CENTRAL AVENUE CRUISING MARCH 8th- Phoenix, Az

CENTRAL AVENUE CRUISE
March 8th 8pm till ???
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We have a woman (Nancy Perry) in town that sets up most of the big events that have to do with car shows and cruising. Her twice a year cruises bring 3,000 cars into Central Phoenix for the night. She's awesome at what she does and she is very good for car people in Arizona.

BUT...

She doesn't own Central Avenue (I have no attitude saying that, she's awesome) and quite frankly a lot of us are just tired of going to events and parking. We like to drive our cars. That's why we want to bring "cruising" back to Central Avenue. The cops closed it down some 20 years ago and who knows if we can do it right, it could start up again.

I know a few years back HAMB had a group meeting on Central Avenue every Saturday night and if any of them or any of you are in the area we welcome you down to Central Avenue on Saturday March 8th...8pm till ???. I heard Jack in the Box was your spot...go for it again...just come down and support if you can.

We are spreading the word, but we are doing so responsibly at least the first time out of the gate. Try get the people that you tell that will pick up after themselves and not use someone's property as a urinal.

CENTRAL AVE back in the day was 6 lanes, bumper to bumper, a 3-mile run and we'd cruise until the next morning. This will be a bit shorter until we grow...we are shooting for "Clarendon to Virgina as turn around points" all the fast food places and parking is within this short run. Also...it's Good Guy's that weekend...come down after the show....could be fun.

Thanks for listening!

 

Glad to see you trying to make this happen! I live 12 doors off of Central for 25 years now, and I bought down here to be close to cruising. Myself and several others have had an ongoing thread here on the H.A.M.B. called "take back central AZ" about our couple year long attempts to do just what you are talking about. Hopefully you will be better at drawing than we have!

 

Chip, I will cruise the ole '55 down for this and support revitalize a cool old cruise spot.............just gotta find time to run the valves before I head out.

 

Need I know where you are coming from. My buddy told me there was a thread on here (that's why I checked in)...I searched and found it when I first joined, but I thought the last reply's were a long while back. No I am not certain it was the same thread, there might be two. I wrote one of the lead people, but he never wrote back. So...plan B .

I did this once before (with another group 30 years ago) and we got 1,500 cars...I don't think we'll try that hard. lol

Tex thanks for the effort!

I have a good size car club that has committed, I am speaking with two more over the weekend, maybe some flyers and then I'll email some groups.

Thanks for your support, I hope to see you there.

 

This is great and hope we can all get together and enjoy the cruising, as chip said we have a thread Take Back Central az and have been working on this for a while. If we can put on a good run with no real big problems, we should be able to take this street back. I said we pay taxes on that street and as long as we want to cruise, we should be able to. I am behind this all the way. Check out our thread and the stories from times gone by. Lets make some new and good times.

 

I think you're right...if we can round up the guys that get it to come down on Central we'll have a chance. So spread the word...cautiously.

 

The more threads on this the better, it shows the interest in getting it going again. I also like what you talked about parking in different places, that way everybody will cruise to different parking lots and meet different people. I hope the more we get interested the more this can become a reality.

 

I am 100% down for this! My '57 Pontiac isnt 100% cruising ready yet, I should have her ready within a week or so though.

 

Whats the name of your club?

 

Cautiously is the byword! That's why we have been real limited in who we get the word out to down here simply because I am afraid if we show up in large numbers on a non-designated (non-Nancy Perry evening) we might just get this mess shut down and posted. I helped avoid a posted "No-Cruising" situation 22 years ago when the city "enforced" us off the street, but that was just by the skin of my teeth, so I have been a bit wary of unsanctioned BIG TIME events pushing things further. I do have to say that those coming down DO have to realize that the sort of stuff that is put up with by the police during Nancy's events are NOT what we need to have happen here. If we can keep this fun, safe, and quite, we may just be able to re-introduce this back to it's natural habitat and enjoy this street again for many years to come. I hate to sound like the grouchy old man in this deal, but I have put some fairly significant effort into not only cruising this street and keeping it open to us in years past (sorta), but living in one of it's cooler neighborhoods for these many years now.

 

Which neighborhood, if you dont mind? I just bought a house in the lesser known Westwood neighborhood near 21st and Campbell(between Indian School and Camelback). We love the neighborhood, all original 1950s brick homes. I love cruising around and checking out all the older neighborhoods though. A lot of them were over our budget when we were looking though.

 

I'm in the Ashland Historic district on Hoover street just south of Virginia. As I said, I have been here twenty five years now and originally bought because IT was so close to where I was cruising so many nights every week. When street racing the bug was a way of life and a second income, all I had to do was take a right turn, roll up two blocks and there was Burger King with all the muscle car kids hanging out. Getting any one of them to put money down on a race with a bug was like shooting fish in a barrel!

 

What you said below is dead on.If it gets out big time I know Nancy has the power to call the City Police and tell them we are doing it...my hope is it can be an in and out assault with no damage done and fun had.

Papa you have mail. I'm not releasing the car club name because they have a relationship with Nancy (they can be trusted) and they are over 100 cars strong.

I helped avoid a posted "No-Cruising" situation 22 years ago when the city "enforced" us off the street, but that was just by the skin of my teeth, so I have been a bit wary of unsanctioned BIG TIME events pushing things further. I do have to say that those coming down DO have to realize that the sort of stuff that is put up with by the police during Nancy's events are NOT what we need to have happen here.

 

I was curious about this Perry person or company and found this....
http://www.azcentral.com/community/...promoter-may-put-brakes-monthly-car-show.html

That is nuts... who needs a ringmaster for a cruise? Hell if they would just allow normal cruising once a month or whenever without the imagined costs for cops, barriers etc, their problems would be solved...

 

It's hard to explain Fenders, but Nancy's show is a huge profit generation for the city and the police department in general. The city gets paid for permits, then puts on EVERY traffic related cop they have for that two evenings a year, and Nancy hires any that aren't on duty to work as security on their off hours. That is how it has become "allowed", whereas regular cruising was shut down and outlawed 22 years ago. We had a situation in the last year with one of her Central Avenue Reunions where she "called" the scheduled event due to weather fairly early in the day, and by evening the weather cleared. Many that hadn't got the message that the event was moved to the following weekend showed and had a great time, and the billions of police that were scheduled that night showed and did their thing and all was well with out all the trappings of the show and "midway"...

The next week when the rescheduled official show was supposed to go down, the minimal police force showed and wrote tickets like mad men. It was the most tickets written in any one day in Phoenix history. The whole event was shut down early and the lot it's held in forcefully vacated, and tickets written to vehicles as "targets of opportunity" on the way out.... Bad deal. It reminded me of the last weeks of Central Cruising in the early nineties. The point being that the city and Police department keep a pretty close eye on this stretch of real estate in the valley, and are ready to defend it in a way that is financially painful to US if they feel we abuse OUR road. It doesn't make sense, but it is a concern.

The other problem I have found is that there seems to be a generational gap in our hobby. Let me explain. I grew up on the very tail end of the traditional "meet me at central and we'll cruise" type upbringing. I was in that groove at least weekly from the very late seventies until the street was shut down and barricaded in '92. We now have a generation involved in this thing that has been around since the public acceptance of hot rods via television about 10-12 years ago. The problem with putting these two "generations" together is that they view "cruising" to be two different things entirely. The newer guys grew up with cruise nights where you pull in and park and dust off your car. Us in the older generation remember filling the tank and not shutting the car off until the sun was coming up, even driving 25 or 30 miles across town to other spots where car guys meet. I have found it very hard to get a lot of these guys out driving on our nights on Central the last couple of years. Just my little rant. I hope this will kinda change back. Central has evolved quite a bit these days too, there is quite a bit more than just fast food out there now!

 

And then there were the Midnight Drags ("Midnights")...Louver nailed it as I grew up in his era. Just to take it a bit further. I think the new kids have made the old guys lazy. They're very content sitting in their lawn chairs talking to the same people, seeing the same cars Saturday after Saturday parked beside them for four hours. I drive me car...it might get less than 10 miles to the gallon, but it was meant to be driven.

We have two "cruise-ins" in our town every Saturday...600 cars show up between them....and the just...sit.

Cruise on Central happens I am driving 60-70% of the time. Louvers...we're the 50 guys on those nights across from the DQ.

Fenders...it's not nuts in today's world here. To cruise our old street someone needs to step up and basically get permitted to do it, that's what Nancy does. 3,000 cars show up and it's a great day/night. BUT...I think we can still gorilla market it and get people to start showing up. Now how long it takes for them to detour the traffic again...who knows? But most of the businesses up and down Central has "No Trespassing" We could have a 1,000 cars show up and have the same issues as decades ago. Check out the youtube link below...


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zJisWUfXyk

 

One more...
http://www.stillruns.com/cruise_on_central_april_2011.php

This is hours before it starts...
http://www.stillruns.com/cruise_on_central_april_2011/425.jpg

 

If our cars were art, they should belong in a museum somewhere. Since they are not quite there, let's get out and drive them. No need to have an organized event. Just go do it.

 

I plan on cruising down central a few times today before I yank the front end out of it tomorrow.

 

And be ready for the 8th!

Gasser YEP...nobody but the law can tell us we can't drive there...we'll see how they feel...

 

...and 15th and 22nd and 29th and every other Saturday that we've been doing this for the last two years....

If people would just come out there would be no need for "trusted" clubs, no fear of Nancy Perry calling the cops (that right there is funny... Hello 911, what is your emergency??)... and certainly no need for hired cops or permits.

I'm also curious if azcruiser14's name is Dean....

 

Well, I promise when the front end is back together in my '57 I'll be out all summer. I think I may need to do a water pump and maybe have the radiator repaired in a spot as well.

 

Someone piss in your Wheaties yesterday nick?

...and 15th and 22nd and 29th and every other Saturday that we've been doing this for the last two years....

As Dr. Phil would say, how's that working for you?

I have total respect for what you guys have been doing over the last two years, but I never heard of your efforts and I am pretty plugged into the car scene in the area...had I heard of your efforts (I) would have been on the front lines helping out with the rest of you and not whining now about someone interested in the same goal as all of you. Louvers and the rest get it....this thing grows by word of mouth starting with the "trusted" clubs and individuals that want this to work.

Also...the reality is, IF...everyone knows about this, all it takes is a phone call from one person and we'll have cops and barricades. No matter how comical that is to you...that's just the fact. For those of us that have been around...we don't want that again.

 

Im sorry, You're right. I shouldn't question the FNG who never posted an intro and nobody knows....

Im all for cruising in my neighborhood, but I dont think we need to be calling out a local promoter whether we like them or not. Wanna stay off the radar, fly below it....

 

Louver...what time do you and your friends show up on Saturday nights, this Saturday?

 

We usually show up around 7pm.

 

Looks like my front end parts wont be here in time to get the car back together.

 

Are we all still on for the weekend? Looking forward to it.

 

Im hoping Dr. Phil shows up...

 

The turquoise pickup is back on the road, now with overdrive, I'll be out