Text by: Glenn Eldridge
Photos by: Julie Eldridge
Recap of the ATRA 1st Annual Car Show
Where were you on Sept 10th, 2011? If you weren't at the ATRA Car Show at DCH Honda in the Oxnard Auto Mall, you missed a nice show. Thanks to Donny Caccamise for organizing the event and sponsors ATRA and DCH Honda of Oxnard, we were pleasantly surrounded by incredibly well done Classics, Hot Rods, Muscle cars, and motorcycles.
Donny is shown in this photo introducing Ed Matthews, Asst General Manager for DCH Honda, one of the key sponsors for the show. DCH Honda provided the great location and trophies.
Donny is the host for The Horsepower for an Hour Talk Show, featuring "Donny's Garage," new car reviews, Classic and Hot Rod updates, helpful information from the American Automotive Association (AAA), the West Coast GearHeads Online Magazine Events Report, plus much more.
Tune into KVTA AM 1520 or http://www.HorsepowerForAnHour.com (if outside of Ventura County, CA) between 1:00 - 2:00pm each Saturday for a great show, each show is archived on their website. You can also hear the Sept 10th WCGH Events Report here -> http://www.westcoastgearheads.com/showthread.php/2244-AUDIO-GearHead-Event-highlights-from-Sept-11th-18th.
ATRA stands for Automatic Transmission Rebuilders Association - "ATRA is the world's largest trade organization of transmission rebuilders, specialists, and suppliers." You can learn more by visiting http://www.ATRA.com. We look forward to the next ATRA event! Thanks for ATRA and DCH, who provided all of the raffles prizes and awards! Notice the huge People's Choice trophy held by the GearHead in the center of this photo!
Donny and the GSX Girl posed with winners of each class
A nice touch!
The DJ for the day was Skeeter with Jeff at the helm playing all the cool tunes, they did a great job as always. Most fitting was the opening of the event with the song The Star Spangled Banner. Skeeter also assisted Donny with preparation and promotion of the show. Skeeter (shown below with Donny) kicks-off the awards ceremony.
The West Coast GearHeads Online Magazine crew setup a booth and Glenn was asked to join the judging team, which was a challenging task, as you can see from these photos, the show was filled with some serious rides. Many of the cars were total restorations including this '56 mercury. Every asset of this project was restored or replaced. Much of this work was done by the car's owner, who is the proud owner of the People's Choice award picked by DCH Honda.
Here's another prime example of "attention to details." Although modified for the track, this car certainly had the "WOW" factor from top to bottom, inside and out. To help break the tie between this and other incredible cars, the judges started looking for small imperfections and found themselves on the ground looking under the car comparing between cars. This car was determined Best of Show and clearly deserved the award.
As you scroll through the photos, we think you'll agree that all the cars in the show were all top of class cars in any show. But, when you stop to chat with the owners of these beautiful cars, you step into a time capsule and travel back in some cases when they were kids and their Dad's used the car as a daily driver.
More times than not, you'll hear a story about a dad and a son or daughter, who worked together restoring a car that had been in the family for many years. While judging, I chatted with the owner of this Nash. He told me about his dad's dream to see this car restored so he could enjoy driving it again. But, when the car was complete his Dad had reached an age that made it difficult to drive so, his son would pick his dad up and take him for drives in their beautifully restored Nash. He and his dad hoped they could take the car to car shows together and share their pride an joy with everyone. His dad passed away recently... this is the car's second car show, his dad would be proud!
I remember riding in my dad's station wagon and was always amazed by the cool wood on the side of the car. This car was nicely done and brought back many memories. The owner picked-up 1st Place in his class.
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