Santa Fe Springs – SoCal Challengers attended the All Mopar Open House and Car Show on July 18th at their performance shop in Santa Fe Springs, California. A total of seventeen Challengers and three Chargers took their place for the parking lot car show. The event included a Tech talk on suspension basics, complimentary lunch, and a raffle for Hotchkis and other automobile merchandise. Members of SoCal LX and Chrysler Performance West also showed up in strong numbers to add their Mopar vehicles which helped completely fill the parking lot in front of Hotchkis performance.

SCC Members met at Sako’s Sandwich Shop which is less than a block away from the Hotchkis building. I was doing something I had never done at an SCC event. I was going there without my car. I had originally planned to ride my Harley-Davidson there so I could still hang with my SCC family. My car was at Stack Performance in Anaheim getting some custom work done and it wasn’t going to be ready in time for the show. Ryan Schumacher, the owner of Stack Performance, wanted to bring his Challenger AND his custom 7.3 Charger to the event. He graciously offered to let me drive his Challenger to the event. Of course I couldn’t pass that up. His car is almost as cool as mine.

After we all arrived at Sako’s we had some new faces show up to roll in to the show with us. Dennis and Linda, who came all the way from San Jose, were there. They had come down for the Hotchkis Show and the Glendale Cruise Night. We were glad to have them with us. Finally someone had travelled farther than Kevin to get to one of our events. Rick showed up in his beautiful red Challenger with a Techco supercharger under the hood. Howard also showed up to help support the silver nation of SCC in his silver Challenger (You can’t have enough silver Challengers, you just can’t). Ryan’s customer Shaun brought his very custom black Charger as well. Again, another great group of new people joining us!

After we set up the easy-ups and signed up for the raffle, we had a little time to walk around before the Tech talk started in the Hotchkis building. There were some outstanding Mopars in that parking lot. I liked the 1970 Plum Crazy Challenger myself but there were many other beautiful cars to catch your eye. There was also an old air raid siren that was powered by a Chrysler motor on a trailer. They fired that thing up later that day. I couldn’t help thinking while that siren was going off back to a time when you would be absolutely terrified to hear that sound because of what it used to mean. It used to send everyone running for cover. Thankfully today, it was just interesting to hear.

The Tech talk was put on by Mr. Hotchkis himself. A lot of people say the words, camber, toe, etc. but don’t know what they really mean. This was explained in very simple terms and in excellent detail at the seminar. A number of Hotchkis employees spoke about suspension and Hotchkis merchandise. A lot of great questions were asked by attendees about older car setups too. Hotchkis is making quite a few systems for older Mopars. That’s great news for owners of the older Mopar generation.

After a complimentary lunch we enjoyed the rest of the car show which culminated with a raffle. Quite a few SCC members won merchandise. T-shirts, collectible toys, and Hotchkis parts. Our Member Jim “The Diceman” won a suspension setup from Hotchkis. Nice work, Jim. I picked up some shirts and a collectible toy Challenger hand signed by Steve Strope of Pure Vision. All in all, it was a great day. It was extremely hot and we took things down after that to retreat to cars and homes with air conditioning. We were melting….

I’d like to thank Hotchkis for having us at their event and for putting on a great show and seminar. I’d also like to thank Ryan from Stack Performance for letting me drive his way cool Challenger to this event. I ended up having a Challenger after all that day thanks to him. Thanks to our guests for coming and hanging with us for this show. We had three people become members that day. We didn’t scare you away! I’ll have to try harder next time…To all the members, thank you for making us the greatest car group on the planet!

Check out the quick clip that Motorator was kind enough to shoot for us here.

Fontana – SCC members attended the 4th of July Red, White, and Cruise celebration at the Auto Club Speedway. The all-day event included a car show, motorcycle ride, concerts, vendor booths, a parade, and nighttime fireworks. Metal Mulisha also performed their motorcycle magic for the crowd. Taylor Hicks and Jimmy Wayne headlined the concerts that night. All proceeds went to benefit the Vietnam Veterans of California.

After meeting at Subway Sandwich in Ontario, Chris, James, and I headed for Gate 6 of the Auto Club Speedway to get placed for the car show. After waiting for the gate to open (only 45 minutes behind schedule), we were placed in the very front row of the car show. It was a race to set up the easy-up before we boiled. Even though it was still early morning, it was getting hot quickly. We got our shade up and cleaned up our cars for the show and waited anxiously for our time on the track. Eventually someone came by and told us we were in Group three and would be called to the track shortly. When group one came back, they told us to go get in line. Isn’t there a number two, before number three? It was a recurring theme throughout the day; nothing happened on schedule. The track was supposed to open for us at 9a.m. It opened at 10a.m. We went from Group one to Group three. As we got in line for the track we filled out waivers and lined up in three lines. The pace car led us out single file out onto the track. The banking is very steep. You don’t notice that from the stands or television. At slow speeds you could feel gravity pulling the car down towards the inside of the track. Put your hands at 10 and 4 and you’re good. Once you got above 40mph or so, that feeling went away. As the laps went on, people got out of their single file line and started passing others; on the inside, on the outside. It got a little nutty at that point. Nothing was done to keep everyone in line. We were taking pics and watching out for the random hot rod flying by us. I moved up to the wall to protect my right side from the “Hot Rod Nascar Wanna Be’s.” When I moved up there I actually used my turn signal. “Hey all you numb nuts, I’m going up here, k?”  I wanted everyone behind me to know what I was doing. Chris was behind me and got a kick out of seeing a car on a professional race track signaling and moving up against the wall. I guess it looked pretty silly from back there. Hey, no one hit me so I’m good with lookin’ silly all day long.

When we got back we had a couple of hours to kill before the show opened to the public. It was James’ birthday and Heather had gotten him a cake and a coffee table book on muscle cars. When James hit the boy’s room, we sprung into action. I went into the bathroom with James to stall him a bit. When we came back Heather was trying to light the candles, but it was too windy. Nothing like getting a cake with unlit candles on it. It looked silly, but so are we so it didn’t matter. Hopefully James enjoyed his cake and book and had a good B-day. He had several family members join us throughout the day as well. As the public came in we were mobbed by people, absolutely mobbed. They came in waves. There were none, and then there was a dozen. They were asking lots of questions, and taking lots of pictures. And it didn’t stop, all day long. It’s the most attention we’ve ever received. They were very touchy-feely as well. Lots of hand prints on the windows. A couple in their mid-twenties came up to me at one point. The gal asked, ”Can we look inside your car?” Being relieved and appreciating the respect that hadn’t been shown by a lot of others that day, I said, ”Sure” and opened the door. She looked in and just looked in the back seat which I thought was a little odd. She looked back there pretty intently for a bit and then pulled her head out and said to her husband, ”Oh, a car seat will fit back there just fine, we need one of these(Challengers).” Usually it’s the guy working the wife to get the car. Cracked me up.

Eventually it was time for concerts, a parade, and for the finale, fireworks. It was a long, long day. We got there at seven a.m. and left about ten-fifteen or so. We all had a great time. Next year it would be great to have a bigger turnout. E Street Cruisers had fifteen or so cars there. It would be nice to take that club plaque next year. Hopefully we’ve enticed you to join us next time!!!