The LA Roadsters club has some basic rules – the car must be finished, with nice paint and upholstery. When the LA Roadsters club started the show, the idea was to make hot rodders appear more friendly to the public, and not a bunch of trouble making kids – so they only wanted nice respectable cars in the show. This is basically the only rules they enforce.

The most interesting part of the show – It is free – if you have a roadster, you and your car get in free.

I ran around the swap meet taking some pics and buying some stuff – I tried to buy only small things given the limited space in Max’s trailer, and the fact that I am 2500 miles from home. This is the best early Ford swap meet I have ever attended – by far. So many stocker ’32’s for sale – a slick fresh roadster right out of a garage – coupes – sedans…Kinmont brakes…awesome.

We took off from the swap meet and headed over to SoCal around 4pm. This “little get together” has been growing exponentially every year – and this year was out of control. The entire 6 blocks of Grand Ave in front of the shop was packed with cars, 4 wide, all the neighboring buildings parking lots, curb parking – cars were everywhere. I had to park in some random lot 3-4 blocks down. There were people tailgating along Grand, with pop-up tents, grilling food…it was like a pre-party for the Super Bowl. Unreal. Inside tons of cool stuff as usual – the ‘29 on ‘32 rails that Jimmy and the crew are building for the owner of SCAT cranks is unbelievble. They have spent so much time fabricating so many small details on this car – the hood props bolted to the firewall probably took more time that the average guy spends building his entire perimeter frame.

SoCal has become a full on car show – with locals coming just for a car show, free burger, etc. You could tell just from what you overheard people talking about, that at least half of the attendees owned a car older than 1985. Walden’s shop was a much different story. A parking lot only loaded with dialed pre-’40 cars, less people, real hot rod guys. When we rolled up there was the regular assortment of tri-5 Chevrolets, post war Fords and such parked on the street, which made us think it was going to be a full house inside – but not too bad. As we pulled in, Matt & Megan were just parking thier red roadster, and I squeezed in next to them. When I stepped out, Chuck Vranas was right next to me with the rootbeer colored ‘27 T pheaton that contended for the AMBR last year. The car had been at the Peterson since January, and Chuck told me he put the first 3 miles on the car just that day…The car is so well detailed…you know you are at a special place when you can a parked next to an AMBR winner and a contender on the same day.

The big event on today’s agenda was LimeWorks Open house and lunch. This is only the second year they have done this, and it had more than doubled in size – it was advertised as being 11 to 2, but Steve told me people were there at 8am – and when we left at 4, there were new cars arriving. So much for a lunch event, it turned out to be an all day event. I guess that is a testament to the the many customers they have, and people that have purchased their products. I have been piloting my roadster all over SoCal with the 4 Spoke leather wrapped wheel of theirs, and I picked up a new Forty Column and Forty Wheel for my new roadster while I was at the shop today.

The parking lot next door the LW was slammed with cool hot rods – tons of pics below – as well as the rear parking lot, alley, all the curbside parking on Greenleaf Ave, etc. Next year Steve and company are going to have to make some other arrangements for even more parking nearby.

I was sitting inside at one of the tables having a conversation with a guy who drove down from Simi Valley in his ‘39 Tudor, and Megan of HAMB fame walked up. She and her friend Matt drove out to CA in a red ‘32 Roadster, that was bought in Santa Monica around 1959, then towed to Ohio. I had seen pictures of this car, but not in person. I got up to walk out front, and on the way, about 3 people I knew stopped to tell me to go out front and see this neat little red roadster. Wow.

The car is really cool – built in ‘56, sold and sent back east in ‘59 – basically untouched other than a few cosmetic things. The original owners name is George Kirk, and Matt would really like to get in touch with him. I was a local hot rodder, and lived in Santa Monica circa 1956-59….he sold the car for $750 on the spot, and told the buyers that he was going to go to Vegas on a gambling trip with the money. So if any of you know this guy, have heard of this, or can offer any more insight on the history of this car – please give Matt a call – 330-904-5268.

We took off from Limeworks, and headed back east over the mountains on Azusa…cool ride over the canyons…I blew past the turn to go back to Diamond Bar and continued north up into the mountains and just wandered around for a while…beautiful houses up in the hills…fun roads, great weather…

Back at the hotel the reast of the FL contingent and rolled into the hotel – the left Indy on Monday – the old Topless Tour route from ‘99 – FL to Indy to LA. ‘99 was my first year coming to the Father’s Day, and I was standing in the parking lot of the hotel when they rolled in that year – Andy Brizio in front – Dennis Varni(in the ‘92 AMBR winner) – Bob Lawrence from FL and more… I still want to make that trip…maybe next year if I have the right car and the time.

About dark we headed over the the Fariplex to see what was up – there were already 5 lines 100 cars deep to get into the swap meet. The LARS swap meet has no assigned swap meet spaces, it is first come first serve. People begin lining up at the gate on Wednesday, to get in first at 10am Friday! Sig Emerson of Rodsville Quickchange fame was 4th in line – he has been parked there since 9am Wednesday. Camping in the truck – taking turns with the others in line to make food runs. The line up for the swap meet is a party in itself – people with motorhomes setting up bars, cooking out…buying and selling stuff between them all….wild stuff.

I’m out the the swap today – get some good pics!

So Wednesday was back on the road – some friends from FL arrived today, Chuck Burns and his neighbor Daniel. They rented a Jeep Liberty, so we decided to give the roadster a day off, and the five of us hit the road to see the sights. Let set the Jeep into the wind – headed for Corona – to Marcel’s Custom Metal. I had never been to Marcel’s before, and thsi was real treat. I could not help buy stand in the shop and think of how many cars came out of that shop, shaped by Marcel and his two sons Marc and Luc, that changed not only hot rodding, but influenced production car trends as well. It is little known in the hot rod world that Marcel’s does quite a bit of work for the OEM’s, and does a great deal of restoration work, as well as aircraft sheetmetal.

When we arrived, Marcel was at the shop by himself, and was eager to greet us, and expectant of the various hot rodders that will likely be paying them a visit this week. Sitting just inside the door was one of the Kugel Muroc II roadsters. While this is far from my particular style of car, the metal work is unreal. Marcel’s has been producing these cars, sold by Jerry Kugel as rollers, ready for you to finish for a few years now, and this car was number 18. Marcel told us that they had done so many of them now, the Murocs, the Boydsters, etc – they could do one of those cars in 15-18 days – all three of them working on it – including the fenders. Wow. Also in the shop was a ‘33 Packard Pheaton 180 – this car is a wooden super struction with an outer skin, so it was being skinned in aluminum. Also, a very rare Bugatti race car, a 1947 T6 – also getting new aluminum body.

I walked through the front office looking at the pictures of the walls of all the award winning cars – and Marcel followed me in there – I found a pic of the Boyd-built Roadstar on the wall, and told Marcel that the owner, Buz Divosta was an old friend of my dads. Marcel lit up with interest – that was apparently one of his favorite cars. Tons of pictures of the original yellow Boydster II, owned by my friend and former employer Gil Losi…Marcel could tell such detailed stories about each car – it was unreal. Pictures of cars he built from the ground up in his backyard when he first moved to the US…I want to go back and set down with him, record all this information, and document each of these cars and their story…

After leaving Marcel’s we walked across the street in Corona to Barry White’s Street Rod Repair. Barry’s shop has gotten pretty famous from his TV shows about building muscle cars has selling them at auctions. The shop was full of muscle cars mostly, with one ‘32 project going together. The more interesting thing was all the junk out behind the building – tons of stock components – Tri-5 Chevy chassis and parts and engines – 265’s, 283’s laying around…and oddly enough, more than one of those yellow fiberglass roadsters that were so popular a couple years ago – sitting outside. Hmmm.

Next stop of the Jeep Wagon-train, Hollywood Hot Rods – HHR is located in Burbank, off of Olive St Downtown. When we pulled up, the Ardun powered roadster pickup they were working on last year was sitting out front, finished and running. Apparently they were giving organized shop tours, so we milled around in front of the building for a few minutes and chatted up some of the others – we met a group from Georgia, and swapped stories about our trip thus far. Once inside, I faded back in the group a bit, as the first part of the shop tour was pretty elementary – “this is Troy Ladd, he is the owner, this is orange roadster, etc” I did bump into Brian Bass, of HAMB fame on the tour, he was equally tuned out on the tour guide, and we were just looking at the cars. The right hand drive roadster that was assembled as a roller not long ago was back apart for some final pre-paint&plate touches. A lot of details on this car – I took a ton of pics – not all of them are below – comment at the bottom of this page if you want to see anything in particular. The cable driven alternator mounted back in the chassis was interesting, as well as really all of the bracketry from mounting just about everything from the brake lines to the exhaust.

Right next door is Bobby Green’s Old Crow Speed Shop – Bobby has a crazy collection of super-rare early ford speed equipment, as well as various fuel drop tanks, cars, art, and automotive coolness. Most of the people on the HHR tour I’m sure had never heard of Old Crow, as most of the people at HHR had probably only heard of him recently with his TV show about the Black Widow. The Old Crow shop general, Lucky, pulled in and unlocked the gate, and a few of us that knew what was behind that gate immediatlely began to slowly work our way out the door of HHR and slip up the block to Bobby’s shop. We didn’t want to pull all the ’spectators’ with us. Just inside the front door of Old Crow was Bobby’s much covered ‘30 on ‘32 rails, with the solid Halibrand wheels – it was dirty as even, keys haning in the ignition, looking fresh from El Mirage. Speaking of El Mirage, the Old Crow belly tanker was sitting in the shop with the engine pulled out of it. Compared to Erik Hansen’s car this car is very different – Erik’s car has a triangulated 4 bar rear suspension, with a Watt’s link, and sway bars front and rear, and inboard cantilever bell crank actuated coilovers – The Old Crow car has the ‘40 Ford Axle tubes welded directly to the frame -no suspension. Hmmm.(yeah that is two “hmm’s”)

By this time, we were ready for a late lunch – we walked over to the other side of Olive and grabbed some lunch at Bernie’s Beanery – this is a landmark restaurant, that has been located there on what was Route 66 at one time, since 1920. One claim to fame is being the location of Janis Joplin’s last meal – she apparently OD’ed after eating there – not sure if that is a good or bad report on the restaurant? They have had a few updates since then, but it is still an awesome place. I’m not sure where else you can get a burger made from kobe beef.

One of the guys in our group got a tip about a ‘40 mercury for sale somewhere in Pomona – we drove around in the general area where the car was supposed to be, but never found it. However, a keen eye spotted the roofline of a ‘32-34 pickup through a crack a fence. This let to a full panic stop U-turn in the Jeep. We went back around the block, behind the building and got a better peek inside of the fenced area. Not only was there a Deuce pickup hiding in there – but a ‘33 3 window, and a ‘34 Cabriolet. The side door of the building was open, so we yelled and rattled the gate until someone came out. The owner was very friendly and invited us inside. I was standing on the roof of the Jeep(don’t tell Alamo!) taking pics over the fence when he let the rest of the group in. When I entered the gate – I went straight for the cars, taking more pictures. The pickup was tagged up and in streetable condition. The coupe and cabrio were your typical sold California rust free cars. The guy had fenders and parts stashed everywhere in the yard.

All of a sudden, I noticed that there was no one in the yard looking at this stuff with me? They were all gone.

I looked around a bit more, and decided to head inside of the building to see what they were doing. The roll up door on the side of the building had a curtain over it, to keep the block the sun out,so I had to part the curtains to get inside – as my eye’s adjusted to the dark they were met with a DIALED black ‘36 roadster and an original ‘33 Victoria, unrestored – behind these two cars was a building FULL of ‘32-36 roadsters and coupes – all of them black, and in restored or mildly hot rodded. I stopped dead in my tracks and let out an “oh my god….” out loud, as I took in this scene from the front door. The others heard me and busted out laughing. I stood there looking down at the ‘36 on my right, pulled out the camera and took the picture below of the shop looking inward.

This guy has two of everything – 2 ‘32 roadsters, 2 ‘32 3 windows, ‘33 roadsters, ‘33 3 windows, ‘36 roadsters, ‘36 3windows – a ‘50 woodie – I didn’t even could. I just wandered around like a drunk 17 year old girl at a Justin Timberlake concert.

Tomorrow is the Limeworks Open House at BBQ – and who knows where we will end up from there.

Moving back to the hotel, I packed up my things, and went down to Huntington Beach’s Orange County RC, to do some RC Racing with the best RC drivers in the world. Great times, great day.

@ Scandinavian

Coming back to the hotel last night from dinner, Max spotted a huge puddle of oil under the rear axle of his F250 – uh oh…it was oil…from the pinion seal. So early this morning we limped it over the a shop in Diamond Bar down from the hotel to see what the deal was – the owner operator Chris(who had a money ‘56 Vicky) put it up on the lift, pulled the drive shaft, and the yoke off the pinion shaft – the seal had worn a groove in the yoke….really?? in an ‘04 with 90k? Wow.

So while the big truck was under repair, we decided to hop in the roadster and hit up on of the shops near the the hotel and wait for the call to come pick up the truck. Since we’ll be at SoCal for the big party on Friday night, we decided to see what the Kennedy Brothers were up too. As you may know, I’m pretty big fans of these guys and their work(see previous posts about hot rod costumes) – We were greeted at the gate by the fierce and menacing guard dogs, a pair of  Italian greyhounds (Davinci and Sinatra.) I snagged a couple treats from the bowl on the front counter at the hotel before we left…dogs love me. I didn’t take a a whole bunch of pics there – as they were leaving for lunch when we arrived, but I did get a shot of a stocker rolling ‘32 chassis that was hiding in a container just inside the front gate of their place. It is amazing how in California, stuff like this is just sitting around – outdoors or in sheds. The shop was full of cars and projects – so much that Jay’s Deuce vicky was sitting outside under a carport and they had a 5w body just sitting outside next the building. Only at the Bomb Factory would you have to leave a driver deuce vicky outside – because the shop is full of 3windows, roadsters, and a B400! We’ll get back over there in the next couple of days to get more pics of all this stuff when the shop is opened up.

Since Joe and Jay were off to lunch with a customer, we decided to get a bite to eat at Tropical Mexicana – the infamous lunch spot in Pomona…I’ve eaten a lot of authentic Mexican food in my time, from taco Pepe’ in Ocala – to Chorizo in Texas…and everyone raves about this place – but Im’ going to stamp this one busted – I would say the food was decent at best. Maybe I didn’t get the “signature dish” to put me over the top? But should you really have to get a fancy dish to decide if a restaurant is really good or not? I think you should judge the quality off an Italian restaurant from a simple Spaghetti and Meatballs…and a Mexican place on a simple steak taco or enchilata…you have to compare apples to apples right?

Super Beetle with CHROME fenders in Pomona

Leaving Pomona, cruising down Mission Blvd, we came up on an early ’70’s Super Beetle with chrome fenders…with no dents! The guy and his wife were very cool, and we chatted with them at a couple of stop lights. The guy had owned the car for years and he had them chromed 20 years ago…

While my roadster is a fine car and is plenty happy blasting down the freeway at 85 all day long…after two days and 400+ miles it was getting old blasting through six lane traffic and pretentious tailgating douches texting at 90mph in a Camry. So I whipped out my phone – typed the address to Jimmy White’s Circle City Hot Rod Shop in the GPS – and hit “no highways” – the GPS spit out a route from Pomona to Orange without going on any freeways. I scrolled down the directions and saw “turn left on Carbon Canyon Drive, go 8 miles”. I told Max, “any road with the word Canyon in the name – I’m in.” The 20 mile trip around the hills (that the 57 cuts straight through) was amazing – a twisting roa with switchbacks, s-turns, corkscrews….I had the little 4.50-16 Firestones on the front of the car roasting by the time we hit the bottom. We came home through the canjon, just so I could get some video of the awesome scenery. Does anyone have a 911 I can borrow for a couple hours in the next few days?

Pulling up to Circle City, we saw the ‘34 hemi powered roadster that Jimmy and his crew had the the GNRS back in January. They had it in the shop doing a few tweaks for the owner so it would be in top shape this weekend. Great looking car – great color – and the guys is driving the hell out of it. Do you think the car that won the AMBR 5 months ago has 5 miles on it yet? Pathetic. A couple of cool A Roasters on ‘32 rails in Circle City – and a ‘27 T roadster on ‘32 rails – flathead powered all. While we were in the Circle City complex, we spotted a stocker ‘31 roadster in another building – since Jimmy was super-busy with a top secret ‘33 roadster project, we walked over to this random guy’s place to look at the little A Model. The guy’s name was Dave, and his father bought the roadster NEW. One family, and two owners. The guy showed us where he smashed the left front fender when I stole it from his own parents driveway when he was 14, and crashed it into a Chrysler down the street from his house. Amazing story and an even cooler guy.

Also in the same complex, we noticed a bay with some vintage motorcycles, and a ramp truck with a ‘39 or 40 cab on it. I’m a pretty serious Cushman scooter enthusiast(I have my dad’s ‘59 Eagle in original condition)  and I though there might be something of interest in there – was there! Another super cool guy, Don, with an A coupe, a ‘34 3w, and a ‘32 3w. We BS’ed with him for a few minutes, until we realized that it was 3:30, and if we could get to Foose’s at 4 sharp, we could get into Chips shop.

Chip Foose has a reputation for being an awesome sincere guy that takes time to talk to anyone about his cars. However, those guys do have customer’s cars to work on, and can’t just have people walking in and out of their shop all day long. They have a policy that the shop is open from 12 to 12:30, and from 4 to 4:30. That is it. We pulled up to Foose Design at 4:04 – and the gate was cracked open just a bit – We were in! Chip’s Caddilac SRX wagon that is in all of the Mother’s Powerball TV commercials was parked in front, right up the gate – that car is pretty bad ass if you ask me – and the cooler part is he obivously drives the hell out of it. We pulled up to the gate and parked right behind a black Foose Edition F150 sitting inside the fence. As I shut the roadster off, Chip stepped out of the truck right in front of me, and looked at the car arched his eyebrows and “hmm nice car man” We stood out front and BS’ed for a bit when it hit me – the coolest thing about Chip is that even with the TV fame (and related fortune) he was in work clothes and had a gallon of urethane reducer, and some paint strainers in his hand…Chip running the paint store to get some reducer. Awesome guy.

Pulled up at Foose - Chip in red Shirt

Inside of the shop – a few things going on – the EldoRod was in the booth under plastic; apparently it was in for a restyle – new top and a few details. Also the P32 was sitting there in the front door of the paint shop side of the building. The real project was a ‘65 Impala – that was going on a ‘09 Corvette chassis. The owner of this project wanted a ‘65 Impala for his wife, but wanted a car that drove like a new Corvette. Chip’s solution? Put a ‘65 Impala wrapper on a new Corvette. So chip went down the dealership, bought a new corvette, drove it straight to the shop, where they disasembled the car the the basic platform. That is right – 20 miles on a new car…and they tore it down like a Tijuana chop shop. The ‘vette chassis was lengthened 8″, and the body of the Impala was being shortened slightly, moving the rear wheel openings forward so that they were underneath the quarter windows, and then shortening the entire quarters and decklid ot make the entire rear of the car more compact. Chip says the finished car with have the proportions of a Chevelle. When done, the car will be able to be serviced at the dealership, the Navigation, OnStar, and all diagnostic systmes of the ‘09 Corvette will be as new. the entire drivetrain warrantee will be valid as well. Unreal.

As we were standing in Chips’s Shop, one of the guys needed him to move the P32 out of the way – so chip just hopped in, fired it up and moved it. That thing sounds absolutely RAD – the V12 Lincoln motor is throaty. He backed it out and chirped the tires on the way back into the other bay…right has he cranked it up, I pulled out my camera and got some video.

In the same industrial park as Foose, is Scandinavina Street Rods – Erik Hansen is the owner here – and they are most famous for building over 100 ‘32 Ford bodies using Brookville components. Hansen did the body and metalwork for Foose’s P32 Project. When we walked into the shop, Erik had his belly tank lakster up on jackstands in the shop wrenching on it. Yesterday was a  Speed Meet at El Mirage dry lake, and the car was dirty from being on the lakes. As I walked up, I asked him if they had it out yesterday…’Yep. 194!” is all he said. One Hundred and Ninety Four in a flathead Ford powered P38 Fuel tank. Insanity. Can I drive?

Dirty from El Mirage

This car was really cool, and brought into perspective the car we saw Saturday morning at Donut Derelicts – Eriks car was LIGHTYEARS ahead of that one in design and execution. his car was an engineering marvel. The triangulated rear suspension with sway bars and watts links, inboard coilovers with canteliever operated shocks. all of the handmade hardware was cadium plated. It looked like a manufactured product. Eriks was about 10mph short of the SCTA record he is seeking, but is pretty confident he is there power-wise. The telemtry from his runs shows that the car was spinning the tires through the traps at teh end of the course – thats right – spinning the rear tires at 194mph. He said that when the fronts were turning 190-195, the rears were going between 205-210. Amazing technolog. To further illustrate the confidence that he has in the land speed car, he let his wife take a pass down the lake yesterday, and she went 130 it it…her first run on the lake. How cool is it that is wife wants to drive the tanker at El Mirage?

California Girls...Car Girls...

After Scandinavian, were were beat – back home up through the Carbon Canyon to Walnut. Dinner at Acapulco, Tecate on draft…nice. As I walked back over the hotel, I spotted a little black Porsche 356 zooming up the hill, the car whipped into the gas station, and out hopped a cute girl. Michelle, the car was hers, and she had a boyfriend, which she described as “pretty serious”. Damn. A single girl in a ‘59 Porche 356B roadster…only in Southern California.

Odometer update on Roadster – 656 miles.

Today started as just another cool crisp morning in California – after getting some breakfast at the hotel , we were blasting off down “the 10″  to the the 39th annual Antique Nationals at Fontana. I love building hot rods that you can go 80-85 in the left lane on the freeway in – and blowing by the white knuckled 55mph crew in the right lane. PUNCH IT.

At any rate, this is a very cool event, vintage drag racing open to pre ‘55 cars of all types. In addition to the racing there is a car show section to park the regular cars in…but hey are far from regular. I have some video from this, I’ll work on getting it up soon, but here are the pictures to hold you over for now…..

Don Dillard was in town in his super-patina’ed green ‘32 that was featured in Rodder’s Journal Issue #32 – in case you didn’t know, Don was side swiped in that car a while back and the right front of the car was smashed up pretty good.  He has it back on the road and the new parts and reparied old parts look about like the first parts – if that makes any sense??

I also have a ton of pics toward the end of a neato black roadster – this car was super sanitary – Ford bodied, chrome unsplit bone, Dago axle that was fully polished with the webs corrected and squared off – the axle was not only beautiful for a Dago, but just beautiful period. Flat-motor with a Scot blower, Cyclone quicky….

We stopped by Bob’s Big Boy on the way home late in the afternoon, the best part of the stop was the patty melt on rye…..and a ‘36 Convertible pickup.

Odometer update – 542 miles….light day….we were at the drags all day.

UPDATE: Videos added at the bottom of the pictures…..

For years I have read about Brian Brennan attending the Donut Derelicts on Saturday mornings. He has mentioned it in his editorial so many times over the years, and of all the years I’ve been out to SoCal for various auto events, I never seem to be here on a Saturday with nothing scheduled. We were up this morning at 5am pacific to head down there. We piled into my ‘32 and shot down the 57 to Huntington. It was just about daylight when we pulled into the parking lot – and it was slammed – we were already “row-two”… Stocker ‘32 , a land speed belly tanker chassis, a ‘35 roadster survivor custom that was in unreal shape, and an A roadster on an A frame – with a McCulloch blown flatmotor…. just an average Saturday morning coffee and donut event….

Next stop was a car show in Fountain Valley – this was sort of a miniature concourse type deal…they even had a drive-through awards lane, decorated with plants and flowers just like Pebble Beach(ha) – it was even on grass. Instead of the fairways of Pebble Beach, this was in the outfield grass of the ball fields in Fountain Valley; not the same, but I will say as a golfer, this was some very plush turf for a softball outfield – maybe we need some input from TR? I really like this little show, as my tastes in cars is pretty widespread – I can look at a mid ‘56 Porsche just about as long as any ‘32 Ford..I just like cars. The show was divided up…hot rods, muscle cars, british sports cars, a couple Ferraris, etc. I spotted a couple of early Mercedes and snapped some pics of those for my friend Mike in Daytona…the ‘53 120 coupe was super dialed I will admit.

Original Paint '40

Back on the road – the goal today was to attend 4 car events – and the next stop was the HAMB BBQ. This was up in El Monte…back on the 405 to the 605, to Peck Blvd. Its funny how the Californians say “the 5″, “the 10″ East coasters say “I-10″, “I-95″, etc. I’m going to try and start saying “the 4″, the 95, etc at home. My personal exposure to Californians over the years has led me to say “freeway” in Florida…and I’ve noticed some of my friends have picked that up from me lately…

It is amazing that Ryan built a website ten years ago – with a message board, and now people 1000’s of miles away are having a BBQ with there friends they met via an internet message board – and branding their Saturday afternoon picnic in the park, the “HAMB” BBQ. Unreal power the internet has to market an idea or product.

As soon as we exited the 405 we saw some cars lined up on the side of the street – a  couple ‘54 Chevys, a ‘50 Ford, a ‘40 Mercury, and an absolutely slammed ‘62 Impala on huge rollers. We were a bit early, so we parked the roadster with those guys and walked over to McDonalds to get a drink. After a few minutes of BS’ing with the Reyes guys, we headed over to the park and met up with Bad Bob from the HAMB, and Larry, aka tinknocker. It is funny how I go to some gatherings with 100 cars, and there are only 10 or so that really interest me, but at 11am, there were 20 cars here, and they were ALL interesting to me. Funny how HAMB events work that way…

Back in the car, on the 60 to San Dimas and LaVerne. Every year the city of LaVerne has a show downtown the week before the LA Roadster show – this was seriously not our style of event – there was a couple cars picture worthy, but not many. There was an entire row of PT Cruisers and Prowlers. Just when I couldn’t say enough about how SoCal guys were into cool cars….ouch. Apparently the big deal with the world of custom PT’s is to have some kind of diorama in the back door – a tribute to Spiderman, a water fall, plasma tv running a loop of Cabbage Patch doll commercials…you get the idea…

Here is an idea for a YouTube Video – two guys walk through one of these super-ghey car shows, take all the crybaby dolls and lame decorations from the cars, pile them in the middle of the street, and either fire rounds from a tommy gun into the pile exucution style, or light them on fire  – Director/Producers Option -

We parked across from a super sanitary maroon roadster – it had a pretty normal look to it, and at first I thought it was just a nice hot rod, but on further inspection, the entire front suspension was original ford, it had a new dropped axle, but it was running round Ford spindles, ‘40 brakes, ‘32 perches, shackles, spring, chrome wishbones, stock Ford tierod, etc. And a fantastic chrome job on all those parts.

We decided to have some lunch in LaVerne…and I spotted a little joint that looked like it would be dialed nightspot. 77 beers on tap. So the stop in LaVerne wasn’t a total loss! I scanned the tap handles and there it was – Fat Tire – on tap – 28oz of glorious amber goodness for only $3. Thoughts of home ownership near downtown LaVern raced through my head. Back in Daytona, my friend Tom is addicted to Fat Tire. It is no available anywhere in our area within reason, so he scams our various friends into bringing him a case or two when them travel down from the Carolinas. He had our friend Jon bring him two cases a couple weeks ago, and when another of our friends and his wife recently planned a trip to NC in a motorhome, Tom inquired as to how many cases they could fit under the bed in the back. Tom’s addiction to Fat Tire is turning our friends into Prohibition-era ’shine runners. I texted him a pic of my mug…cold and frothy…he texted me back asking for the nearest airport to LaVerne.

Tomorrow morning is the Antique Nationals in Fontana – drag racing – Max is sitting here trying to figure out how we can run my roadster down the strip – apparently if we don’t break out of a 13.99 second pass – we can run the car a few times – so will my 2400 lb, 300 hp, 3.55 geared roadster going to break 14 seconds? I’ll let you know tomorrow – but I’m predicting upper 12’s at least?

End of Day Two – Odometer reads 443. People talk about driving a hot rod 1000+ miles to a car show – I’m thinking we are going to drive well over a 1000 miles AT a car show?

Qik Video from Donut Derelicts -

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My roadster is on its 3rd speedometer – the first one died 92 miles into its life – the second made it to about 2000 miles. I put this one in the week before the car left for CA – When I dropped it off at Max’s house for him to haul it out, the odometer read 150 miles…I would love to drive a roadster out here from FL one time…but it is hard enough to schedule time to be here for the week of the show, let alone another 4-5 days for the drive out. I guess I’m putting this in my “one-day” file, even though I’ve lived most of my life without one of those files. I guess that is why I’m sitting on the balcony of a hotel in SoCal writing this…and not in a 12th floor office in downtown Orlando with a neck tie on…

My flight arrived at around noon local time, Max and Bob picked me up from Ontario International – and rushed me to the hotel. I couldn’t figure out why they were in such a hurry…then Bob mentioned that I needed to clean the roadster up from the trip out, so “we” could go down to Whittier to a little Friday night show. Great. We headed down a little early – about 4 or so to beat the traffic on the 57. Since we were in Whittier, we figured we should stop by Limeworks an see Steve and the guys. The shop was buzzing at 4 on a Friday, tons of cars in process – a beater steel ‘32, a 4-door with a blown Hemi – you know typical Limeworks style…haha

Back in the car and over to the parking lot cruise night….about 200 cars or so I’d guess, which is nothing for this weekly deal, a couple of the locals said it often is upward of 400. We have nothing like this in FL – we have a gathering once a month in downtown New Smyrna beach, with about 150-200 cars – but there is nothing like this. The event was held in a mall parking lot right in front of  a Sears store – and get this, the Sears gives away Craftsman tools every week to the winners of the show – that is right, a weekly parking lot gathering, with full-on trophies and prizes. They gave away a roll away tool box last night, at least 5 100+ piece socket sets…crazy.

The biggest news of the event – my roadser won “Best Hot Rod” – trophy and all. I’ve won a few trophies from the various hobbies I’ve had over the years, but I’m pretty sure this is the first one that is related to a full-scale car. Now that I have a trophy, where do I apply for the trophy wife? Is that included in the trophy kit? Like a mail-in rebate? I’ll ask J-Ro.

Winning this ‘prestigious’ trophy at Ruby’s Diner made me think of all those classic cars we see for sale on the east coast that the owner describes as a “California Show Winner” …haha…I guess I can add that to the resume!

I am so tired….Thursday nights in Daytona are pretty entertaining, and I couldn’t miss a night out with my friends before hopping a flight at 7am. Thirsty Thursday at the Daytona Cubs game – Magic/Lakers downtown at Arena…But now with the time change I’m on about 3 hours of sleep in two days.

Donut Derelicts in the morning -

I’d like say this is a live update, but I don’t have internet at 30k feet. But it will be ready to publish when I hit the ground in PHX(layover)

Max called last night, he and Bob rolled into Diamond Bar yesterday afternoon, roadster is in good shape ready to hit the streets of sunny southern California. We are going to hit up the Donut Derelicts in Huntington tomorrow morning. I’ve never been down there for this, as many times as I’ve been to the LARS and the GNRS. Apparently we’ll need to leave Diamond Bar at 5am-ish to be there in time….nice.

Also a new wrinkle on the trip; some RC racing. About 8pm last night I found a way to pack my RC10B4 into my stuff, so can hit up the world famous OCRC raceway in Huntington Wednesday night. I’ve raced RC cars for nearly 20 years, and this track is where the fastest RC drivers in the world practice weekly.

Its funny how my favorite interests in life are the best in and around SoCal… surf, skate, girls(texas a close 2nd), rc racing, and hot rods, (Laker basketball?). Why do I not live here? I’m sure I’ll remember a few answers to that question by Wednesday…

SO….All the pieces and videos will be right here on the CHR site, however we will be doing some short streaming videos live from the field…you can check them out at qik.com/clarkehotrods .

More updates to come…

Saturday morning we’ll be driving down to Huntington for the Donut Derelicts, hitting up the Antique Nationals, and spending the entire week visiting the various shops and after parties. Most people know about the big party/open house at So-Cal, but we are going to take you all to the smaller gatherings, inside the shops you only hear about after the fact.

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