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May
26-28, 2006
Bristol,
Tennessee
The 2006 Eastern Meet
By Rob Peters
The FGMCC Eastern Meet has come and gone. This years meet was held May 26th through May 28th. A good time was had by everyone in attendance and we signed up a number of new members at the show.
Patsy and I left Pittsburgh Thursday evening with plans to drive straight through and arrive early in the morning on Friday. It was a beautiful drive down through West Virginia and we felt it would be a shame to continue to drive in the dark and miss this beautiful scenery so we stopped for the night in Bluefield, W. Va. We arrived at the hotel the same time as club founder Kevin Wiles and club treasurer Mike Herrmann.
The weather on Friday was on and off rain but that didn’t stop our hard core members from enjoying ourselves. As a matter of fact, when it wasn’t raining the sun was bright enough to produce some pretty good sun burns on some of our members.
On Friday the show ended around 5 but the club was told there is a car cruise every Friday night at the Big K (Kmart) just minutes from the Hampton Inn, the club hotel. After many of us had dinner we met at the hotel to cruise together to this car cruise. When we arrived we were the only classic cars in the entire parking lot. We broke out our cruise chairs, opened our hoods and trunks, opened the snacks and coolers and started our own car cruise.
The rain came and as soon as we got everything packed up it stopped so we got everything out again. We repeated this scene several times. After awhile some ricers came and parked along the edge of the lot, away from us. A couple classic Chevrolet trucks also arrived and set up in the aisle behind us. To top off the cruise was a beautiful Chevelle which I think belonged to the son of one of our new members.
Saturday it was back to the Bristol Motor Speedway grounds for a beautiful day of Car Show, Bench Racing, Drag Races, club judging, door prizes, vendor shopping, parts shopping and the highlight for many of us was doing 10 laps around the Bristol Motor Speedway. Regarding the laps…. I can tell you in our group Andreas came in last and Patsy and I along with Patsy’s cousin Jim and his wife Patty came in first. (This is because we weren’t allowed to pass each other on the track).
The temperature was in the 90’s and Patsy and I were glad that we brought our old camping dining fly which was 12X12 and before we had it completely set up there were members setting up their chairs in the shade. Unfortunately we were on asphalt and I couldn’t drive any stakes into the ground to secure the ends but I pulled out my spare tire to secure one side of the dining fly and Alex provided me with bins filled with club merchandise to tie off the other three ends. This only worked for a short time until a little bit of wind kept blowing the tarp and poles in on everyone under the tarp. It was like a comedy of errors, every time we would get one or two sides up the others would fall in. This prompted a trip to Wal-Mart to buy one of the new style ones that set up in less than 5 minutes and don’t need all these out riggers. Now everyone was happy again.
Saturday night was the club awards dinner and 70’s dress-up at Shoney’s Restaurant. After they looked at the way we were dressed, in our 70’s hippy garb, they put us in a back room away from the normal restaurant goers but right by the all you can eat buffet. Anyone in the club who has met our club president Andreas know how very SHORT he is. Andreas fixed this by wearing a pair of silver 5 inch platform shoes.
We had two auto repair seminars in the hotel parking lot on Saturday night due to some problems with a couple members cars.
Andreas had spent the day tightening and replacing hose clamps on his car trying to stop what he thought was a leak around one of his coolant hoses. We raised his car with a small floor jack, I brought with me, and Andreas crawled under long enough to see coolant coming from the weep hole in the bottom of the water pump, indicating the seals were bad. We started removing the water pump while Jennifer Wiles started looking for a 24 hour parts store. Believe it or not, Jennifer found one about 25 miles away and as luck would have it they had one in stock for under $25. I jokingly told them to shop around for a better price.
While Andreas and Rick headed to the parts store we got to work on Kevin Wiles transmission. Kevin had mentioned earlier that his car would not shift into second gear and would wind out in first and then finally shift from first to third. Kevin told me his fluid was dark brown so I had suggested we drain the fluid, drop the pan and change the filter and fluid. When we dropped the pan, we found the problem with his second gear... the problem was that pieces of his second gear were laying in the bottom of the pan. Changing the filter and fluid didn’t cure his shifting problems but we all think getting all the metal pieces out of the pan may have made it possible for him to drive the car home on Sunday.
Sunday there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. Most of us packed our cars and headed back to the show. Patsy and I didn’t stay the whole day because we needed to get back Sunday night. We went back to the show and watched some of the drag races and then said our goodbye’s.
This issue of the newsletter will be mostly dedicated to the Eastern Meet with pictures from the meet and a listing of the Club Award winners and a listing of the club members who took awards given by the show and their sponsors.
In closing I would like to thank Andreas for all his hard work in putting this Eastern Meet together. After doing the Eastern Meet in Carlisle, Pa. last year, I can tell you it is no easy task to put something like this together. When you see it all come together in the end and everyone having fun it is worth all the hard work. Thanks to Andreas for a great Meet.
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FGMCC Award Winners |
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| Members' Choice | Winford Owens - 1970 |
| President's Choice | Rick Eckenfels - 1972 |
| Special FGMCC Award | Kevin Wiles - Club Founder |
| George Lines Best Modified | Greg Cowles - 1972 |
| Long distance driver | John Patterson - 780 miles one way |
| Best Paint | Joyce & Richard Savage - 1972 |
| Best Interior | Jared Richey - 1970 |
| Best Engine | Ronnie Bryan - 1970 |
| Best Unfinished | Kevin Wiles - 1970 |
| Best Stock | Judy Mick - 1972 |
| Hard Luck | Alex Weise - Broken shock mounts |
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Masters Auto Expo Award Winners |
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| Best Stock Engine | Judy Mick - 1972 |
| Best Stock Finalist | Judy Mick - 1972 |
| Best Mod Stock Finalist | Pete Emeott - 1970 |
| Best Muscle Car Finalist | Greg Cowles - 1972 |
| Best Muscle Car Finalist | Andreas Kwetkus - 1972 |
| Congratulations to you all! | |
Photo Gallery
