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HOP UP 2000

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HOP UP 2001

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2001 Cover

SEPTEMBER 11

Changed.

We won’t, in our amateurish way, try to wax patriotically about all of it...... other than to say that things have different priorities now. Our noble, passionate, gut feeling for our scrap iron, what we spend on it in energy, thought, time and money may be different.

But the cocksuckers aren’t going to take it away.

They aren’t going to take it away from us........... or from those who follow us, no matter what type of car or hobby it is. Being able to do this foolish, unnecessary thing with our disposable income and extra time is what it is all about.

Some of us need it for therapy now...more than ever. So let’s hook it up.

WHAT'S GOIN' ON

We had to see it on the ground. And it was running.

So we drove it. What would you have done?

We had excitement like guys my age and his seldom get. We had a need to feel it, hear it, see it through that skinny ’shield.....we had ....we had.....we hadda be nuts.

We had no insurance, no plates, we had one tail light lens in it (did I say no brakes?),

we left two cell phones and two wallets on the workbench in the barn with the door hanging open, there were three lug nuts on one of the front wheels, and we.............

well.........don’t try this at home or anywhere else.........but, we didn’t give a big shit.

All the cool guys were at the fairgrounds, propped up, with their dusters at their sides, collecting the latest info about who was gonna win this pick or that one..............and these two goofballs were doin’ a demo of an unproven, semi-stoppable car, where an impromptu right turn to get it toward the freeway caused them to parallel a rather ghetto-ish piece of real estate, and the first-ever scream of something like "Whoa, Daddy" in a dialect neither of us had heard before rang out from kids in baggy pants.. The piece was Christened.

Blessed.

It had got its’ first Ooo! and Ahhh!

It was inaugurated. Sworn-in. Baptized. Initiated.

It was a hot rod. And the cats in it (we’ll take the liberty here) were hot rodders. The big world of cruises and parking lots didn’t figure. And it’s pretty much done.

Paint? Naw...we don’t need no stinking paint on this one.

"Hey Morty! Where ya goin’ next? "We’re goin’ to...............

RATTLE CAN NATIONALS

Now, we don’t want this thing to get out of hand, and all, but we got this vision of a fleet of 40-50 Hop Up scrappers pullin’ into the track at the same time, sportin’ ‘veritas’ stickers and generally lookin’ cool.

Bless my soul and Thank Ya, Baby!

As we said last time, John LaBelle will have the Rattle Can shirts available there, we think Mac and Chuck Prufer may have window decals............ and most of us will get to HRI on Thursday night. If it wasn’t for our first annual drags that weekend we probably wouldn’t even leave the ranch...............except to cruise.

HOP UP 2002 - VOLUME III

The third annual looks to us like a natural follow up...what you may have come to expect. We have tapped the insight of our Pals nationwide and with this advantage will be offering another touchstone of what’s happening in the rich lives of cats who know whatsawhat.

Outsiders probably don’t perceive the evolution.

GILMORE'S LAST ROAR

and people like Edelbrock, Parnelli, Iskenderian, Walt James, Stroker Tom Medley, and a slew of othersx including some Hop Up Guys. Bruce Meyer drove the Ardun ’32 3W, Steve Beck was in his stockish T roadster, Lance and Adam Miller, Swell Tom, P. Wood and lots more.

FRONT DRIVE BLUE CROWN CAR

RUNS D.O. CRAGAR -WAS RESTORED BY EASTWOOD

Ya kinda wonder what importance all this will have in 100 years when all the real players are gone. Will the restored and cool original cars be cherished somewhere? Will there be a new generation of latter day groupies that think it was all meaningful? We won’t be around, so we’ll continue to do it now. For us.

And in memory of cats like the Lockharts (Frank AND Ed) who have preceded us.

A Sparks-Thorne Little Six was there, as was a Blue-Crown front drive car, the D.O. Cragar (MiIler-Schofield) Gil Pearson car Eastwood restored, lots of midgets - Kurtis and others - the Chesebro Offy...wow.

We suspect somebody will pick up the idea and try to perpetuate some kind of annual honorarium for the daring open wheel guys of the past. Stranger things have happened.

TV ADS SAY MERCURY INSURANCE IS ALL ABOUT "TRUST"

We think you can trust them to force feed checks on you - checks that you told them not to send, for ‘settlements’ that you, in writing, rejected, so they can ‘total’ the equipment with the DMV, cleaving to the semantics that they ‘issued the check’, and thus, in desperation, in order to keep your equipment useable, you might take the check.

We think you can trust them to not do what DMV suggested: "Write a letter" to unwind a mess, but rather, argue the above semantics to frustrate the victims.

We think Mercury pretends that a Cragar A Roadster with a Cyclone Quickchange, 50 years of racing history and priceless patina, is worth about $8000 ("Nation wide search"). Their adjuster says you can match the patina of the paint by ‘putting stuff in it’ to make it look old (flattener).

We think you can trust them to refuse to dignify the real value of the equipment (Dually, ‘29 roadster, enclosed Competitive Trailer) by pretending that the stuff is common.

We think you should not patronize Mercury Insurance Group for these reasons.

We think their kind of trust is BUNK.

We think we’re being had, and we think.......we’re goin’ to the mat.

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