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The 2007 Kennedale
Chamber of Commerce car show was originally scheduled for April
7th but rescheduled due to weather for April 21st. We didn't
have anything close to completion last year at this time so this
would be the first time to attend the this "Hometown car show"
If you are not familiar with
Kennedale then a little home town car show
in a suburb of "Cowtown" (Fort Worth, TX for our northern readers) may not sound like a big
thing, but when you consider that about 1/3 of all businesses in
Kennedale are automotive related it is big. Also consider that
for a town of a population of
5,850 there are two dirt tracks
and a 1/8th mile drag strip within walking distance of each other,
over a dozen auto salvage yards, several auto parts stores, machine
shops, auto repair, paint and body, transmission repair, tire and
alignment, used wheels, speed shops and auto insurance business and
you understand cars aren't the the only thing but it is the biggest
thing. Please understand that the Kennedale Chamber of
Commerce knows how to spell car they are just using a little poetic
license to achieve alliteration. (Ask your English Teacher.)
It's a good thing that the car show was postponed a
couple of weeks for the progress on
Melanie and Michael's 1981 Trans
Am Resto-Mod. David didn't like the way the front and rear
bumper turned out so they were removed and Adrian stripped and
repainted them just days before. In fact the paint was still too
wet for wet sanding and buffing.
Suffice to say that the car was
about 95% finished when David's brother Robert and their dad Roy
arrived at the shop to put the car on Robert's trailer. His trailer has a
removable left fender which is handy for getting in and out of loaded
cars with low ground clearance. However it makes a lousy wheel
chock. With the rather expensive resto-mod securely strapped to
the trailer we set off on what will probably be our shortest road trip
ever. As you know the Texas Trans Am Service and Restoration
shop is not in the Kennedale city limits but about 1/2 mile outside in
the county,
on the right just past the drag strip and dirt tracks.
David took the 1981 Trans Am
Resto-Mod not to enter and win anything but to get it out in the sun
light, shake out some of the bug remaining to be fixed and get
reactions from the folks in attendance. In the morning light
David noticed that the rubber bump stops for the fenders were not
installed and Adrian noticed a polish swirl on the passenger side
door. There were a couple of hoses remaining to be connected for
the heating and air conditioning system and the turbo lights had yet
to be installed.
Within minutes of unloading and wiping down the
Fikse wheels with Kumho racing tires,
Orlando and his brother came by
to take pictures of the car and to get his picture taken with it.
A few minutes later a 5 year old boy came by to
look a the car. "Pontiac, Tran Am." He said. "I've
got the Hot Wheels car. It's got the big alloy wheels, hood
scoop and racing spoilers too. It's pretty much like this one."
Wow, I thought, he could take my job as propaganda minister for
TexasTransAms.com.
Shortly
Mitzi and her family
stopped by to check out the car. She told stories about when her
brother had a Trans Am back in the day, and how much she wanted one
now. She also wanted her picture with the car.
It seemed
like everyone had a story about how they or a friend had an old
Firebird like this one. Even Eric from Eric's Towing stopped by and
told a story about a 1979 Silver Anniversary Edition Trans Am and an
exotic dancer that we won't print here. And that was all before
the car show really started at noon.
As the show started, David spent
most of the time explaining how he got a
small block with such big
headers and intake under the hood and still made the A/C work.
Many others noticed the 13" front disk rotors and asked how all that
fit. But most of all even some professional auto painters wanted
to know who painted the car and how it got such a deep finish.
When David answered that Adrian painted the car and did most of the
body work, we turned around to point him out and Adrian had wandered
off to look at the "Rat Rods". In more typical Adrian fashion he
was not available when I was shooting pictures or video, and 10
minutes after he left the show, his parents arrived to see his work on
the car.
Reveille, her baby and Marine
husband stopped by for a while. Reveille worked the order desk
for Texas Trans Am Service and Restoration from November of 2006 'till
late March 2007. Her husband has recently been stationed in Japan an is
due to report soon. She handled the sales calls from customer,
orders and returns with vendors while David focused on completing
cars. Eligible for rehire? You bet.
When the judge came by he looked
around the car a while and asked David to start it up. That sure
drew a crowd. The March pulley system humming, the timing gears
gnashing, Holley carburetor gulping air through two K&N air filters
and mostly the growl of the exhaust through Texas TA Mufflers with
full headers, X-pipe and 3 inch exhaust.
David admitted that he had never
entered a car in a car show before. Actually never entered a
full size car in a car show.
Some of David's model cars have
toured the county at model car shows.
Brian
from the Kennedale Fire Department came by to look at the Trans Am
and fell in love. Just save your overtime pay Brian and we'll build one just for you.
About 3:00pm David went to the
fair ground section to look for more sweet-tea, but returned with
the
trophy for second place in the 1980 and up category. Considering
the car was only 95% complete we were surprised to be recognized at
all.
By 4:00pm I realized just how
sunburned I was despite wearing a cowboy hat and once again David and
I swore that we would never attend another car show, swap meet or race
without sun block.
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