It’s going to be squishy!

…and so, we’re rained out again for Saturday, May 7. Let’s hope for nice weather next week! This is more disappointing than every car American Motors ever designed. It’s more disappointing than that time you got dumped by that hottie because you wore that wolf shirt.

We’re still getting a lot of email since our opening day with even more questions about the event and how we do things. Most of our mail has to do with qualification questions. Nobody asks, “Why do birds suddenly appear, every time you are near?” They ask the same questions over and over. It doesn’t matter how much we say it, mods, horsepower, paint, are not the criteria. It all comes down to car make, model, if it’s exotic or rare?

We do have a lot fewer people arguing with us than ever before, but some still do it. Keeping our criteria more closely defined brings better cars, and that brings more spectators and so on. Our goal as always is to make it so it’s worth your time to get up on a Saturday morning, put that tweezers away and come out and join the fun.

I also wrote some stuff on my personal page about the 4,300 mile journey to E@RTC and back for opening day, and it’s posted here. It’s not written in the usual foolish style you all love, no… some of you love, but I did want to write about the adventure of coming to E@RTC from 2,000 miles away, just to help us kick off our opening day. This event means a lot to all of us, and there was no way I was going to miss our kickoff. We turned the long trek into a bit of an adventure and I think I now hold the record for driving the longest distance just to attend E@RTC. If you’ve driven from a longer distance, please tell us. We’ll write about it.

By the way, speaking of distance, I was looking at our stats to see where people read from. In total 148 cities are represented in California alone. Eight from Fresno! We’ll send them bus tickets. Who are these eight? I want to meet them!

It’s been harder for me to be there every Saturday when I have so many other E@RTC responsibilities in the background, and an actual career to manage at the same time. We try and make it so all our volunteers have an easy time of their donated hours. So, years ago, we decided that if I was going to do the back end, I’d have to give up time on the front end. Other volunteers took on various roles and it all seems to work for us as one big group. I do miss seeing everyone as often as I once did, and I’ll still make it out a few more times this season. So if we didn’t hug, there is still a chance.

One question that came up often was why it took so long to get into the event on opening day and if there is anything we can do about shortening the time. It takes longer to get landed every time we open center square because it’s like playing Tetris except we don’t stand your car on end and drop one in between.

The real answer is that it takes longer to decide what goes where, and especially when people pull in front of Sean with a lot of questions or expectations. We get some people who show up and make demands and that never goes well. Yes, once in a while we do get the, “Do you know who I am?” as if that matters. We’re all the same here. Our standard answer is, why, are we related?

That never goes well. We direct no-fun people to Lot 9, which is out the back way, and out of the parking lot. It’s a funny way to kick someone out without them knowing they were kicked out until it’s too late. Lot 9 is a nice big open lot, but it’s code for us to kick your ass out. Besides, it’s in Moclips.

Do you think of Moclips as a failed town? Do you think it has anything to do with the name? Do any of you desire living in a town called Moclips? It’s funny to say, but that’s about it. Moclips is where you go to live when you were caught violating large fruit.

When you arrive at E@RTC, it’s best to save the questions, get you landed, and then circle back to any one of us about your questions, even if they are about chutney. The more we can keep the entrance line moving the better off we are.

We’re thinking about how to best speed things up and we’re going to try a few things to see if they work before we announce them. The point is, we’re working on it.

We may go back to two lines, but we didn’t want to screw up Microsoft’s access in the morning either. We want to get cars off of Bear Creek as fast as we can and get you landed sooner. The point is, we’re working on a solution. It’s not that long on our regular Saturdays, but we can experiment.

See you all next week, we hope.