Well Craparoo…
(That’s Australian for “Crap”) We’re rained out again. We know. This is more disappointing than crowd-surfing a fat guy at a Flogging Molly concert. Don’t worry, sunshine will show up one of these Saturdays, we promise. Now back to bed.
When we started E@RTC in 2009, we did so because there wasn’t a solid, active car community in the Pacific Northwest. There were no weekly organized shows and very little organized weekly activity. There were lots of basement-dwelling Hot-Pocket-eating keyboard cowboys who hid their real names, but not much in the way of authentic car organizations. There were more quilting circles in Redmond with blue-hairs telling stories about their life in the 60s. In fact, I kept my exotic in Orange County for that very reason—not the quilting circles, but because there wasn’t much really happening.
There was an actual active community around LA, with multiple weekly shows and well-organized drives with great destinations with yummy food. It was more fun to fly down there, hit a few car shows, go out to eat with car guys, and fly home rather than sit up in Seattle doing nothing.
In 2008, I attended the meet-up on Old Main in Bellevue, where there were about a dozen cars, and it cemented my thinking about the lack of a bigger, more inclusive culture. Something had to change.
That’s where I met Vic for the first time. My car was still in OC when we met, and I couldn’t find a good reason to bring it here. I wanted to be part of a community, but there wasn’t much of one and no way to plug into anything I thought was sustainable.
As I’ve covered so many times, when we settled on a theme and a type of show, the peanut gallery on the forums went nuts. It’s like we took away their Hot Pockets. The most venom came from 6SpeedOnline, yet we ignored what we could and responded when it wasn’t true, and here we are today. We never knew we’d be more successful than a hidden lasagna feed in back of fat camp.
In all that time, our core wish was for a vibrant car community where enthusiasts could get together and have some fun. We didn’t want to be the only show or the only destination. Our original thinking was to attend a show in the morning and meet up at a restaurant for lunch with a few enthusiasts where we could all get seated. We just wanted to be a type of show that, based on our homework, could sustain itself and grow—and it worked. I think we’re now the oldest continuous weekly show in the US. If someone knows of another continuous weekly show, ping me—preferably with a message and not a rock the size of a russet when I’m not looking.
We’ve always supported other shows and even offered a Zoom call one night to any and all who wanted to create their own show. Only a few attended the call, and they were from Portland. I don’t believe there was anyone local. There are a lot of tricks and methods to what we do, and we were happy to share.
Yet, in spite of this, we still endure constant badmouthing that comes from the drama department, mostly organizers from a few other shows. Why? Some are mad because they didn’t meet our show criteria, so they went off in a huff to start their own. We mostly ignore it. I never understood the mentality of badmouthing one show to promote your own with zero personal self-awareness of how this makes you look to everyone else. It’s like stepping on a stiff rake.
Much of the drama has come from those who want to turn our event into a “Cars and Coffee,” and that’s something that will never happen. It’s not because we’re snobs or don’t like all cars; it’s because the model just doesn’t work for very long. Sure, you may go a few seasons, then suddenly some pimple farmer with a fart can on his stickered-up ’89 Miata has to prove to everyone that his car is special, and the next thing you know, he’s crumpled up against a dumpster yelling for mom, and it’s the social media hit for the next month.
It’s just about that time that the lot owner recognizes their liability and kicks the event off the property. By now, there must be at least a thousand failed car shows around the US that all died for similar reasons, and few are tightly managed. Take a look at the famous Porsche incident in Boise in 2017 that injured eleven people and canceled the event. We can’t get far enough away from that show model. That driver did go to jail, too.
There is a huge appetite for modded shows—we know it—but it’s the behavior of some that kills these shows every time. It’s not always show participants, either. We had a heck of a time with a group of A4 Audis that weren’t allowed in. They would race up and down Bear Creek, and we had to ban the brand and models temporarily to get the point across and things back under control. We permanently ban all bad behavior for that reason.
We’ll do what we can to support all shows and we cheer on Avants and the car museum or Griots. We always have. We’re not crazy about competing with us on a Saturday morning, as it just kills it for everyone, but we still do our part to make for a healthy car community. We’re always willing to share how we do things and why.
Sixteen years later, there are now lots of shows in the Pacific Northwest and car events, and pulling a few to go do a drive is easier than ever before. We think it’s all wonderful.
We can’t be all things to all people, and there are always going to be self-absorbed sociopaths out there trying to tear us down just because we don’t make them happy in some dank corner of who they are. We’ve lived with it from the beginning, and it will always be a thing with some, but just know, straight from us: we’re in it for everyone. If you want to build something that benefits the car community, just contact us, and we will help and share our knowledge.