Hey everyone....I want to run an article in the Deep South Region's newsletter about how those of you who are still attending meets in the capacity of volunteers (i.e. committee chairs, etc.) and judges are handling the astronomical gas prices and how much curtailment those prices have made in your efforts. I plan to contact directly some of the directors who are key personnel to the meet to get their input as well. This will also be posted on the AACA General Forum and the Judges Forum as well.
I thank you for your help and once I get it put together, if you send me your thoughts by E-mail I will be happy to send you an E-mail copy of the newsletter.
Due to health issues of both myself and Patt, we've not been able to travel in the latter part of '07 or this year so it
will be good to hear from you.
Buddy Paquet

OK, I forgot to put in the E-mail address. Maybe I've been inhaling too many fumes lately?? Old55ford@bellsouth.net

With no replies at all, I assume those of you who read the thread are not those who go to the meets in any capacity. That really is sad because you are missing out on more fun
than you can imagine. Keep the faith and hang onto the old cars. Buddy

Buddy, I'm sorry I didn't back to you sooner. We just arrived at Burlington, NC today for the 2008 Sentimental Tour. There are at least 6 Board Members here plus a lot of familiar faces from previous tours. There were more than 300 registration forms turned in for this tour, but only 100 could be accommodated. Of course, these forms were sent in before the prices got this outrageous.

I haven't heard of anyone complain about gas prices keeping them from coming. As with most people who have vacations each year, you may not travel as far, but travel we will. Personally I hope to do this until I can't breathe anymore. Speaking of breathing, my wife has emphysema, but we brought the machines and extra 0-2 bottles to get us through.

Oh, and we're going to Texas in 2010, gas prices be d*****!

AACA members, I'd say we're a tenacious bunch.

Wayne

Hey Buddy,

The Tucson meet only had 74 registered vehicles. Down from 77 in 2006. Not uncommon for us.

Western meets seem to be more about local cars. Getting vehicles from states away just doesnt happen much unfortunately.

I suspect the gas issue will impact the eastern events more. Strange but true.

Peter

With gas at $4.+ and climbing, I think your going to see a lot less cars with out of state plates at the shows. I went to a show eighty miles from home last Sunday and received the longest didsance award. I think that should tell you something. I heard on the radio something about a major trucking outfit calling for a shutdown, with diesel over five bucks a gal. I cant say I blame them. Anybody else hear anything?? Where is old Jed Clampet when we need him???

He's either trying to pry Jethro away from the fancy eatin' table, keep Granny way from her still, or keeping the boys away from Ellie May while she was swimming in the C-ment pond with her critters

GVACS Region just pulled out on Saturday with 24 vehicles for their 1000 mile tour to Maine. As for trucking outfits, last Thursday a friend of my dad's just went to DMV and turned in the plates on his Kenworth. The truck is for sale. He just couldn't do it anymore, he's had enough and he's just plain fed up.

We need the truckers on the road, but if the farmers follow suit, we're going to starve....

Our political candidates should campaign about their plans for solving the fuel issues and not the middle east. In some places that might play hand in hand, but we need the fuel problem solved. The war issue will solve itself when the bullets are gone...

Took a sold Olds from FL to VA, dropped the trailer and went on to Cumberland without it, stopped in Arlington and Fairfax to put flowers and mine and Judy's parents' graves, and then back to Warsaw, hooked up the trailer and brought it home empty. Gas cost $941. Took the '39 Buick convertible to Burlington, NC from FL in the trailer for the Sentimental Tour. Ran the car around 400 miles on the tour and then back into the trailer. Gas for the whole trip cost $917. I believe by next year it will cost us $500 or more round trip in the '05 Buick just to go visit our daughter in Baltimore, take flowers to Arlington, and visit friends in eastern VA. It might not help, but we plan to vote for the man who will tax the dickens out of the oil companies, and drill for oil in the USA wherever it is.

Recently, I worked as a volunteer on staff for a brand specific car event.
In the past I took my larger, more comfortable vehicle to events at this same location (~400 miles).
This year I decided to take my daily commuter car which gets better MPG.
After I returned from the event, I calculated that using the car that gets better MPG resulted in a cost saving of $37 for fuel.
Not a huge amount of money to some, but enough for me. Considering the number of auto events I volunteer at (staff or judge) this will add up.
It also adds up when I consider the number of staff meetings I attend for two of the events I work at.
Those meetings alone, add another 1,200 miles to my driving and more potential savings in fuel using the more fuel efficient vehicle.

I have also gotten into the habit of calculating an estimated fuel and other expense cost for events where I show my Antique Auto.
I do this so that I have an idea of what such a trip will cost. Sometimes if I am on the fence about attending an event or not this does factor into my decision.

My personal feeling is that life is too short to miss out on the things that are most important to you. If I ever get this Buick done, I'm going to drive it until they pull the last gallon of $30/gallon gas out of the ground. If I have to, I can skimp in other areas to make up the difference. I just think of it like this: how much fun per hour is it buying me? Amusement parks are a lot more expensive than driving my cars, even at $4/gallon. My daily driver is a ball to drive and gets ~21 MPG. I think I'm paying about $100 more a month to use it vs. my 4-cylinder Mazda last year. Not that $100 is chump change, but even with that difference, I figure I'm only paying about $2/hour to enjoy an amazing car.

Now if I could only find the time to work on this Buick and get out there and play before all the gas is gone.

The oil companies will simply pass the tax increase onto the American people resulting in even higher costs. FYI, the Senate Republicans blocked this bill yesterday (taxing the oil companies).

Unfortunately the small amount of oil they think is here in the USA will be sold by the barrel to the highest bidder, thus sending most of it out of the country.

I was feeling bad when I just filled up my Lightning. I paid $4.77.9 per gallon and had to swipe my credit card twice because of the 100.00 dollar limit. Then I emailed a friend in Oslo, Norway.

Let`s see: 14 kr. per liter, that is 14 x 3.8 gal/l = 53 kr. per gallon = $ 11,- per gallon !!!!!

Now, I don't feel as bad.

It is past time to open up "restricted land" here for drilling and persue alternate fuels more agressfully.

The price hikes are largely due to speculators and the falling dollar, not oil company plots or shortages. There is (for the moment) plenty of oil to be had, so there's no need to tap more reserves yet. The cost of producing a barrel of oil hasn't gone up 300% in the past 2 years. Our dollar has tanked so you need more of them to purchase something tangible. Without this inflation, maybe gas would be $3.25/gallon.

In addition, speculators are buying oil futures and driving up the prices on the open market. In fact, I think that the oil futures have become commodities in and of themselves. Nobody's buying them for the oil they represent, but because they'll probably be more valuable next week. It's a lot like the Internet stocks--big money for something that's only valuable because people believe other people think it's valuable. Will it crash? Is there a bubble? Who knows?

I've been wracking my mind to figure out what, exactly, politicians can do about it. The oil is traded on an international commodity exchange and costs what it costs. Everyone pays the same (as Mike points out, Europe has experienced the same jumps in prices as we have). There's just no way a US politician (or all of them together) can affect it--we have no jurisdiction. The oil companies make less than $0.10 per gallon, so they're not the source of the problem, although Washington likes to call oil execs in every few months to beat them up and give you a target for your ire. But unless we fix our ailing economy and somehow convince investors to stop driving up the price of oil futures, it won't change.

I think the only changes that can be made are on the individual level: smaller cars, public transportation, motorcycles, bicycles, working from home, carpooling, etc. But no solution will come out of Washington no matter who gets elected in November. They don't have the power, no matter what they claim.

What might fix things is if the hundreds of billions we're spending overseas stayed here instead. I'd rather that my tax dollars act more directly to help our domestic economy and security rather than search for the boogiemen in the desert.

just as a counter point I had to fill up my car today 6.05AUD per US Gallon so at current exchange rates and round to the nearest estimate 6 bucks a gallon.

Gas in our part of Canada is running about $5.50CND per US gallon.

>>I've been wracking my mind to figure out what, exactly, politicians can do about it.<<

Matt I've listened to some web radio talk shows and they talked about how the "speculators" are allowed by law to buy the oil stocks with only 10% of the cost down. With such a low risk factor lots of part time speculators are going for gold. It's been suggested that the law be changed to require 100% risk, which would put a lot of greedy little bugs out of business.

My opinion on politicians is that if they don't represent us... we need to replace them. The "we" part is where you and I need to find folks locally who are running for a government position, and who are hard working and honest. WE need to reward honesty and that will require US to put new faces in government. As it stands now it's broke... broke really really really bad.

The good news is that there is a rumble'n in the land, and a movement is growing to fix things; starting locally. You won't hear about such on the corporate paid for tv. Yes things will get worse, but things after that will get much better.

Quote of the day: "If we don't involve ourselves in politics... we deserve what we get"

Laugh Hard, Hang Tough, Lend a Hand
Ramblin Randy

Some good news here, at least for now. The price of gasoline just went down from $4.029 to $3.969.

Gas prices are keeping me from going anywhere that I don't absolutely really want to go. I feel like a prisoner here in Sebring, FL, the only island in the middle of the state. Living here is like living on Hawaii. Once you've been to all 3-4 towns ono the island, it's 80-100 miles to anywhere else. At $3.95-4.09 a gallon and an old car that gets 12.5 mpg (on a good day) you just stay home and watch the news (there are no shows worth watching so it's the three cable news channels all day and all night). It cost me $987 to pull a car up to Virginia, drive to Cumberland and back, and tow the empty car trailer back home. Yep, it's wonderful. Glad it doesn't snow here --- yet

Its a shame to have to feel good about $3.969 a gallon. Cheapest here is $3.939, a whopping 3 cents difference. Keep the change, it all sucks.
I only drive to town twice a week when possible - sick mother-in-law sometimes makes an additional trip necessary (doctors appointments & such). Fortunate enough that we're self employed and have gotten to walk to work for the last 19 years.

Here it is $4.25 now for Reg Unleaded. I just cost me $14.75 to fill my HD. A few years ago it was more like $5 to filler-up

up 10 cents since monday. no way will be able to afford a trip to hershey in october when it maybe 6 bucks or more.

Matt,

If those speculators are driving up oil futures, but the price suddenly dropped, wouldn't they loose their uh, shirts?

Now THAT would be a pretty picture.

Joe

Gasoline hit 6.689 per imperial gallon today here in Victoria. Seems awfully high but if you figure out how long you used to have to work to buy a gallon of fuel and how long you have to work to buy it today it isn't quite a scarry. When I started driving my daily driver I had to work 45 minutes to buy one gallon, today I only have to work 12 minutes. Dosen't seem so bad does it or am I just rationalizing a delusion????

Wowabunga,


Where have I heard this before, about folks buying on margin at a small percentage...it led to something real bad...

Oh yeah, the 1929 Stock Market Crash and the Worldwide Depression that followed!

The helter-skelter buying of "energy futures" began during Bush I's presidency, in a little trick now referred to as the "Enron Loophole." The closure of that loophole was included in the recently-vetoed Farm Bill.

Time to put my rose-colored glasses back on.

TG

Yep, the ones holding the bag when the music stops are going to take a very big hit indeed. The question remains whether that day will ever come. My personal experience in formerly bulletproof real estate suggests that overheated/overvalued/over-invested things always reach a tipping point sooner or later when people say, "I'm paying how much for what?!?"

It's as if we all woke up one day and realized that the thing we call money is nothing more than worthless paper with imagined value.