Sunday at the auto fair was a lot slower. When we got there in late morning, I'd say there were maybe 2/3 as many cars and dealers as on Saturday. And people left all day. By the time we were allowed to leave, at 4 pm, the track was nearly deserted.
Which gave us the opportunity of a lifetime: to line up and do a lap around the track. What an experience! A real Nascar track. Georg waited for us just after turn 2, and used his camera to take that little movie I posted yesterday. Then we all took some photos, and then finished our lap. We went really slow because both Stink Bug and Miss Vicki have serious mechanical problems. In fact Miss Vicki broke down on turn 1 and missed being in Georg's movie. But Dean got it started up again and caught up in time for the photos. A security guard stopped us at one point, but luckily Dave was in pole position and sweet-talked the guard into letting us finish our lap. Whee! It's a shame Danny and Chris missed it. Danny said that the bucket truck's clutch has gone bad and he couldn't drive it slow like that, and Chris hadn't finished packing up all his stuff. If it were me, I would have come back and finished packing later, but I guess he didn't want to leave his things unattended.
The auto fair was an extremely male experience, which didn't really surprise me. Out on the track, where the cars were for sale, the ratio was about 30 men to every woman. Though I did see a girl, about 10 years old, walking around with her parents and taking pictures. I thought it was cool that a guy would take his daughter to the car show with him. On the other hand, in the pavilion where we were, the male-female ratio was more like 5-1. I even saw two women who seemed to be there together, without a man in tow. It's kind of sad that out of the thousands of people I saw, there were only 2 women unaccompanied by a man, But still, score one for the girl gearheads! On the downside, at one point I saw a dealer selling signs with people's names on them. You know, "Mike's Garage" and so forth. I asked him if he had one in my name and he totally smirked at me when he said no. Jeez! I can understand why it wouldn't be profitable to bring signs with women's names, but he didn't have to be a jerk about it.
My main impression of the auto fair was how happy everyone was. Thousands of people, all so happy to be there. People told me stories about their cars, even showed me photos. I don't know a damned thing about cars but I smiled and showed appropriate enthusiasm. It made me wish I were a gearhead too, so I could have shared the experience with them.
I felt honored to be invited to participate in such a big event. And being in the company of such amazing art cars made it even more of an honor. Meeting the Button King was actually a little intimidating. He's kind of an art car legend. I take it back about him being like your crochety scary grandfather. Georg and I talked with him on Sunday and he was much more friendly. He remembered that I had said Georg wanted to meet him. It turns out he has two button-covered coffins: the one he brought to the show, which is for his museum, and another one which is decorated with pearl buttons and is for his own burial. He told us that we could see them both at his museum, that is until he "goes." I asked him about the Pearl Kings and he was familiar with them, though he called them Pearly Kings. He said that they use pearl buttons which are more expensive. His buttons are all donated. A Japanese button manufacturer had brought him to Japan to perform, and had given him 50,000 buttons. And a French button company gave him two barrels full. Besides that lots of people send him buttons from all over the world. He said that he has never bought a button!
Miss Vicki was another car that I really wanted to see. I didn't know this before, but the car was designed for Tiny Tim to ride in during a parade. That's why it's decorated with tulips, and it's named after Tim's first wife. Miss Vicki is a Dodge Dart that was sawed in half and shortened by about 3 feet, thus removing the back seat. I was glad to find that out because I could never figure out what it was about the proportions that made it look so funny. Like a clown car or something.
Stink Bug, Heaven and Hell Car and Buckit Truck are all cars that I had seen at previous events, but I had never met their owners before. That was really nice, to meet Carolyn and Mike, Chris, and Danny. And it was great as always to talk with Tim (Plaidmobile) and Dave (Aerocar) . One thing I really appreciated about this event was that being rather lengthy, and with only a few art cars there, we all got the chance to hang out and talk. Most of the events I go to only last one day, and I'm so busy setting up equipment for the parade that I don't really have time to talk to the other drivers. Houston also lasts for several days, but there are so many things going on and so many cars there, that it's just a crazy scene. Although this was a huge event, the art car part of it was small. So I didn't feel so much pressure to cram as much experience as possible into every day.
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