Sunday, August 28, 2011

Tis the Season Folks...

The sugary smell of cotton candy tempting you.  The clanking metal and bright strobe lights on carnival rides.  The distinctive sound of the booth operators heckling those who walk by to get you to win a prize.  The whiff of barn yard animals.  Yes folks!  It's that time of year again.  Imagine the biggest, booming, bass voice:

WELCOME TO THE COUNTY FAIR!!!!

A group of us (me, Suzanne, Dustin, Mike and Jaime) headed out to the Montgomery County Fair, in Gaithersburg, MD, last weekend.  It was the final weekend of the fair.  The lure of metal on metal mayhem was too inviting.  You guessed it!!  It was demolition derby time.  After the long trek, we made it just in time.  A couple of us stopped for food while the others went and got tickets to the grandstand.  We got pretty decent seats for being so close on time.  We sat and chowed down on smoked turkey leg, sausage sandwiches and gyros.

The festivities started with a recording of the National Anthem.  During which, Suzanne leaned over and said, "I feel weird holding a giant turkey leg while this is playing."  I stifled my laugh with a big smile.  We sat down and the destruction began.  Dustin asks me if why I didn't enter my Trans Am in the derby.  I laughed and almost pushed him off the seat.  The first two heats where the full size, V8 cars.  They took the last three cars running to enter the main event.  There was one V6 engine heat.  A woman from that class made it to the main event.  At this time we noticed a running theme.  There was a group/ team of eight cars all painted the same and in different heats.  We noticed that these "team" cars weren't hitting each other.  It worked out in the end.  I think there was one in the main event.  Then there were two 4 cylinder engine heats.  By this time the track was drying out and these front wheel drive cars were able to pick up some decent speed.  None of these winners were allowed to enter the main event due to the size of the cars.  There were a couple fire, which I missed getting pictures of.  There were lots of hard hits, blown tires, ruptured radiators and parts flying.  The overall winner was a guy in a Cadillac.  Here are some pictures of the carnage.


























The final event of the night was the trailer race.  I'm not sure what the rules were for this event were, but usually the competitors try to knock the trailer off the hitch.  The last one with a trailer on wins.  Well, a couple people lost theirs and still kept going which was fun.  One guy had his trailer rigged to catch fire.  We noticed that his started smoking.  Then a side panel fell off and we saw that it was packed with hay.  Then the fire really got going.  The officials stopped the race after a couple more laps.  Here are some pictures.














Monday, June 20, 2011

Hood ornament envy...

It's Michael again.  I went to this large car show at Sully Plantation on Father's Day.  There was a huge amount of cars and people there.  A car coral with a few nice rides  for sale.  There was a vendor section with lots of antique parts.  You could almost build an entire car from parts there.  I snapped 120 pictures.

I came home and loaded the pix and realized that I have a bad case of hood ornament envy.  There is something that adds a bit of class and beauty to an old car with a nicely crafted hood ornament.  They all tie into the chrome work on the front of the car.  I love how 30s, 40s and 50s designers had no problem with the female figure leading the way.  There are a set of Pontiac Indian Chief ornaments in my last post.  I'll add them to this post.

Cadillac hood ornaments








Ford hood ornaments









Chrysler and Plymouth hood ornaments








Mack truck Dull Dog ornament

Nash flying lady hood ornament








Chevy hood ornament

Packard hood ornament.  Look at how the wings are clear.  Very cool

 Rolls Royce hood ornament

Jaguar hood ornament

Repost of all the Pontiac Indian Chiefs



Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Car Show in the Boonies


So this is another solo adventure with Mike.  Nothing really adventurous other than having a poor sense of direction and getting lost.  It was an all year, Pontiac only show at Burdette Brothers.  This show marked the 29th annual show.  It used to be a Pontiac dealer.  Now that GM killed them off, it is now a used car lot and shop. Turn out was good despite the early clouds and rain.  

I saw 2, almost accident on the country roads I took.  Here I figured all the dumb ones would stick to the highway.  I took back roads through Point of Rocks, MD to get to Hyattstown.  It was mostly farm land.  It was a very scenic route.  I took a bunch of pictures.  102 to be exact, but I won't post them all here.  I'll have them organized a bit.

Let the car porn begin.
Overall show pictures:















1940s and earlier














Tommy's Firebird and Mike's GTO










Unique rides











Firebirds






































Pontiac Indian Chief hood ornaments










Sexy lines



























Other hot rides




















Non Pontiacs that showed up.  How dare they!!!