It Takes a Club
By noderel:
Following on last week's editorial comments about the state of the hot rod mfg world, I got a great email from Jim Davis, who you may recall was for years at B&M transmissions, and was very active in the SEMA spectrum. He brought me up short on calling the obviously cast axle a "forging". He is right on, I checked my notes and I originally called it (correctly) a casting. So, make a tick in your memory glands that a forging would never break in this way. Now on to the column...
Maybe you haven’t been around for fifty or more years, or maybe you have been but not intimately involved in the hot rod hobby/sport. And for this maybe reason, you are unaware of how absolutely vital the hot rod club has been to the introduction and evolution of this decidedly American tradition that is so eagerly mimicked around the world.
From the late 1940s, it was apparent that the hot rod hobby would need to be organized at the grass roots level. That meant the street oriented hot rodders needed to form clubs, or associations. The Lone Wolf approach would get nowhere. It is the same today, but the modern hot rodder has forgotten those earliest days. Or perhaps he has come along more recently, say after the l970s.
The car club has gotten us the respect and recognition this wonderfully American sport has become. Perhaps it would be good to sit back and review some of this shuttled aside history.
The car club itself is not unquely American, and not really a mid-century invention. Indeed this kind of like-joining-like is common to all aspects of human history. But it is spectacularly visible with cars. Especially cars that look similar to the untrained eye. The high profile hot rod stands out in the crowd. Which is, in a way, what the hot rodder strives for, anyway.
The car club also stands out. In my small mid-Victoria state hometown of Castlemaine, car clubs have begun ever moreso to make the community a destination for club gatherings. Much of this has to do with the local hot rod club, The Castlemaine Rods, who have been a local mainstay for over 40 years. The club has been a stable and positive presence in the town for all these years with a club membership that has remained relatively constant. Locals know car guys as respectable community members, and thus they are wont to accept visiting car guys and gals as just more of the same.
Add to this the fact that all the old hide bound wretches of years past are now truly passed, and you have a much more receptive commercial attitude. Amazing what a little money can do.
Isn’t it ironic that the majority of men and women who now enjoy the fruits of their earlier work are almost totally overlooked by their younger peers? The old guy in the white hair, who sits back quietly and watches the young’uns make the same old mistakes. Again and yet, again.
The car club should bring, and harness, enthusiasm. Back when, without the car clubs in America, there would have been no drag strips. Today, without the car clubs there is very little reason for a rod run. Unless, of course, there is a promoter willing to front the money and patience that a rod run requires. The club sponsored rod run (or car park, as most have become) started because a club wanted to share its community and area with other rodders. But now that desire is on the wan, with individual rodders, and clubs more than willing to leave the hassles of a rod event to someone else. Old age has set in.
But, from the very beginning organizers knew that we had nothing without the support of local clubs.
In the beginning, while we were desperately trying to change the hot rod image in a community, we hit on the idea of courtesy cards. By selling local rod clubs on the idea that good public relations were paramount, we could get them to really consider the perception of John Q. In so doing, the individual members would also take a look at themselves. We pushed this idea in Hot Rod Magazine and everywhere that NHRA was involved. And it worked. Young car nuts could do well to emulate those earlier successes.
But, as with any social gathering of humans, just because there is a car club does not mean there will be no difference of opinions. Quite the opposite, but the successful clubs will take all of this growth and change in stride. If there is one car club in a region, that is a plus. If there are two or more, that is a plus with an additional plus of two or more. Different strokes for different folks.