The Show at Shawnee Peak

I have mixed emotions about this show, but I will keep this post short, as a longer post is coming on a serious matter of a general nature that needs to be addressed. However, the pix of the Shawnee Peak show are now posted at the Gallery. Enjoy!

The show at Shawnee was fairly good, but for the same reasons some other shows come up short, so did this one. As usual, the cars and the folks were absolutely the tops! No doubt about it. The atmosphere (though VERY hot) was fun, and the organizers (MOAL of Pleasant Mountain) were fine hosts.

But, as is true of so many shows that come short of being really good or great, this one also has a) a problem with classes, and b) an identity crisis.

IDENTITY: Many organizers, in their hearts, want to stick to older cars, such as pre-78, or pre-85. That's fine. But a problem arises when they invite newer cars, to fill spaces and collect fees, but do not have any classes for them to enter in. This is both unfair and unethical. Organizers need to discover who they are, and who they want to serve, and if they choose to invite certain classes, then they have an obligation to have classes for them.

MOAL personally invited the owners of newer cars - they solicited us at the Naples show. But when we all arrived, they had no classes for us, so they stuck all of us in "Special Interest", even though most are not in any way suited to that class. The "newest" class they had was "Best of the 70's" - so where were the classes for all those 80's, 90's and newer that they invited?

I must say that we felt abused - we traveled to get there, we paid our fees, we supported their cause. But we were given no respect. No classes for us.

Organizers need to get off the fence. They need to come to terms with their identity. And if they invite certain classes, they had darn well better have classes to put them in, or those folks will not return.

CLASSES: As stated above, organizers need to have a class for every vehicle they invite. And if a vehicle arrives that does not have an APPROPRIATE class available, that vehicle should not be charged a fee, and, though invited to stay, should not be placed in an INAPPROPRIATE class, just so the organizers can take their money.

And this brings us to the lead in for the next post, coming soon - abuse of classes. For now, I leave you with one question, which I hope you will think on for a bit:

How do you think cars in the 55-57 Chevy class would feel if cars from the 40's, Fords, Jeeps and everything else under the sun were allowed to enter their class? Or how would Street Rods feel if Camaros and Firebirds were allowed to muscle in on their class?

Please think about that, because that is exactly what many organizers are doing to one particular class. And that will be the substance of my next post.

But I will say this about the Shawnee Show - if you were privileged enough to have a class, and if you were put into the RIGHT class, it was a really fine show. But for those of us who were left out in the cold, on such a hot day, well, I have listened to most of them, and most of us will not be returning next year.

Just a word to the wise, if you are a show organizer.

Bill