The Vintage Auto Club of Delaware, Ohio, and Auto Smarts Radio held their first cruise-ins of season this past weekend.
The Vintage Auto Club holds a monthly cruise-in from 5 pm to 8 pm at Freddy's Italian & Greek Street Food restaurant located at 1165 Columbus Pike Rd (aka, Rt. 23 ), Delaware, OH, the first Friday of the month from April through October. There's no judging or trophies but there is a 50/50 drawing, and this year there are plans to have door prizes. Proceeds from each cruise-in go to Hospice of Delaware.
With temperatures only in the 40's, and wind chills making it feel much colder, only 12 vehicles showed up for this month's cruise-in. I have to admit this was the first car show/cruise-in that made wearing long underwear a smart decision.
Here are the vehicles of the brave souls or dummies, depending on your point of view, that showed up Friday.
AUTO SMARTS RADIO CRUISE AND RIDE
on Saturday, cold temperatures in the morning gave way to ideal conditions by the afternoon for the Auto Smarts Radio kick-off cruise-in at the NAPA Auto Parts store at 3604 Main Street in Hilliard, Ohio. The cruise-in was held in conjunction with the grand opening of the NAPA store's new location.
Registration was from 9 am to 12 noon. The summer tires on my Camaro have very little grip when temps are below 40 degrees. This forced me to leave later for the show than I normally would have. I arrived around 10:45 am to an almost filled parking area. I think the cold morning temperatures contributed to a significant number cars arriving after 11 am.
A bounce house, pony ride, and petting zoo took up a fair amount of space at the rear of lot. All this made for some tight parking for the 88 registered vehicles.
Parts of the parking area were also less than ideal.
In all fairness, the nice weather along with everyone chomping at the bit to get their cars out of winter storage and participate in a car show made for a "perfect storm" when it came to anticipating adequate parking space.
Despite the tight parking, a lot of quality cars and trucks turned out for the show.
Dan "Boots" Longenette, radio host of Auto Smarts Radio, MC'd the prize drawings and awards.
Drawings were held for tool sets and a chance to win a Ruger AR-556 from Vance Outdoors.
AWARDS
More than 30 Auto Smarts/NAPA "Favorite" awards were given out along with specialty awards for Best Paint, Best Interior, Ladies Choice and Best of Show.
Best Paint went to David Bratton and his 1937 Ford.
Yours truly received the Ladies Choice award.
Best interior went to a Jeep Willys pickup.
And finally, Pete Lieb of Hilliard and his 1962, 409 Chevy Bel Air took Best of Show. I spoke with Pete after the show and he told me he has owned the car for seven years and does all the mechanical work himself. It's a beautiful car.
All in all it turned out to be a good show. Everyone from young to old seem to have a good time. The spring weather on Saturday certainly didn't hurt things either.
For those interested, here's the Auto Smarts Radio Cruise and Ride schedule for the rest of the season.
Next week I'll be making two trips to Marysville. On Friday evening, Creative Towing and Advance Auto will be hosting their monthly cruise-in at the Advanced Auto at 1003 Delaware Avenue. Show time is from 6 pm to 9 pm. This is a small show that averages between 15 and 20 vehicles. There is no registration fee, and awards are given out for the different generations of vehicles along with a Best of Show.
Saturday night, the Mid-Ohio Cruisers will be hosting their second show of the year at the Burger King located at 1004 Delaware Avenue, Marysville, Ohio (right across the street from Advanced Auto). Registration is again free. There will be door prizes, a 50/50 drawing, and 10 awards for the best cars and trucks.
Hope to see everyone out there cruisin'.
Nice photos Kim, and congrats on the Ladies Choice award. Looked like a great turn out at the NAPA event. Thanks for posting the Auto Smarts schedule too.
Thanks Nick! The afternoon turned out to be perfect weather for a car show. I think everyone was excited to finally get their cars out. There were even a few cars that arrived to the show on trailers.
The link takes you to this from last year.
Hi Marty, I'm aware that the link takes you to last year. The Vintage Auto Club doesn't have a flyer for the their First Friday cruise-in that I'm aware of. I'm hesitant to link to their Facebook page because many cruisers don't have FB accounts. Even though the article is from last year, the second paragraph still provides info about the location and times of the First Friday cruise-ins.