I guess I should have also put this in the first post as well, but I just wanted to give some of the new-commers a brief history of the Caravan down to the Trans Am Nationals. This will be the 9th Annual Trans Am Nationals Caravan, myself and LOMILETA started the caravan back in 2004 with just 4 cars. I had my 1978 Trans Am (driven by Ricardo from Trans Am Specialties of Florida), my 1989 Trans Am (driven by my wife), Russ in his 1979 10th Anniversary Trans Am and I was driving a U-Haul truck because I had a booth at the Nationals. We started out at my shop in Mentor, OH and stopped at McDonalds for a quick breakfast before we headed on down the road.
Of course the only time my 1978 Trans Am has ever been pulled over..... I wasn't driving it..... (that is Ricardo in the photo below)
And then the next year in 2005 we still had 4 cars, My 1978 Trans Am (driven by myself), My 1989 Trans Am (driven by Dave Hall from Restore-A-Musclecar), my 1998 Trans Am (driven by Russ) and Renee' driving the back-up car in case anything happened. Of course this year no one got pulled over, we just raced the State Troopers instead....
And then in 2006 is when the Caravan started to grow to 11 cars. Shown from left to right.....
Joe DiCicco, Rick Hunsicker, Laura Metsko, Greg Metsko, Dan Kovalik, myself, Jeri Mulder, Mike Tyler, Evan Rose, Steve Dancer, and Mike Ferrell.
(not shown is Russ in the back-up car)
Every year since then the caravan has grown from 11 cars, to 17 cars, to 22 cars, to 42 cars in the 2011 caravan. The caravan is a great time and to be in a pack of 42 cars is just a great feeling. I mean last year in 2011, the Trans Am Nationals had 388 cars registered. We had 42 cars in our caravan from all over which makes up over 10% of the cars at the Nationals were in the caravan down.
I can't thank all the people enough for the help over the years in the organizing of the Caravan. LOMILETA was there from the start and was really just me and him for the first two years before the others started to join and grow the Caravan (yes, contrary to popular belief and claims, someone else wasn't there from the start). So, I want to thank Russ, and Brian, and Evan, and Mike, and Joe, and Greg, and Tim, and all the others for all the help over the years in helping grow and organize the caravan to make it what it is today. For those of you that are near any of the routes that we are taking I would highly suggest meeting up with us because it is a great time.