My Hunnert Car PileUp Adventure

Left Friday right from work and headed west in my daily driver. No use taking either Dad’s ‘48 Ford or his ’56 Olds cuz neither met the criteria so I suffered in my Grand Marque. Made it to the Holiday Inn in Morris in just under 5 hours.

Got my room key, threw my stuff in the room, freshened up and headed to Fool’s Pub. At this point I’d like to thank Catherine AKA DumbWhore and her girlfriend Lindsey for sharing their room with me. It was GREAT seeing ya again sweetie and I’d like to extend the hand of hospitality to you two and invite you to stay at my place during the Detroit Autorama or BilletProof…or BOTH next year.

Once in the downtown area it took abit of driving around to find somewhere to park. The place was JUMPING! I hadn’t driven in front of the bar so after parking and walking around the corner by the police station I just froze in my spot staring at the front of Fool’s with all the people and cars parked everywhere! More people standing out front milling around then at any other time I can remember.


Spoons (on the right) immediantly came up and I got a hug. HamBone wasn’t far behind (middle) and his pal Jerry I met at the Hot Rod Cinematic. GREAT seeing all three of you guys again and catching up.


Then chatted with TomH, EyeBall and a few of the other Suedes before heading inside to get a drink with GZ. Great to see you guys as well. Anytime I get the4 chance to talk about B’ville, I’m a happy camper.

Once inside the bar…… HOLY SMOKES!, the place was PACKED. We managed to make our way kinda close to the bar and Guy got us a couple of drinks while I hugged and chatted with SurfaceDoctor. WONDERFUL seeing you again sweetie. There were so many HAMB folks there.




Everytime I turned around more HAMB folks were within eye or ear shot.

Kevin Tully AKA Mr HotRodChassis. AWESOME seeing you again sweetie. What was last weekend…three times in less then one months time?




Had a few drinks with my good pal Ebert and his friend Tim. GREAT seeing you again sweetie. Thanks for the cocktails and shots…..if I didn’t know any better I would think you were trying to get me intoxicated.


Lots of man love going on. Everyone was happy to see each other


Ran into Josh. It was nice seeing you to again bud

And had a cocktail with Old Carmike (in hat) ALWAYS a fun time hanging out with you sweetie.



So about halfway thru the night this guy walks up to me and asked me if I’m HRLC, I say yes and he introduces himself as the author of the infamous thread “Not Enough Flatheads at Goodguys”. We had a good laugh and hug and became instant pals.

Me and GLMarkie, it was GREAT to meet you. I had fun hanging out with you and you pal throughout the weekend.


The bar was about ready to close to I called it a night and headed back to the Holiday Inn. Surfed the HAMB abit…of course, then hit the sack cuz I wanted to get up early to check out some of the rides in line before the gates are opened.

The next morning I headed right over to the fairgrounds. The line of cars to get in were three wide in two separate areas and almost back to the road….in other words LOTS of cars already there. I was feeling alittle blue in my daily driver as this was the first event I attended without a car in many, many years. I was missing Big Olds something awful. This is actually the longest seperation we’ve had since we’ve been together.

Anyway some rides in line




VonDust’s, I LOVEd your Caddy but this one is cool as well. GREAT seeing you again sweetie

 

Once the gates opened I hopped in GZ’s roadster for the ride inside. We parked with the Kropdusters, Vagabonds and the Indy crew. We got real lucky getting a spot near all the cool kids for sure.




38pickup, Fiddy, Breeder.


Ran into Tman who was helping to park cars…..in his own “special” way. Nice to see you again bud. Seems I run into you more in the summer then some of my local car buds.


I was anxious to see the Stude so went to check that out in the project area. Very cool, very unique, very popular, everyone was talking about it.






Parked nearby was Johnny Sparkles latest project. Looks good bud. Can’t wait to see it cruzn down the road.


Then headed over to the t-shirt sales to get myself a hoodie BUT I don’t care for the ones with the zipper, I like pullovers, so I passed. Judging from what everyone else was wearing the zippered hoodies were a HUGE success.


Did some walking around and checking out of cars with my pal Ebert






Stopped and introduced Eric (Ebert) to some local car pals,
Fab32, one, Ebert, and Marvin




Marvin’s new ride….I guess I forgot to take a shot from the front




He made the seat from some 60 some odd year old material his Dad had.

 

Continued to check out cars




Including Ebert’s boo-boo from the night before


Ran into my old pal Stitch with some very cool purses for sale. One certainly would have been on my arm if I didn’t have an interior to pay for. Great seeing ya again sweetie. I hope you had a successful day.


Started to make my way over to the vendor area




Glad to see this very talented young man has started his own business building hot rods


Our very our KCPinstriper chatting with customers. We didn’t get to chat much but is was nice seeing you and Bobby again. Looking forward to seeing you in Milwaukee and Chicago this winter.


Ms Metal with customers as well. Glad to see the vendors busy with potential customers. Hopefully everyone had a GREAT day.


The small area where the swap meet was last year had hot rods in it this year.


Caught WowCars up in a tree trying to hang a banner



Dennis Gage at the PileUp. In my personal opinion I’m not so sure this was a good thing. Guaranteed steetrods and muscle cars will show up next year not understanding the difference and there will just be hard feelings at the gate. Oh well


Ran into RunaroundSue who had a special gift for me…….Thanks SO much sweetie! Boy did it taste good….right down to the last drop.
10am


5pm


Who shrunk BobK????

 

ALWAYS wonderful getting a hug from my good pal SurfaceDoctor. GREAT seeing you again bud!.


Watched both of these beauties pull in


Got the pleasure of a decent conversation with Shana, not rushed. WONDERFUL seeing you again sweetie. I sure hope I can make it to the Rust Revival in the spring.


Teh Gerg, nice to finally meet you in person, I enjoyed out chat.


Went on a mission to check out some more cars
















And some cool bikes


Caught Gasser57’s tiki carving demo. Great seeing ya again bud. Glad I got a chance to say “hi”. I’m going to be in touch cuz I think I’d like a couple of my Detroit Autorama display in March.




While watching the tiki carving Swinging Demon came up and introduced himself. Nice to meet ya bud. I wish I was going to be in town for the indoor show next weekend. I would certainly stop by.

 

Quick photo with the girls, Left to right: Elizabeth (MrsHellfish), CONGRATS sweetie on the twins. I’m really happy for ya. Lindsey, it was great meeting you, thanks for sharing the room with me. Then me and Catherine, AKA DumbWhore, WONDERFUL seeing you again. As far as I’m concerned we don’t get to hang together enough and that needs to be changed.


A quick stop to check out the first band


And the crowd that had gathered


Then on the way to the free beer I ran across this


The Kropduster in charge of passing out free beer…..kind like putting the fox in charge of the henhouse


The ladies did their job and made sure everyone steeping up for free beer had an ID


So now I’m on a mission, I wanna find that purple custom, so I start to head to the back of the fairgrounds












Low and behold I run into Plowboy who is also searching for the little custom so we decide to search together. GREAT seeing you again sweetie. Looking forward to seeing your new bubbletop debute at the Detroit Autorama in March.


With two searching it didn’t take long. WOW, what a treat for the eyes. Aaron and I stood around checking it out and chatting about “what if’s”

 

We walked around for a bit more then I needed to meet up with a HAMB fellow and do alittle relay so I headed to the front gate checking out rides along the way.










So now it’s a few minutes after 1pm and I head over to the Meet & Greet area to sit for a minute and relax. That didn’t happen. At this point folks started arriving and the Meet & Greet started almost an hour early. I started passing out name tags, stickers, pointing folks in the direction of the banner to sign and the table for food. It was something to see, folks arriving by the dozens to meet and mingle with their fellow gearheads.


Someone had been nice and set up a table for us, and when PalosFV arrived with the cake and pastries, we were good to go. A special thanks to VonAl who brought cookies and to AthenMarie for bringing the rice krispie treats. Everything was much appreciated.




Me and PalosFV, thanks SO MUCH sweetie for bringing all the special goodies which helped to make the Meet & Greet the HUGE success it was. Please remind me of the name of the pastry shop. Those little treats were a HUGE hit. Folks were talking about them for the rest of the day. PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE thank your brother-in-law from us.






Special thanks to whomever brought over the HUGE ladder to use. Certainly came in handy




Thanks to Hellraiser for the following caption and photo.......
"You, over there, quit sticking out your tongue, I'm trying to take a picture here."


Didn’t take long to get everyones attention and get then squeezed in real tight for the HOKEY ASS group photo. I think some of them actually enjoyed being that close to each other. At this point I’ve gotta add that OldBobSign thought he had made enough name tags and stickers for everyone judging by how many attended last year and how many said they were coming this year. But by shortly after 2pm we were outta both and Larry had made 120 of each. I’d say we easily had 140 folks there in the two hour time frame between 1-3pm.


VonAl and Djanjo, wonderful seeing you both again


?, HotRodChassis, and uSmile4.


35Pickup in the red shirt who had just become engaged the nite before. CONGRATS sweetie! She’s a lucky, lucky woman and I wish you both a lifetime of happiness.

 

Luckysgal, Lucky77 and OldBobSign


Fuzzy in the middle


JalopyJim and his lovely wife


OldCarMike in da middle


FoMoCoPower


Me and Breeder


Continental John, Bull, his lovely wife and…


Wingnuts


OlDrippy in da middle


Broman in da middle




Fuzzy taste testing the treats


1LowTrk and Mitch26


RobPaul and Cliffy, with Fiddy in the middle behind


PBRmeASAP, LouverDude, 38Pickup, CarArtNick

 

PeterPan of Chicago made some stickers and handed then out as well. Thanks bud!




Once the crowd disapated a bit I got a special treat myself from Slammed. Thanks sweetie, much appreciated. Next year perhaps it will be a bit warmer and we can get you to pose by Big Olds....you know, like the dudes get those chicks in swim suits to do.




TX HAMBer, Me and Slammed


After cleaning up the area and bidding farewell the last few folks I headed back over to where the Indy, KD and VB were hanging out




I didn’t get a chance to watch the ring of fire show BUT I did catch this


Stopped in and visted with Aboner and his lovely wife. Nice seeing you again sweetie. I enjoyed meeting your whole family and look forward to the next time our paths cross.


Hung out with GZ, RunaroundSue and MercDueceman for bit……..


….and finished off a bottle of Bailys


Just about now OldBobSign and Fab32 said they were heading out and going to get some dinner so I joined them at a nice Italian restaurant. Almost every table in the place were folks from the show. Afterwards Larry and Frank went straight to Fools and I headed back to the room to shower and change for a nite out in downtown Morris.

When I got to Fools I kinda hung out in front just checking out the action and chatting with pals. Caught Lindross and his crew in the pizza place next door to Fools. Thanks for the cocktail and cuddle the nite before in Fools. If I didn't know any better I'd say the whole place was trying to get me drunk.


Enjoyed my conversation with Nick32Vic, Johnny Sparkle and my new pal, glMarkie.

 

Sat on the curb with my bud Hellraiser and talked about life. I really enjoyed chatting with you a getting to know you alittle better. Once again, sorry to hear about your Mother, my condolences to you and your whole family. Aslso got the opportunity to hang out with Appleseed for a bit. Nice chatting with you as well sweetie.

Caught my pal Hot Rod Roadster parking his car so I asked for a ride and off we went. THANKS so much sweetie! The ride was great and the conversation even better. Looking forward to doing it topless next time




We all then decided to go around the corner to the bar on the back side of Fools. We all wanted to sit, relax and continue to chat hot rods without having to yell. On the way checked out a few more cars

BobBleed’s Dad’s roadster


TouchDownTodd's


Had a great time in this small little place. Thanks for the drinks guys. Ran into a few HAMB folks there as well
RobLee, Hellraiser, HotRodRoadster, blad guy I don’t know, then Degreaser. Nice to finally meet you Degreaser. I enjoyed our chat.


My old pal EvilClown was also in the bar with a couple of his sons. It was fun sitting and chatting with you guys and thanks too for the drink.


They finally kicked us out when they were closing so we gathered the cars by fools and hung out alittle while longer
RobLee’s cool little truck. One of these days we have to run your Buick Big Block against my Olds Big Block.


Rob’s made it to a few HAMB Meet & Greets this summer


Said goodnight to my new flathead pal glmarkie




We caravanned over to the Holiday Inn to see if Breeder and the boys were still up and around. Low and behold he was up having a smoke.


63CadGuy (tall handsome one) and his equally good looking pal who’s name I forgot, were also hanging out. Nice to meet both of you.


Breeder having some issues sitting straight


So I decided to sit next to him so he wouldn’t fall over, besides hwo lucky can a gal get sitting between two handsome Kropdusters.


Now it getting really late and Gary, HotRodRoadster, Hellraiser, and RobLee decide they need to leave cuz they’ve got a 20 mile ride back to their hotel AND are getting up early for the ride back to Omaha so we all say a sad good night with promises to get together soon.

Thanks to the Omaha crew for taking me under their wing and showing me such a good time. I really enjoyed the whole evening and look forward to getting together soon.

A very special thanks to the Chrome Czars and Catherine for putting on such a kick ass event. I realize how much work is involved and you guys did an AWESOME job! I hope it continues in the same direction and never looses that family feel.

I’d also like to add that I’m so pleased that thousands of traditional hot rod folks can get together in one small town for a whole weekend of cars and there is not one harsh word heard or hint of trouble at all. Every single person there should be proud of the fact that we here in the Midwest know how to have a good time mingling with folks from lots of different car clubs without any issues.

My hats off to every single person there cuz without you there wouldn’t be this kick ass event.

 

Another five-star thread from the pro!!! Thanks!

 

im startin to think i was drugged...i dont recall fallin over!

and for the record [before any sick rumors start ] that diet coke in my pocket at the meet and greet is my wifes!

 

Wow, what a good time. So sorry I missed it, maybe some year the stars will align and it won't be the same time as Hershey.

Have fun in Austin. You KNOW I wish I was going with you! However, Littleman has inpsired me to feng-shui my garage into a streamlined, lean, mean building machine! Woohoo!

 

Glad that i got to go hang out and meet so many damn people.

My highlights were meeting Denise and hanging out in the hotel parking lot drinking with the kropdusters and vagabonds.

 

yeah, I wish you were going too I'll see you next weekend though and we can discuss next years events and plan a few together.

 

Great thread Denise.

I'm gonna have to search through the pile-up threads for more pics of that pair of Hudsons.....

 

Great thread Denise! Thanks so much.

 

Great story and pics. It was good to finally meet you! I got distracted by all the cool shit that was there and forgot about the meet and greet and just got there at the very end of it, so I really didnt talk to anybody except for Breeder and Rashy
Mike

 

...they were really cool.

Thanks for the post Denise. I missed some of the show... all of Fools and missed seeing Breeder tanked. Again.

Thanks again for the kind words on the engagement.

 

Thanks for sharing your fun time....it makes it even more special
that you mentioned the handles of the Hambers' in the pictures
with you, and without you.... Looks like a great time...Good job
Denise!!!
Sandy

 

Super great job denise. Your posts of events are just fantastic. Next best thing if you cant be there in person. And I cant bake worth a darn so I brought the huge bag of ricekrispie treats.

 

You always make me wanna hop in the car and drive across the country. Although, I am planning on making the HCP in the next couple years.

 

Wow Denise great post. thanks for all the shots of the HAMB folks I've just started to meet. I remember you and Catherine at Fools. I was there with my girlfriend Jackie. We were the older couple in NHRA jackets sitting against the wall looking shell shocked! Next year I'll make a point to introduce myself now that I know whos who!

 

Another 5 star write up! Can't wait to see all the pics you took when I get home tonight. Great running into you again as always.

 

NICE PICS!!! your better than the travel channel

 

Wonderful story Denise...... (this is PBRmeASAP's wife Erin) I really enjoyed catching up with you again. Hopefully we can work something out some new tile going in your house......See you in Austin....

 

Thank You! Excellent Story and for filling the blanks . I'm going to have to stay over next year! You'll just know how to have FUN!!!

 

Denise, it was great to finally meet you! Great post!

 

Wow Denise.....
Once again, a Wonderful recap !!!!!
Thanks for all the effort it took to post it....better coverage than what I see in the magazines!!!
See ya at DOTD Saturday.
Skot

 

I had a really good time chatting with Bugman again. As well as his buddies Hawkeye and .....uhh I forget...

Anywho, I know for certain that if I lived closer to you's guys we'd get along like pretzels and beer.


And it seems like it was kinda glassed over - but the treats that were supplied for the HAMB M & G were FIVE STAR!!! Way too good for the holligans that we all are....


Seriously - the Polish pastry chef needs to get a free advertisement right here!!!

 

Another great photojournal. Thanks, Denise

FYI, Dennis Gage wasn't invited to the show. He asked if he could film an episode there. We said, OK, like we told several other people it was ok... we even told the Muscle Car mag that it was ok... but they wouldn't find any muscle cars. Anyway, if street rods show next year... they will experience the cold hard reality of rejection.