We’re baaaack….wwwhhhaaat?
Awww, son of a bee-itch! I just looked. We’re rained out! I can’t believe this! In August? I think that’s a first. We’ll try again next week. This is more disappointing than Madonna’s acting.
We did have a solid run with eleven Saturday’s without rain. Meanwhile the National Weather Service is calling today a heat advisory, or what’s known as “Sweater Weather” in the South.
We hope you had a wonderful Saturday and weekend in Monterey for those of you who went. For those of you who didn’t go, our condolences.
Now that you’re back, come out before our season ends and share your stories of the fun you had, the people you met, the cars you lusted after and the food you ate that kept you sampling the Sani-cans.
We know there are a lot of car events in early September and we’re glad you make it out to ours. Here is the conundrum we’ve faced from the beginning.
We can’t draw cars without spectators and spectators won’t come without cars, so we need both to keep the car community healthy. A healthy car community keeps enthusiasm up and the interest growing in all cars rare and exotics. It matters if we want to sustain E@RTC far into the future.
It’s easy to forget that for many this is the only place they will ever see a rare and exotic car so it matters a lot to those who are spectators. Many of these spectators come from as far away as Itchy Lips, MO. We can’t ask them to make the treacherous drive if you don’t bring the cars. I know, and you won’t bring the cars unless someone from Itchy Lips shows up.
We’re free, unsponsored, except for the help from Redmond Town Center, and the internal generosity of a couple of volunteers, and we’d ideally like to keep it that way. This is a truly community supported event, with no commercial angle on our part. But, it can’t sustain itself without wider community support, which is that combination of cars, spectators, and volunteers. While our numbers go up every year, we can’t take your participation for granted. Our web traffic, the best indicator of how we’re doing, is up 18.5% year over year except during COVID.
Still, we get to talking about our future and want to make sure we’re going in the right direction at all times. This is why your feedback matters and writing with your suggestions is a huge contribution by itself. Write us with your thoughts and ideas about how we can best improve as we keep this a safe event that can sustain itself for far into the future.
We never anticipated that this event would last all these years and we always worry about when it will end. I think we’re now the oldest continuous weekly exotic and rare car show in the US as most eventually collapse under their own weight because of a lack of volunteers to keep their events running smoothly. Someone will have to give us some data to back up our claim, but most last any longer than a Jlo marriage.
Too often some bad behavior from someone on exit causes the property owner to freak or receive too many complaints and that’s the end of that. We’re fussy about our event to preserve it, but fun is always what matters most to us, so please come on out. And for those of you that do come out, we’re deeply appreciative.
Maybe we should offer free gum.