Our Best Opening Day Ever!
Completely full!
We had our most fantastic opening day in all our years with virtually no real problems of any kind. It was more fun than waking up naked on a roof.
We have a lot of people to thank for the flawless opening day. I’ll start with Fairbourne Properties for their support and their security and facilities people who help us get ready in the early morning hours, and are there to help. What a great group! This is facilities management done right!
Look at all that winter ink!
Next we have our wonderful Thugs who were there bright and early and managed a fantastic show. They were like a well engineered machine running without vibration. We Thugs had a lot of fun. What a stupendous group!
We apologize for the long wait to get in. I’ll explain all that further down.
Next, we have the participants who brought out spectacular cars, and we can’t forget all the spectators who drive the energy behind the whole thing. Thank you all for supporting the spirit of E@RTC. We can’t thank you participants and spectators enough for being such great ambassadors to the car community. You all nailed what we’re all about, making it a flawless event.
A full center court
Last, a giant shoutout to Redmond Police Department for all their help. What a fantastic organization.
We got in a conversation with some local business owners who were saying the same thing about the department; how outstanding the people are who make up the Redmond PD. They are extremely community-minded, and they get the bigger picture and see how this helps build a better city. Thank them and give those folks the thumbs up when you see them out patrolling. It would mean a lot.
Last time I got the thumb’s up, a doctors was about to shove a tube in me. When a sweaty doctor describe something as, “it will be a little uncomfortable” get ready for that feeling you just fell off a balcony.
Down the street and around the corner!
Backstory
Some of you may have seen us running out in the street to pull cars out of the line and get them in. We explained this all before, but it’s worth writing it again. Before you get out the torches, pitchforks and angry signs, there are two reasons. One is, we get calls about specific cars overheating while waiting in line and we have to get them landed as fast as we can.
The other issue is that we have a complex matrix of landing cars in various locations and sometimes we need to move a car in place so we can fill in other cars after. The radio chatter with all the volunteers is constant and sounds frantic, like the bathroom line at Chipotle, but it all moves very fast. We have just two hours to land about 500 cars and it’s heavily choreographed to get as many in as we can. The last thing we want is to get chased around a car with a stick, so we’re doing all we can.
I could see some of you giving us the stink eye as we pulled cars out, but we do it to speed things up. Imagine the problem if a car dies at the wrong time or we leave open sections that could have been filled. It’s a lot to coordinate and our highly skilled thugs move very fast.
We keep trying different methods to speed up the entrance and we’re working on that problem every weekend. Opening day is tough to keep moving because of center court logistics complicating the landing of cars. We’re going to keep working on ways to keep things moving and we’re going to get it solved, even if it means two lines.
You can help by reading the rules, criteria, etc., then waiting until your landed to ask us who has the best soup. Come talk to any of us for that. If we can keep the entrance chit-chat down, we can keep it rolling.
Demanding Email
At this time of year, we always get those emails challenging our criteria. People will argue with us in a string of emails and some are good points, but most of the time, no. Arguing with us about criteria would be like us demanding to go to your knitting circle. It’s a private event, open to the public. The more some argue with us, the sillier it gets. We have people demand we give them answers. We know, we know.
We’re trying to be great ambassadors and put on the best show. Can’t that just be enough?
A giant shout-out to the Honda Type Rs, and we celebrate you like a lutefisk tournament, but no, you’re still not coming in. I’ll get hate mail for that. Our show is still not a celebration of all brands. There are other shows for you, but not ours. In spite of what we keep telling you, you’re like the Rocky Mountain Oyster dish at Canllis.
Rivian
We thank the Rivians that came out, and we love them, but we’ve decided that they are not a fit anymore because they are getting to be common in this area. It’s nothing against Rivian at all, but it was just a one day thing to introduce the brand. We might showcase something at a future date, but we know we’re not a pickup show.
This is a normal process for us, where we cycle in something new, then out again. We hope to see more on the streets.
See you all next Saturday as we resume our normal routine until German Car Day!