ex98thdrill

Mine didn't arrive so I had to ask for a renewal. My check got cashed last week, and my PA sales tax has already been filed and paid

I went LED in my new barn and never regretted it.

Almost every car trailer I looked at had OSB floors in it, and the cheapest one that I saw was about $16,000. I went to the Syracuse Nationals looking to buy a new car trailer three years ago and due to COVID, there wasn't ANYONE there that had trailers to sell, but the one trailer that I fell in love with was an ATC. So when I got home I looked for the nearest ATC Dealer and it turned out to be Davis Trailer World. As it turned out this is what I found: 1. Hallmark, US Cargo and all of the steel trailers are all made by the same manufacturer. The frames are all welded up at the same place by the same company, and then the frames leave the factory and go to their respective facilities to have Hallmark, US Cargo, etc. put their tin and names on the trailers. 2. ATC and Featherlite are their own companies. 3. I went in to order an ATC, the dealer who sells ATC also sells Featherlite. He asked me is he could get me a quote for the Featherlite, and the Featherlite came in $3,000 cheaper and had a 10 year warranty instead of five. 4. At the time Featherlite would lock in at the price quoted, ATC would not. In other words, if the price went up on the trailer before it arrived at the dealer, Featherlite wasn't going to raise the price, ATC would've charged me whatever it was. 5. When my new trailer came in there was an ATC on the lot just like it, when I looked at the latches, workmaship, etc. there was not comparison. As for tie downs, I wanted the fast track tie downs and I was told by the dealer to go with the airline track tiedowns instead. He told me that anchoring the fast track tiedowns would be a dissimilar metal that would corrode my trailer, where the airline track is aluminum on aluminum and is stronger. Truth be told I LOVE IT!! I shelled out a lot of cash for the trailer, but in hindsight, it should last me as long as I plan on going to meets, and the trailer is exactly the way I wanted it. If you're going to do it once, bite the bullet and do it right. If not, buy used until you can afford to do it right.

maybe

I have one of those in the trailer as well

Neil was a great guy. I think my funniest Neil story was when I chaired the National Meet in Canandaigua. In 2010 I had the pleasure of chairing the Eastern Division National Spring during AACA's 75th anniversary. I lot of heart and soul went into the planning and execution of that event, that I am very proud of today. To make things special for the judges, arrangements were made so that the judges could catch a ride from Judge's Breakfast, to the showfield aboard Bob Malley's restored 1949 Flxible bus. So Neil walks out of Judge's breakfast, sees that bus, and is so focussed on the bus and jumps on it and goes to the show field. So Neil does his judging and after he's done judging realizes something.... Neil had a rental car!! When he jumped on the bus to go to the show field, he'd forgoten that he left the rental car at the banquet facility where Judge's breakfast had been. Needless to say, Neil had to walk back to the banquet facility to go get his car!!

I didn't even know this section of the forum was created until talking to Terry Bond last week. Sorry to hear about Sherm's passing. Didn't he play football in the NFL at one time??

What year is your Dodge??

Unfortunately a lot of people fail to understand that the event is run entirely by volunteers, by an organization that is been doing this for almost 70 years. AACA has been around for 88 years, while Hershey has been taking place for 68 years. The event is as much as an institution as the club itself. Ironically my first trip to Hershey was in 1973. It's hard to believe 50 years. I was 5 years old the first time my dad brought me down there. For many many years we walked through many miles of mud searching for parts to restore a car so we could show it at Hershey. It took us almost 30 years to be able to do that, but we did. There are people who have spent their entire lives chasing parts to restore a car that have never got those cars done so they could be shown at Hershey. My dad is gone, and times have changed, but I'm thankful that the Hershey Region is still willing to do it. It might not be as good as it once was, but it's still Hershey. We joined AACA so that we could show at Hershey. Every year I register more than one vehicle for Hershey so if something breaks, I still have a backup vehicle that I can bring to Hershey.

I thought they closed off access at 10pm.

If you think you're going to charge me almost $900 between the tent and my 5 spaces and tell me I have to park my truck and trailer somewhere else other than my space, you're crazy.

A guy next to me has 16 spaces that he shares with several guys. A week before Hershey most of them backed out. I'm thinking it was the gas prices. I didn't see Hemmings, Grundy or Hagerty set up either.

Truth be told, I think most of the people who are doing this crap are non members of AACA. I have never heard of anyone having any problems at the other meets.

I hate to burst your bubble, but with next year being a leap year, we're 364 days out. Hershey will be a week later next year.

Bear in mind that they won't let vendors in the gate until 7am, so depending on where the spot is and where you're at, security won't let the vendors in.

The American Picker guy has a flea market space in the red field one row over from me. All kidding aside most of the people who act like total jerks and thumb their nose at the rules aren't even AACA members. A couple of years back I remember when Steve Moskowitz had his camera stolen and I'm willing to bet that was a non member that did that too. Most of the time when you go to any other AACA National Meet you seldom have any problems at all, but Hershey draws the jerks out of the woodwork.

Here's how we get the fire trucks to the meets.

I recently retired from the Sheriff's Department. At the Sheriff's Department we had a ghost car. The ghost car is a black Dodge Charger with black reflective scotchlight. During the day it looks like a plain black Dodge Charger, at night it reflects the same as a marked patrol unit. I did the same thing with my trailer. During the day it looks like a plain gray trailer. Depending on the light and where you stand, sometimes the graphics are lighter than the trailer, sometimes they're darker than the trailer and sometimes you can't see anything at all. At night, a DIFFERENT STORY. I also went as far as put my name on the roof in large reflective black lettering. I did this for two reasons: 1. It makes it harder for a thief to steal the trailer because it would be too time consuming to remove the graphics, and too obvious if they take off with the trailer. 2. In the event I lose power to the lights, the trailer is still visible at night.

He leads from the front. Before I retired from the Army I was at Fort Indiantown Gap for training for a week. We got released on Sunday afternoon, but I didn't have to be back to work until Tuesday night, so I stayed an extra night at Fort Indiantown Gap so that I could sightsee around Hershey on Monday. As fate would have it, on a Sunday night I swung by the old AACA Headquarters to check on the hours of the Library and guess who was just rolling out of the office?? STEVE!! Almost Eight o'clock on a Sunday night and he was at the office. I don't know who was more surprised, me seeing him, or him seeing me. Needless to say I know the hours he keeps. If you want to learn even more, try hosting a national meet our tour. In 2010 when I chaired a national meet, I quickly learned firsthand just how much Steve, the national directors and the staff at AACA Headquarters do to put on a great organization. When I did my speech prior to the awards banquet when our meet was over, I thanked Steve, the National Directors and the staff at AACA Headquarters do and I apologized to them all for taking them for granted. Like several others, there have been a lot of things from time to time that I didn't agree with, but when you find yourself in a role of planning and logistics for putting on a national meet, you quickly learn how things are done and why they're done the way that they are (like online credit card payment for meet registration). I learned a lot, so much to the point to where I was asked to run for a spot on the National Board of Directors and wouldn't because I knew I couldn't do the job to the level that I felt that it needed to be done. Not only do these people work hard, they do so to the point where most of them don't have the time to enjoy their own cars. There were a few people who took a burn when I wouldn't do it, but I know how thin I got stretched with the meet that I knew I couldn't do what they do. While Steve does a great job and works hard, don't forget the staff at headquarters..

That is truly a loss. Bill was brought up in AACA, his parents, in former in-laws and his first wife Linda. When I was President of GVACS region he was a true asset to the organization. When we hosted the AACA Eastern Division National Spring Meet in Canandaigua in 2010, Bill was the Field Marshal. Bill layed out the entire show field. To this day I had never seen a show field set up like that before, and I've never seen another one since then. He had all of the HPOF cars set up in chronological order, all of the concessions stands on one end of the show field so that the grease wouldn't blow onto the cars, and the headquarters tent was literally right in the middle of the show field. No matter where you were parked, it was an equal distance to the headquarters tent.. After Bill lost his wife Linda, Pam stepped in and was a blessing for Bill. My condolences and thanks go to her as well.

Here's the Young pumper and the hauler

Here's my two LaFrance ladder trucks

Here's the '41 & '42 Ford / American LaFrance pumpers.

I'd love to have that Blazer. Years ago I used to work on an ALS Fly car that was an '86 Chevy Silverado K5 Blazer. It was a light powder blue metallic with a Smith & Wesson lightbar. That was a gorgous truck back then. It's gotten to the point to where you just don't see the old school SUV's anymore. I had my Bronco entered for the meet in Hamilton and the guy who was supposed to take it down for me, had a family emergency so the truck didn't make it. At one time I had thought of turning the truck into a Fire Chief's vehicle, but decided to leave it the way it is. I still have the lightbar for it, but I think it looks better as a plain old Bronco.