Discussing Central Ohio Car Shows and Cruise-ins
For the second week in a row the Der Dutchman restaurant in Plain City, Ohio set an attendance record at its weekly cruise-in.
This week 144 vehicles were registered during the evening. Thirty-five of those vehicles were first time participants.
Here are some of the cars from this week's cruise-in:
First and sixth generation Camaros.
Dan Varner brought another one of his "Survivor" cars. This time his 1968 Pontiac GTO.
The third cruise-in of the season at the Der Dutchman Restaurant in Plain City, Ohio set a new attendance record with 130 registered vehicles.
To handle all the cars, the inside of the horse pen was utilized for the overflow parking.
Of the 130 cars that turned out on Thursday, 29 were first time visitors to the cruise-in.
One of those first time visitors was Dave Bratton with his 1937 Ford convertible. Dave is a regular participant in Central Ohio car shows.
Doug Leffel brought his 2018 Chrysler 300 "Hemi" this week instead of his Porsche. The paint color on his car is called "Magnum Steel". It can look black, gray, or dark blue depending on lighting.
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You couldn't ask for better weather to kick off the first Der Dutchman cruise-in of the season. The restaurant in Plain City, Ohio registered 90 vehicles during the evening. Of the 90 that registered, 20 were participating in the cruise-in for the very first time.
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As the end of the year rapidly approaches, It's a good time to take a moment to look back at the 2017 car show season. I had planned to write this year-end recap back in November, but family commitments, Thanksgiving, my spouse convalescing from a total knee replacement, and updates to the website delayed this by a few weeks.
Now that things have started to settle down a bit, let's look back at the good, the bad and the ugly of the 2017 season.
I managed to attend 80 events from January through November. Of the 80 events, only six did I attend as a non-participant.
The list below reflects my opinion of the events I attended. In no way does it encompasses ALL the events that took place in Central Ohio during the season. If you attended a show or cruise-in not on my list that you thought was exceptionally good or bad, please share it in the comments. Feel free to also post a comment if you disagree with any of my choices.
Ok, so let's get started with the Good.
Urbana, Ohio. You can tell the Cruisers have been doing this for 20 years. The show is extremely well-organized. The club even goes as far as to mark off parking areas in the grass with spray paint. There were plenty of food vendors, nice door prizes, a unique venue, and great mix of vehicles from Ohio and Indiana.
Gahanna, Ohio. Hosted by the Capital City Corvette Club, this show has grown steadily every year. The Creekside district makes a unique venue for a car show. There are plenty of restaurants in the district to meet most everyone's culinary tastes. Judging is based on a point system, and awards are presented in two categories, one for the Corvettes and the other for the rods and classics.
Honorable Mention: The Purple Door Cruise In at the Grove City United Methodist Church, Spring Fling All Corvette Show at the Polaris Parkway Quaker Steak and Lube, and Cabela's Charity Car Show and Cruise In at the Cabela's store on Gemini Place in Columbus, Ohio.
The Der Dutchman Restaurant in Plain City, Ohio held the end-of-the-season cruise-in banquet on Thursday. More than 134 people signed up for the festivities.
For a little historical perspective, this marked the sixth year the restaurant has held a weekly cruise-in from May through September. The very first cruise-in occurred on May 24, 2012. A total of seven cars showed up for that first cruise-in. Boy have things come a long way since then.
Here are some of the highlights from this season...
Der Dutchman presented everyone that registered for the banquet a beautiful plaque commemorating the season.
Of course, there had to be group photo of Wayne and the gang before the evening ended.
I think I can speak for everyone when I say a heart-felt thanks goes out to Wayne, his wife, Luella, Victor, Drew, and the Der Dutchman management for making this season the best one yet.
Next year's cruise-ins will kick-off on May 24, 2018. I've already got it marked on my calendar. Can't wait for another great season.
Thursday evening the Der Dutchman Restaurant in Plain City, Ohio saw 101 vehicles turn out for their final cruise-in of the season.
This was the third time this year the cruise-in registered 100 or more automobiles. What's interesting is 22 of those automobiles participated in the cruise-in for the very first time.
One of the highlights from the final cruise-in were the three Ford Victorias from the 50's that showed up.
Not very often a semi comes to a cruise-in or car show, but one joined the fun on Thursday.
Per usual, Wayne, Victor and Luella raffled off deserts and gift card at the end.
With this being the final cruise-in of the season and the count of cars reaching the century mark, the restaurant decided to raffle off a second gift card worth $100 to one lucky winner.
All in all, it was a great way to end the season. I will surely miss my Thursday evening ride out to Der Dutchman and all the great friends I met over the summer.
Next Thursday is the banquet. Look for a report and recap of the season next week.
I made the drive to Sunbury on Sunday morning to participate in the 28th Annual Sunbury Lions Club Country Cruise-In (formerly ASC Sunbury Relay for Life Country Cruise-In).
Although the weather was unusually warm for this time of year, no one complained too much. We all understood there won't be many more warm and sunny days left in this year.
The Lions Club did something new this year that I think deserves comment. They added three additional "Favorite" awards for vehicles 2000 and newer. This brought the grand total of "Favorites" to 73.
From what I understand, there were a few complaints last year about some of the newer cars receiving awards. You can count my 2013 Camaro ZL1 convertible as one of those newer cars to receive a "Favorite" award at last year's show. Some felt the show was exclusively a "classic" car show, and as such, only classic vehicles should be eligible for an award.
I think any show intended for "classic" only cars should be up front about this in all advertising and marketing. I have no issue with a show specifying that it's for cars of a certain age. On the other hand, understand that those of us with modern sport or muscle cars do enjoy showing off our vehicles too. If we give up an afternoon and pay the registration fee to participate in a show, it's only fair that our vehicle be considered for award. What is frustrating is a show that readily takes your money but has no intention of considering your car for an award.
With that said, I applaud the Lions Club for recognizing the newer cars. This makes good business sense as it will expand the number of vehicles likely to participate in the show each year. There's talk of increasing the number of 2000 and newer awards to five for next year's show.
Update: Maxton has posted their photos from the show to their Facebook page.
Great weather, great cars, and the country rock sounds of the band Jacked Up highlighted the final Jack Maxton Friday Night Cruisin' of the year.
The perfect car show weather brought out 191 Chevys for the final show. It also gave everyone the last opportunity of the season to purchase one of those great Maxton t-shirts.
The all-day drizzle on Saturday washed out my original plans to attend the 10th Annual Coughlin Car Show in Pataskala, Ohio. Fortunately, the rain moved out of the area just in time to bring nice weather for the shows scheduled on Sunday and Labor Day.
Despite wet roads early Sunday morning, I made the drive to The River Church In A Barn Car Rally Cruise In. The church is located a few miles north of Delaware, Ohio on Rt. 42.
This is the 15th year the church has held
the rally cruise-in on the first Sunday of September. It's also my third year participating in the event.
The cruise-in offered free registration, hot dogs, popcorn and sno-cones.
Sunday
Service at 10AM was open to anyone wishing to attend. Anyone registering an automobile was automatically entered to win a nice selection of door prizes. Raffle tickets could also be purchased to win a 13 drawer tool chest. All donations benefitted the Orphan Outreach program.
New this year was a ragtime band providing "live" entertainment.
I think the early morning wet roads caused attendance to be down a little from previous years. Only 53 automobiles and eight motorcycles turned out for this year's rally.
Despite the great weather, the two major downtown shows on Saturday saw a drop in registration compared to previous years.
The Performance Classic Car Show in downtown Delaware, Ohio (formerly Blast from the Past) ended up with around 450 registered vehicles. In recent years, this show had registration figures in the 600-700 range. The show set an all time high of 750 registered vehicles in 2015.
I participated in the downtown Plain City downtown show two years ago and registration that day was well over 200 cars. This year the show missed the 200 mark by 11 cars. I'm assuming the change in the hours of the show was to attract some cross-over participation from the Delaware show.
It certainly didn't help that Columbus and surrounding area had nine other shows on the schedule for Saturday. Word on the street had the Jax Wax registration at around 250 cars. If anyone has registration numbers from any of the other shows on Saturday, please post them in the comments.