21st Annual Pontiac Oakland GMC Spring Dust-Off

21st Annual Pontiac Oakland GMC Spring Dust-Off Springfield-Oaks Co. Park in Davisburg Michigan
Saturday June 13th presented by the, Michigan Widetrackers chapter #16 of POCI Well,It happened again! What you ask?,'it rained on our clubs annual car show"!!?? Our clubs Dust-Off committee board even changed the May's Sunday date-[after being rained on 5 out of 6 years] to a new Saturday June 13th date, hoping for a dry,warmer day? It didn't happen?? Seems like, what do you get when you mix the Widetrackers and car show together?? Answer-RAIN! Our Spring Dust-Off car show;aka: Spring 'Squeege-Off', was again held at Oakland County's Springfield -Oaks Co.Park. A nice,quite, rural, farming area of Davisburg Mi. The parks manager 'LC" makes sure we have total access of the parks several hundred acres for the car show field and swap areas, plus,two inside [cement floored] barns for inside swap, with the new inside car registration and bathrooms building!!
The 11 member D-O committee 'OK'd" different ways of advertising this years show, we used our Michigan based big car event magazine "CRUIS'NEWS' for a 1/2 pg color ad and was also in their 'monthly events'calender! It worked so well this year, we plan on using them again for next years 2010 D-O show. Plus,several ads in our local news papers, cable TV. But, the good 'ol show 'flyer' seems to still work the best. The show was taped twice, once from Waterford's Cable Network and Oxfords Community Channel! About this year's show, with the S.E Michigan areas overall economy not being very good, with the GM Corp. troubles and about GM's new car sales dealerships either loosing the Pontiac brand or worse,closing up. Our D-O board was afraid to ask for any Pontiac dealers to sponsor this years show? But, even in these very hard times, we [the club] did 'sign-up' the same three Pontiac dealers, again, just as last year!! First off, there's -GOLLING-Pontiac-GMC of Lk. Orion, Michigan - as a Gold Sponsor Second, -Randy HOSLER-Pontiac-Buick-GMC of Clarkston, Michigan - a Silver Sponsor Third [but not last] SELLERS-Pontiac-Buick-GMC of Farmington Hills,Mi - the show dash plaque sponsor Plus, the many other local businesses that made their way on the sponsor board!! Thank-you all!!!!
The week of the shows weather stated 'clear/dry' on saturday the 13th, but it didn't start out that way, it rained in the am, keeping some show car owners home. After the wet time, a few of my friends DID go back home to bring their classics Pontiacs back the show field, allowing us to see them at the Dust-Off, Thanks guys> Maybe,[we just hope],that this club can have a completely dry,warm day,[for a change] at our next years D-O show held at- Springfield-Oaks Co. Park, Davisburg Mi, Saturday June 12th 2010? But, our clubs 40 volunteers made the best of putting 'the show on the road',again, just as in the past years. We had people: at the entry gate to let in the 315 spectators,to sign-up the 88 show car registrations,and to park all of the show/display cars. We had 41 inside/outside swap/vendor areas [some picked an inside spot because of the rainy am]. A few members manned our club tent/table for giving out 'new' member info pkgs,and passing out the many drivers ticket prizes, also for doing the 50/50 drawings. There was a DJ playing music and also he spoke out about our many show sponsors. Not to forget,that we had good food to eat,too! A local news paper, the Oakland Press had their tent up,displaying/selling the latest 2009 Woodward Dream Cruise items-shirts, hats, posters,pins! There were 3 new vehicles on display from GOLLING Pontiac-GMC a, G-8, G-6 H. T. convertible and a Denali...all real sharp!! The club also had two 'special ticket drawings', raffling off two seperate prints of the [late 2008] 'John Sawruk GT-37", these prints were drawn by another Widetracker club member, Eric White, contact him at:[gtoric@charter.net] With the procedes going to the U of M Cancer center! There were 25 different show car/truck classes. Each show class having it's own 'letter' area to park in, making it much easier for the people to 'vote' for their special car/truck. We had a 1927 Pontiac to 2002 Firebirds, and all models in between, early 50's to full size, Fiero's to GMC pick-up's,either in stock,modified and unrestored original forms!! It's real good to see this many nice Pontiac Oakland and GMC's all at the same time!! Plus,the club had '3 special' show trophies to give out re; 1] Van Seymore award, [a past club member/Pontiac Motors[2004] his son Keith picked a '65 black GTO tri-power,4-speed. A very nice car of Ron/Shelley McDonald. 2] John Sawruk award, [another past club member/PE [2008] Marge and John jr chose the [one of two] '79 black/gold Grand-Am pick-up, thats right,a rare concept Pontiac p-u!! Owned by Darrel Latridge 3] Best of Show trophy- by popular vote, went to a '54 GMC resto-mod p-u! [I saw this same truck, up front on display at Cobo Hall for Detroit's Auto-Rama this year!!] This cool truck is driven by Tom/Linda DeMarco. Our chapter was formed in 1979, thats 30 years as a group! The club has had it's up's and down's, but all in all, we're doing just fine now. We have many club events through the year[s] and there's always plenty of club participation,either in organizing or going to each event! Putting on a car show, [should be a lot of hard work,IF you want something in return], Thats where the Widetracker's excel because, 'we work as a team'!! And,Not just a couple of people trying to put on a very big project,such as a car show. You'll only get out of it, what you put in. Thats why again, this years Widetracker's P-O-GMC Spring Dust-Off car show was a big club success, the main reason, The Michigan Widetrackers club.......members,period signed, Michigan Widetracker's 'VP with the GP' Jim Larson