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We were supposed to leave for
Chicago for the MCACN show on
Thursday, October 15th, but the threat
of a storm with snow and possibly ice
made us change plans. I had loaded
the car into the trailer and moved it
over to the edge of the driveway. I
parked the truck in the yard and pro-
ceeded to get it stuck. I had a two-
wheel drive Ford F350 Dually stuck on
wet level ground. It wouldn’t go for-
ward or backward – it just sat and
spun. Had to call a friend with a four-
wheel drive to pull me onto the drive-
way. I hooked up the trailer and off we
went, driving to central Ohio in an ef-
fort to beat the rain and snow.
We woke up the next morning
with about a quarter-inch of ice all
over everything; we chipped it all off
and hit the road. It rained, snowed and
sleeted all the way to Chicago and we
arrived at 1:55 p.m. – 5 minutes before
our official load-in time. We were let
in, unloaded the car, parked it, drove
the truck over to the marshaling lot,
parked it, got a shuttle ride back to the
convention center with our luggage,
schlepped that over to the hotel and
checked in, and then went back over to
the convention center to clean the mud
stuck under the car from where I
drove across the lawn to load it in the
trailer. Two dust pans full of dirt and
grass were cleaned out from under the
car. Kieth Champine’s almost-perfect,
never-shown-in-the-last-thirty-years
concurs correct White/Gold GT350H
was parked right next to me and I still
think he doesn’t believe that I had
that much dirt packed up under the
car, but when you drive it a lot it’s
something you’ve got to expect.
The MCACN show is almost un-
earthly in the number and quality of
the cars. I saw so many “One-of-One”
cars that I lost count. You could walk
by a row of eight L88 Corvettes and
not even turn your head. At most
shows any one of the cars here would
be a headliner, and group of them
would be a show-stopper. At this show
each car has a story and it’s an incred-
ible experience to participate in. I of-
fered the car up for the V8TV YouTube
Show “MCACN After Hours,” thinking
maybe it would be over at about 9 or
9:30 at the latest. That was a miscal-
culation as I didn’t get interviewed
until about 11:30 p.m. The host, Kevin,
makes each interview seem fresh and
he really takes the time to get to know
you and your car. We also won a
Street/Stock/Modified Blue Ribbon
Award, scoring 969 points out of a
1,000 – loosing points for things like
“carpet faded” (it sits in the sun a lot)
swirls and scratches on the paint (it’s
an $1100 paint job that’s about 14
years old), dirt under the hood (it’s
been driven over 20,000 miles since
being back on the road in 2013) rust
and stains on the exhaust (like I said,
it’s driven a lot) and some spots of rust
on undercarriage pieces.
All in all, I thought it was pretty
good considering how much I drive it
and under what conditions. As we
were packing up I was approached by
Matt Avery. He writes for the “Times
Herald,” a local Chicago paper, and he
wanted to do an article on the car (it
appeared about ten days later) and he
chose my car as his Celebrity Pick. I
got a real nice glass trophy that he
signed and I found out he also wrote a
book about the COPO Chevrolets. I
purchased the book when I got home
and it is a fascinating look at how
dealers and folks in Chevrolet were
able to get around the rules and make
some really neat and fast performance
car. I guess they didn’t have a Carroll
Shelby working for them.
We left a day early and didn’t get
back until late Monday before Thanks-
giving, so I was not allowed to take the
car on the annual Thanksgiving Day
Pie Run.
In between all of the shows I
listed, I went several times to the Fri-
day Night North Beach Cruise-In and
Farmers Market, the Thursday Night
Cruise in Edgewater, a couple of trips
to the Annapolis Cars and Coffee at
the Annapolis City Dock on Sunday,
The SHELBY AMERICAN
Spring 2019 56