[Keith Seymore]

The Beginning of a New Era

By the late 90's and early 00's we were getting significant pressure from our family and our Pontiac friends to begin doing more with the car, perhaps participating in local shows and parades. Stubborn as he was, Dad finally acquiesced and our big "coming out" was to be the Widetracker's Dustoff show in May of 2003.*

We brought the car to the show as we normally would, arriving without fanfare at about 6:30 am to get set up. As is my custom I taped a small, 8.5x11 sheet of paper to the window describing some of the history and details as we have already discussed.

What would be different this time is that freelance writer Jeff Koch was on the property. He took notice of the writeup and, after a brief interview with Dad, he was (naturally) smitten. He wanted to do a feature article on the car.

We said yes. The plan was for us to wait until after the show: he would be photographing two other special Pontiacs and would do ours last, after the lighting was better. We waited until about 8:30 pm for his return (remember, we had been there since 6:30 am) and finally....finally got our photo shoot done.



*It was kind of funny because, unbeknownst to Dad, the Widetrackers had planned to have the car on display as one of the "feature" vehicles, on the midway for some special recognition. My son James and I had been cleaning and planning for the event for weeks in advance. Finally, the day before the show, Dad said "ya know, nobody has said anything else about bringing the GTO. I think we should stay home". As calmly as possible I relayed that I had, in fact, been in contact with the Widetrackers and that we couldn't bounce around on this decision; that James and I had been working hard to get ready and that we needed to go. He agreed and the rest, as they say, is history.