Here Comes the Sun

     Yep, here comes the sun.  All we need is 25 more degrees in the temperature and things will be great.  The cruise night season starts tonight after a long winter's hibernation but my best friend Carl in Florida seems to get an evil satisfaction by letting me know several times during the winter months that he's either sitting by his pool or cruising to a car show or cruise night.  If only I could afford the house across the street from his.  Curse you Wall Street!
     The purpose of this blog is to promote the hobby of street rodding and for those few that don't know what a real street rod is, it's a car or truck that was manufactured in 1948 or earlier and modified in some way.  Fiberglass replicas of those body styles are acceptable as well.     The purpose of the NSRA at one time was to promote the hobby as well but their President Vernon Walker has made the NSRA change course with the 30 year rule.  I think the change has backfired big time.  When originally questioned Mr. Walker said the change would get younger people into NSRA events with later model cars and they would see the pre-'49 rides and want to build one hence helping the hobby survive.  Uh huh, sure Vernon.  If any of you went to an NSRA event in 2010 you saw maybe 10-15% of the cars present were post-'49 and probably 90% of those were driven by gray beards that left their street rod at home and drove their '57 Chevy instead.  In fact if you look closely you'll see a bunch of younger rodders (under 40) building pre-'49 traditional rods in greater numbers than show up in late models.  Maybe some of the street rod parts suppliers should start selling newly manufactured replicas of worn and rusty parts.
     Looking forward to the 2011 cruising season I will be attending two Goodguys events in Des Moines and Joliet where my club, the Midwest Street Rod Association of Illinois (www.msraofil.org) is the host club and the NSRA Nat's North in Kalamazoo.  All great events but I need a fix of a large all street rod event.  So this year I will be attending the largest all street rod event in the country, the Frog Follies in Evansville, Indiana.  I went for the first time about 5-6 years ago and it was fantastic.  This is a must do event for all street rodders, 4,000 street rods and a swap meet bigger than the NSRA Nat's.  But I know not everyone has the desire or means to travel across the country for this event so what's a street rodder to do?
     After the NSRA instituted the Walker Rule three new organizations emerged to help us with our street rodding needs, the American Street Rod Association (http://www.americanstreetrodassociation.com/), THE American Street Rod Association (www.theasra.com) and the Vintage Street Rodders of America (www.vsra-usa.com).  All are about a year old and all have had street rod only events that drew a few hundred cars each.  Not bad for new organizations.  None of them have dreams of becoming as large as the NSRA was but they all offer alternatives for our street rodding habits.  Each lists street rod only local events so if you can't make a long road strip check out some of the local pre-'49 goings on.
     My club recently had rep's from the ASRA attend our last meeting and they gave a short talk on their organization.  One of the ASRA reps has attended every street rod nationals and said he will continue to do so.  I have attended Kalamazoo since the days when the Nat's North moved there from Detroit and I will continue to do so because I like the city and the venue.  I was one of those that jumped on the I'm quitting the NSRA and I'll show them band wagon but you know, why should I give up a trip that I enjoy because of some stupid rule change.  My heart is with street rodding, nothing beats the lines of a pre-1949 car but I like all cars.  But when a replica of the Griswold's 1983 Wagon Queen Family Truckster pulls into Louisville I might have to rethink that.
See Ya,
Tony