<VV> The Great Western Fan belt toss, Part 2

Dave Thompson dave.thompson at verizon.net
Tue Nov 4 23:00:09 EST 2008


 

Saturday Morning, I arrived at the fairgrounds at 5:15am.

 

The weather was clear and early morning cool. The day turned out to be nice
and sunny, with a few clouds and almost hot.

 

Several other members were there when I arrived and I chimed in to help
erect the two 30'X10' awnings, the registration desk and "main base".
Promptly at 7:00, the venders were let in to start their setup. During that
time, I finally got a chance to wipe the weekly crud off of my daily driver
spyder and set her up for display. At 9:00 the cars started to arrive from
around the building where they were staged. I helped guide the seemingly
never ending line of Corvairs to their parking spaces. It was awesome how
fast the lot filled. As I said, I never counted the cars. However, we had
four rows of 8 to 10 cars and a smattering at the back.  I overheard someone
say that there were over 40 assorted Corvairs. We had 2 Ultra Vans, A
Corvair-powered boat along with several Rampsides, a Greenbrier, Van and a
corvair-powered trike. 

 

Once the Corvairs were all parked my responsibilities were over for a while
so I started from the beginning and methodically looked over every Corvair.
Some were just gorgeous! Others were nice like mine and a few, well, were
still being worked on. In my opinion, every car there had its own character.
If it was driven to the 'Toss, it earned a place there. I'm terrible with
names so I won't try to use them but I fell in love with the yellow
"Spyderized" turbo Lakewood. What a beautiful work of art. The late model
V8's were awesome and I always enjoy looking at the super custom cars. There
was a group from I believe Idaho (perhaps I'm wrong) but they all had very
beautiful custom earlies. The craftsmanship was incredible. One, sort of a
burnt orange metallic won "Best of Show" it was a 62 Spyder with custom
interior and suicide doors, a masterful work of art. I believe that we had
more cars than the "Show & Shine" Tuesday at Ventura last June. I visited
each of the venders with my list out hoping to find a deal. Notable displays
were California Corvairs and LS Corvair. They rivaled the Clarks display at
Ventura with their size and variety of parts.

 

The reason the 'Toss was moved from Palm Springs to the Orange County Fair
Grounds this year was to give more exposure to the general public. We were
parked in the corner of a huge swap meet, billed as the largest in Southern
California. We were just to the left of the main entrance and next to the
main snack bar, an excellent location. The general public swarmed the car
show and I had a great deal of fun explaining about Corvairs to people.
Everyone I saw had a big grin on their face. 

 

South Coast Corsa put on the games. They had an actual fan belt toss a-la
horse shoes. Eventually, they had people sign up in teams of two and
competed. I signed my 70 something-year-old Mom & me up for the competition.
We did very poorly but had a great time. The competition continued and drew
a big loud rowdy crowd. Fun was had by all.

 

Throughout the day, we handed out voting ballets with several categories for
anyone to vote for their favorite corvairs. The awards were given out at
3:00. I won 1st place for my plastic model car but my real car won nothing.
<SMILE> that's OK, the winners were all MUCH nicer cars than mine.  The
gates were opened at 4:00 for the cars to exit. I stayed behind and helped
the club and a few venders cover-up for the night. 

 

As soon as the night Security arrived, I left for Dave & Buster's for the
Banquet. On the way there, I was passed by a group of 10 or so bikers. They
surrounded me and took turns circling around me on the freeway. We gave each
other a "thumbs-up" and they speed away.  When I arrived in the parking lot,
there were a few guys milling around a group of assorted Corvairs "telling
lies". We eventually went inside and split into groups for drinks. The
banquet started with Jeff Williams, owner of California Corvairs as MC. He
reviewed the day and showed pictures on the screen behind him. After that,
we went through the buffet and filled our plates & bellies. The food was
rather good for a buffet.

 

After dinner we were treated to Corvair Historian Dave Newell's "50th
Anniversary" Corvair presentation. There were a few technical difficulties
that as a former teacher made me cringe. However, the presentation went on
and I truly enjoyed the show; I learned a lot too. Things wrapped up about
9:30 or 10:00.

 

I returned to the fairgrounds to relieve the security and take on the night
watch.

 

Stay tuned for part 3; The night and rainy Sunday.

 

My Vairy best to all, 

Dave Thompson

 

 

 



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