Well That’s a…
The Glorious Parking Thugs... most of them. There are about ten not allowed in the photo because of community guidelines.
...wrap for the season, everyone. We know, we know—this is more disappointing than Waffle House during normal breakfast hours… or the food. It’s always tough to say goodbye for the season, but we have next season to look forward to. So what if you’re chunkier? We still love you anyway.
We have so many people to thank for this year—from Fairbourne Properties to Redmond Town Center and all the Thugs, participants, and spectators. We can’t forget the City of Redmond and the Redmond Police Department for keeping the whole thing running smoothly. They are the best police department anywhere, and we’re big fans!
We couldn’t do it without all of you, either. It’s all of you who have made this a wonderful car community. We made it fifteen years, and to all those out there who bet on and pushed for our failure in 2009, all of us Thugs salute you with double middle-finger jazz hands and big grins, followed by an arm-locking hoedown after fifteen years of laughs at your expense.
While you were campaigning for our demise, we ignored you and always believed that the car community would come together and support something like this. We believed the Seattle area needed it, and we can’t thank all of you enough, including the other car events, for respecting and helping us preserve Saturday mornings for E@RTC. We respect you right back!
Without a great community, there is less incentive to own exotic and rare cars, so it all supports its own ecosystem—sort of like that old jar of peaches you have in the fridge from 2017. Prior to 2009, the exotic and rare car community was fragmented and somewhat hidden. We proudly wanted to bring it out in the open, like showing off your weird butt tattoo when you thought differently about Britney—only much, much better. (Now we can’t unsee what that actually might look like.)
We had faith in all of you that we could build something fun—a great place to go on a Saturday morning to see cars, make friends, and have a laugh or two—and we’ve kept that spirit the entire time.
We never wanted to take ourselves too seriously or turn the thing into a weenie-measuring contest or comment about the size of your small lug nuts. It was always about our love of cars and bringing together the cars that you’d drive a distance to come see. We knew that if we set a high bar, you’d help us meet and sustain that bar and keep the whole thing going. You hold our brand, not us, and you help set the standards for the show. Without your feedback and comments, we wouldn’t know how to best preserve what we’ve built. You even cheer on our humor, and that adds to the fun.
Even your emails to us have been in the spirit of our humor, and you make us laugh too. With the world as crazy as it is, we just wanted to preserve a morning where we forget all the crap and just act like kids for a few hours, talk cars, then go home and fix something in the yard.
Okay, from here, I’ll keep posting now and then. In January, we begin to plan our calendar and make all the seasonal changes to the website. We have a lot of business to attend to, and by the second week in January, we’re back at it, working on the behind-the-scenes details for the upcoming season. We’re shooting for an opening on April 5, 2025. (I added the year for those two people in Fresno.) There is always a lot to do and we don’t talk about that part too much.
And on a personal note, thank you for supporting the blog. It means a lot more than I could ever express without an interpretive dance. You don’t ever want to see me dance. It’s painful.
Thanks again, from all of us!
Tom