2009 Carlisle All-Ford Nationals Wrap-up

It was another great year at Carlisle. The three days just flew by and I didn’t want it to end. I guess, it’s always good to end something when you still want more.

Attendance was good again this year even. It breaks down as follows:

Jeff G. (from NJ) – Sat – 2 @ 1993 Canary Yellow/White
Ken B. (from NJ) – Sat, Sun – 1992 Vibrant Red
Nick P. (from NY) – Sat – 1990 Emerald Green
Pete V. (from MA) – Fri, Sat – 1993 Vibrant White
Randy M. (from PA) – Sat – 1992 Vibrant Red
Tim H. (from PA) – Fri, Sat, Sun – 1993 Vibrant White
Tom G. (From MD) – Fri, Sat – 1992 Vibrant Red
William F. (from PA) – Sat – 1993 Canary Yellow

The weather cooperated on two of the three days. It was a great opportunity to see some people that I see only on an annual basis and to meet some new ones. There were a few people who came by even though they didn’t bring their cars. One was Amy H. who couldn’t bring her car due to some mechanical limitations. Another was Dawn L. who didn’t bring hers because her only available day to come was Friday and the rain would have negated all of the detailing done to her 250k mile car. Even so, they still stopped by to offer their support for us.

Another person I got to meet for the first time was Terry M. who runs the other registry for our cars. He’s the one who can tell you what number your car is of the total number produced. It was great to meet him and we had some in depth discussion on these cars.

what follows is by day-by-day summary of how things went. You can click on most of the pictures below in order to see a full size version.

Thursday

Thursday was my travel day. Given what Friday had in store I was very thankful for this. I already mentioned the ride down in an earlier post and that I drove the entire way down with a police car in my rear view mirror. I’ll only add that I thought this was a pretty cool picture I snapped along the way. Thankfully I didn’t get pulled over for using a handheld electronic device while driving.

Friday

Friday was a day of steady rain for almost the whole day. A real washout. Tim H., Tom G., Pete V. and I toughed it out. Others valiantly made there way to Carlisle in the rain in their previously spotless cars. They had it much worse than us. There was really no reason to detail our cars on this day. So, from that aspect it was pretty relaxing.

On Friday night I went to dinner with Tim H., his wife, Tom G. and his father. We went to The Market Cross Pub. The food was good as was the car talk and the meal was reasonably priced.

Saturday

On Saturday the weather improved dramatically. The sky was blue with a small number of clouds. I washed my car on the way in as did many others. We ended up with 10 limited edition cars in a row (with the tent in between). On one end were Tom G. and me.

The other end was anchored by a 90 7-up that came over from the Syracuse Shelby Club which again this year had their tent very close to us. So, it’s good that one of their members again brought his 7-up car.

The rest filled in up to the tent. We had one 7-up, three yellows, three reds and three whites. A very nice distribution. We had some straw down to address the wet ground due to Friday’s rain. That’s a story for another time.

With the Yellow Mustang registry was one feature car. It was a yellow one and upon closer inspection it was the Rick Derringer owned car you may have read about on this site when it was on ebay some years ago. The buyer must have asked Rick Derringer to sign the back of the passenger’s side headrest. That difficult to replace original passenger’s side headrest.

Later in the afternoon was the burnout contest. One car is worth mentioning. It was a white fox body (non-feature) convertible driven by a guy with a multi-colored headdress. Evidently, he bought the car for around $3000 at the show just to take part in the contest. It was something to see a convertible in a burnout contest with the top down. It came in a strong second place finish that was only settled by several rounds of crowd cheering to gauge the approval of his burnout vs. the ultimate winner.

Sunday

In traditional Carlisle form, Sunday was much less attended, people arrived later and organization into classes was much less formal. We had three cars total even though the weather was as good as Saturday.

When the winners were announced we found out that Tom G. won second in our class, 1987-1993 5.0 Mustang Stock, with his 1992 Feature Car. Very nice.

I checked out the Ford GT display at just around noon. Unfortunately, it was already being disassembled and the cars were heading out. I caught some in the parking lot. It’s too bad that I didn’t get over there sooner but who would have thought that on a major day of the show that such a featured display would be disbanded at only mid-day. Too bad.

So that’s my summary of the show and the mention of the Ford GT just reminded me of one thing from earlier in the weekend. Along with several other classic and late model Fords, there was a Ford GT owner staying at the hotel I was at. When I got back on Saturday night there was a guy taking pictures of it. His SUV was parked nearby while his noticeably bored wife waited in it. When he saw me looking at him taking pictures he told me that it was his dream car. I asked him if he would like a picture of himself next to it. He said yes at first but then, probably thinking it was too geeky, said no. He finally asked me, “Is there a Mustang show going on?”

Thanks everyone for your support whether you attended with or without your car or even if you just emailed me to cheer me on. I wouldn’t do this unless I knew it made a difference. On one last note I want to report that this year I collected enough to cover the cost of the tent ($160) and even ended up with $20 extra which I have donated to the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life. That’s quite an accomplishment given that it is an optional part of attendance. Thanks to everyone.