The event lived up to it's billing and had perfect weather Friday and Saturday. I had to leave Saturday night. For the first time since 1996, we were not racing a car, so I had time to just enjoy the event as a spectator. Congratulations to GTO George in the Q16. I saw your 8.13 qualifying run and it looked and sounded good. Lots of beautiful and fast cars of every Pontiac type. My friend Bill Rink who I have been badgering for decades to come to Norwalk, finally showed up with his NHRA legal stocker 74 GTO. How about a Pontiac 350 running 10.60's ?
Swap meet was huge and I managed to find a few really obscure trinkets I needed. like a turn signal switch for a 62 full size. And a NOS dipstick tube for a 63 Tempest transaxle. That's some weird stuff!
Arnie Beswick has a nice little set-up and some display cars. His daughter had her beautiful 70 Judge on display, Arnie had the Tameless Tiger on display, The Grocery Getter replica we sold a number of years ago was on display, less drive train. They are completely refurbishing it after we had raced it for nearly 20 years. Body and interior look fresh and really nice. They were able to freshen it up without a total repaint, keeping the hand lettering, which is cool. Arnie looked great, meeting and greeting hundreds of fans and seemed to be in his element. It was great to see him and spend some time in his pit area.
The number of really fast, record breaking cars may have been down a bit. The Kauffmans did not race any of their "company cars" that I saw. Likewise, Rodney Butler did not run his car. John Welter did not make the trip this year. The Frantic 4 was a little thin with Cooper setting the pace with his beautiful machine. I saw a 6.13 run @ 230 MPH That may have been his best of the weekend. Strong performance.
Unfortunately, 2 full days didn't give me the time I needed to really concentrate on the car show. Needed 3 full days to cover this event. There were hundreds of beautiful Pontiacs of every description in the car show. It's simply a can't miss event for Pontiac people, something for everyone.
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