less one with 11,000 cars, I am talking a AMO
meet planned 5 years of hard work (no pay) in advance, down to the 96 hours of
the meet itself then event over and have to straighten out all the bills. I
could not imagine the logistical nightmare of a 11,000 car event. Heck, you just
saw the huge bike Sturgis meet in ND yesterday got hammers with baseball sized
hail and 70+mph (yikes, hurricane force) winds, hopefully it blew of some of the
ladies tops, but those biker guys are tough so riding around in hailstorm no
problem.
As for people caring less abut your Gremlin, I would have to disagree.
People usually remember the car and while you are not around people are smiling,
and whipping out cell phones to take photo of it.
I can't comment on the NSRA rules, and someof them like most clubs, are
arcane and just fucking stupid. But they are rules nonetheless put there by the
powers that be for whatever reason, and my suggestion to everyone, young and
old, is if you don't like them, run of a position in that organization then try
to make changes as you and hopefully others, see fit.
Back to AMO and the dues, in Houston we had a discussion about people being
on showfield as you have to have insurance. There is another HUGE something I
didn't mention above! But people might not have wanted to join AMO for $30 a
year, but did want to show their car. So it was brought up to have a 'three day
pass' membership for something like $10-$15 that would allow them to be on
field, get judged, ect. And if they wanted to join....then pro rate remainder
for year. Worked great, sort of like buying battery from Auto Zone, if it goes
bad in 2 years they prorate it so get new battery for $8.
NSRA is just that....streed rods
A Ford man no join Chevy club but you can still go to their Super Chevy
Sunday and check things out.
You take your Gremlin to a AMO meet and it wil be hard to get good, clean
photo of it all day with folks checking it out. You take it to street rod meet
people will walk past it, their eyes transfixed on the blower in the 40 coupe
next to you. It is uh, a street rod.
Good? You represented all of us by going to a meet, whether local cruise
night at Sonic, drag strip or even this NSRA meet. Bad? Unless your Gremlin
looks like a Zinger with tunnel ram higher than roofline you get lost in
shuffle. Enjoy your car for what it is, not what others think of it.
It's why I have enjoyed driving, racing, showing, wrecking, putting back
together, restoring, nothing but AMC's since 1976 when got driver licanse and
still drive American Motors built vehicles in Houston, Texas in 2009, so enjoy
the Gremmie.
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