Electric Super Friends Light Up Maxton’s First Friday Night Cruisin

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More than 260 cars and trucks packed Jack Maxton Chevrolet in Columbus, Ohio for the dealership's first Friday Night Cruisin of the season.

The beautiful weather not only brought out a lot of Chevys from around the area but also a lot of spectators. The band Electric Super Friends lit up the evening with classic rock tunes from the '60s, '70s, and '80s. The band sounded great!

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The featured Chevrolets this month were:

• Maxton's Favorite Corvette from the years '53-'67, '68-'82, and '84-present.
• Maxton's Favorite Truck
• Maxton's Favorite Corvair

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In addition to the five "Favorite" awards, Maxton also presents awards to the Top 70 Chevys, a DJ's Choice award, and a Best of Show.

Here are some of the Top 70 winners I managed to capture on Friday evening.

Click or tap photos for slideshow mode

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DJ's Choice

1975 Nova
Owner: Clyde Trowbridge

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Maxton's Favorites

Corvette '53-'67
Gene Milhon (1964)

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Corvette '68-'82
Graig Grunkemeyer (1969)

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Corvette '85-Present
Sue Ristucci (2017 Grand Sport)

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Corvair
Dan Mowrey (1965 Monza)

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Truck
Tom Vitek (1972 C-10 Shortbed)

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Best of Show

Dennis Mowrey
1941 Pickup

Once again great weather, great music, and great cars made for another successful Friday Night Cruisin' at Jack Maxton Chevrolet.

Whether you like or don't Chevy's, you can always count on a festive atmosphere and great "Live" entertainment at a Maxton show.

Next show is July 19. Simba Jordan will provide the music with a little country flavor.

Grace Chapel Car Show

Following Maxton's on Friday, I was after a smaller, more low key show on Saturday. I found just that show at the Grace Chapel Community Church in Westerville, Ohio.

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The show started out a bit on the slow side. When I arrived around 9:30 AM there were less than 10 cars in the parking lot. However, by 1:00 PM the church had registered 40 vehicles. I think everyone waited to see what the weather was going to do before heading out to any shows on Saturday.

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Registration was $10 and included automatic entry in the door prize raffle.

Food and refreshments were provided by the church members. Cost was based on whatever you wanted to donate.

The church has a nice shelter behind the parking lot where you could sit at picnic tables and eat your food.

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A DJ spun tunes for most of the show. For about an hour in the afternoon, a blue grass band provided "live" entertainment.

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A number of familiar cars from the Central Ohio car show scene participated in the show.

Pete Lieb was there with his 1962 409 Chevy Bel Air.

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Rick Levin, Dave Bratton, Larry Walters, Michael Marzley, and Pete Dunkel all brought their cars.

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Several folks at the Maxton show the night before looked to be in a similar mood as me.

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Bill and Vicky Gates didn't have far to drive in their 1996 Chevy Pickup. They live directly across the street from the church. That's their house in the background.

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Two cars caught my attention because I don't remember having seen them before. The two were this Ford Fairlane 500 and orange 1963 Oldsmobile Dynamic 88 convertible.

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I don't have any information on the Fairlane - there was no placard in the window. The Dynamic 88 belongs to John Lodahl of Centerburg. Both are very sharp cars.

The Awards

The Grace Chapel Church presented 25 "Favorite" trophies, a "Pastor's Choice" trophy, and a "Best of Show" trophy.

All judging was done based on a point system.

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Dick Liston from Sunbury, Ohio and his 1930 Ford Model A Coupe received the "Pastor's Choice" trophy.

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Best of Show went to Dave Fisher and his 1940 Cadillac Fleetwood 60 Special Sedan.

This is the fourth year the church has hosted a car show and I've got to say they're doing a lot of things right. It's always fun to find a well-done show that isn't on everyone's radar. I'm definitely noting this one for next year.

Other Area Shows

I have reports from two other shows in the area that I wasn't able to attend.

The first is the London Strawberry Festival's Auto Show that was held on Friday evening in downtown London, Ohio.

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The show registered 71 vehicles this year. Just goes to show what a nice evening of weather will do.

Counting the trophies and plaques in the photo below, it looks like 40 awards were presented. The tallest one is the "Best of Show" award.

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Some of the notable vehicles from the evening were this low mileage 1979 Firebird.

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A 1995 Jeep CJ Jurasic Park replica.

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A rare 1968 Dodge Coronet RT Convertible.

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And this 1937 Chevy 2 door street rod that I'm told was extremely well done.

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The only negative I heard about the show was that the judging and awards presentation took way too long. I have reports from two people who were at the show that they didn't get home until well after 11 PM. According to the flyer, awards were supposed to start at 8:30 PM. Better clean that up for the next show.

The final report for this week comes from the 9th Annual Cruise-In at Clifton Mill in Clifton, Ohio.

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Close to 100 vehicles attended the cruise-in this year. Registration is free. There are no awards, it's just a big cruise-in much like Der Dutchman.

I'm told there's a great restaurant inside the mill. A food truck was also on site just for the cruise-in.

Our good friend, Frank Sanborn, said he had a great time and is going back again.

UPDATE: Marty Ruiz posted photos from the Nelson Auto Group All Mopar Show in Mt Victory, Ohio to his Facebook page. It looks like the event had a nice turn out.

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That's it for this week. It's a miracle we finally had a weekend without any rain.

Next week the dominant event will be the 37th Annual Arthritis show in Dublin, Ohio. I won't be participating, however, I do plan to stop by either Friday or Saturday to take some photos.

If you're not planning to attend the Arthritis show, there will still be a few other events around the area. Der Dutchman will hold it's first Coffee and Donut Cruise-in on Saturday morning. Should be fun...