Our First Car Show!

Mileage: 87,536

One of the things that I was looking forward to doing with the Trans Am is putting it in a car show. Ever since I bought it, I have been very proud of how nice it looks in its all original, unrestored form (with the credit going to the previous owners!). After doing a little bit a checking on car shows, there are many different kinds. Some are Trans Am/Firebird specific, some are era specific (ie: 60's, 70's, 80's, ect), and other are kind of "all in" where anything is welcome. I figured to get my feet wet, I would first enter the Trans Am in "all in" type car show. I don't think I would be quite ready to have the Trans Am judged yet, since I am still getting to know it!

So, my first car show was held at my high school. It was the 10th Annual Thomas Jefferson Car Show! This show was open to ANYTHING that had tires. Basically you pay $3 to get in, you get a dash plaque, some raffle tickets, and your choice of where you want to park in the parking lot. Then, the cars are judged by the spectators, other owners, the police department, school board, and mayor. The votes are all done by silent ballot and totalled at the end. Really, it was a pretty simple set up.

Since I didn't want to attend my first car show alone, I asked my brother and Dad if they wanted to come. By brother was going to bring their 1969 Pontiac GTO, which had been shown at this same show a few years prior by his late father-in-law. Michael, Dad, and I spent the couple days before the show getting the cars cleaned and detailed. I think I probably spent (with Michael and Dad's help) 6 hours cleaning the Trans Am from top to bottom, inside and out. It looked great when we were done.

The car show was scheduled to start at 0900 on Saturday, May 16th. Michael and Dad were going to be meeting at my house at 0730 and then we were going to caravan over to the high school. We didn't know how many people would be coming or how early they would be getting there. We got there a little after before 0800 and Michael was the first one in line and I was the second. We got in the parking lot after about 30 minutes of waiting and set up right next to each other.

Soon after we got parked, many other cars started entering the lot and parking around us. It was amazing seeing all these amazing cars parked in this parking lot around ours! I think one of the best parts of the show is when Mom, Shannon, and Maeve stopped by to check in on us. Even though it was May, it was only about 45 to 50 degrees outside and VERY windy, but they still came out to see us! Maeve had a great time looking at all the cars and I had fun seeing what kind of cars Shannon liked! I had to take a few picture of other cars at the show that I thought were pretty nice:

BONUS: I have something REAL NICE for the first person to leave the year, make, and model (15 points total) of the 5 cars below in the comment section of this post!

After a couple hours they made the call that they would be announcing the winners. I didn't win anything this year with the Trans Am, but my brother Michael won "School Board Choice" with their car!

Once the winners were announced the show was pretty much over. It was a neat site seeing and hearing all these cars fire up and leave the lot. Overall, I had a great time and would attend this show again. It was very low stress and relaxed. Hopefully next year the weather is a little nicer and even more car show up!