Just a heads up. I'm planning on attending this year if plans materialize. Thanks to all those that are working so hard to pull this year's meeting off.
Marshall
@Lane Anderson posted:If your regular car is an import you can register it, which lets you drive it on the show field and get free parking. 😬
Ok, it’s not free, but it is close.
Technically speaking, nothing is really made in the US anymore so everything could be considered import.
They let me drive my Ford Explorer on, the year that was a rain-out. We didn't go to the show field but $35 is nothing one way or the other.
For those without cars ready or those hesitant to go, please join us if it happens. As one of the more recent to join........ The first year, we came up for the day. The second year, it rained out and we went anyway and the following year, came with the car. Short of the first, where no one knew me; I have had a blast each time. You seriously, will not find a better group of people.
Bingo, Chris. The first time we went we were driving my mother-in-law's '03 Camry. It was '09 and the first person that came up and welcomed us was Iron Butt Crosby. They had me after that. I had a questionable car at that time , got some advise , and long story short, we drove to Carlisle , the long way in 2019. All back roads. Mountains , snow and rain. Two days . I might do it again, I forgot the pain.
Carlisle Update, I have been negotiating with new management at the Courtyard Shippensburg hotel for some time now. Presently have all the concerns resolved in our favor with the hotel with one exception, that will be addressed tomorrow directly with the hotel owner. Thank's for your patience ~
What? Are you sending "Pauly-Walnuts" and the boys over for a polite, re-education session?
@Gordon Nichols posted:What? Are you sending "Pauly-Walnuts" and the boys over for a polite, re-education session?
i'm a phone call away from sending Joey Catulo, Rosco Quarnoccio & my Uncle Frankie Pasquali to take the girl for a NJ Turnpike trunk ride ...
Ah... nothing like a short one way walk into the meadowlands to straighten out your thinking.
What's the remaining concern? You can't just leave me hanging like that!
It's Drake, right?
I'm supposing that "The Boyz" from Jersey still have those big old Caddy or Buick Elektra sedans with the "6-man trunk". The state police up here hauled more than a few of those out of a deep, flooded granite quarry near here decades ago. Each one had at least one, often 3 or 4 bodies in the trunk.
We were all looking forward to the trial of "Whitey Bolger" up here, then he had to go and have a heart attack in his cell and die and screwed it all up. Guess we'll all have to follow Cy Vance courtroom drama, instead.
Heart attack brought on by a Psycho inmate beating the crap out of him, Gordo. He was a very bad man and deserved what he got. His brother Billy, the president of the Massachusetts Senate , and the Boston FBI ran interference for him for many years while he was on his murderous rampage. But I digress.
The gentleman who did it will not be available to chat with the Marriot folks for about 30 or 40 years.
Yeah, Chris, prolly Drake.
Hang in there gentlemen. Our stakes are comparatively low and Dr. Merklin is an excellent negotiator with no need for extracurricular goons.
CARLISLE WE ARE A GO ! Speedster & Spyders at Carlisle 2021 !
Covid -19 vaccines are in distribution and Pennsylvania is to
open up to at least 75% on April 1st per Courtyard by Marriott.
The short back story:
I began negotiating with CY Shippensburg PA for favorable room and
facility use contract arrangements discovering that the CY has new
management. I was able to resolve multiple proposed contract issues
inclusive of me being solely responsible if unreasonable financial
minimums were not met. The bigger issue at hand was that CY no longer
permits alcoholic beverages to be carried in coolers by group guests
as well as no outside food permitted (e.g. Friday Pizza night).
So there would be no beer and or wine coolers permitted whatsoever.
These items would have to be brought in on the sly which would have surely created issues. With these two major issues at an impasse and as much as we all enjoyed the outdoor patio venue, we were not able to come to an amicable agreement with Courtyard Shippensburg, PA.
The good news is, we have a familiar venue! The majority of you have
met Courtyard Event Coordinator Charity Shreffler from past years.
Charity now has two hotels one happens to be the Courtyard by
Marriott the property we were at for a few years . Charity at CY Mechanicsburg, PA dropped everything and as usual said: “So it’s short notice I can make this happen”. Hence, we are going back to Courtyard by Marriot on Gettysburg Road,
Mechanicsburg .
While we will not have the large patio venue at the previous CY, we
will have the Hospitality Suite and the outdoor Gazebo etc. The Hotel is supplying cookies and beverages for our Thursday upon arrival from 1:00PM to 5:00PM Also included is a free daily breakfasts for Friday Saturday and Sunday AM. There are various options for food, in smaller groups to go to including the Bone Fish Grill, Pizza Grill, Texas Roadhouse, Dukes, Rock Bass Grill, Dockside Willy’s and many others as well as that cool Oldies Diner that is just down the street from our hotel. With our event being planned with short notice at this moment, we do not have any group dinner plans in place but Connie, Ed and I will see if there us any venue available, if not we’ll wing it for Saturday . Ed Ericson will put together a couple of local TBA cruises etc. Please respect mask requirements .
What You Need To Do: Our event dates are Thursday May 13th - Sunday
May 16th .. some of us will arrive on Wednesday May 12 .
Please call and reserve …ASAP: Courtyard Marriott Gettysburg Rd Mechanicsburg, PA The room rate for either Queen or King is $129 plus the usual taxes.
Call 717-1766-9006 and be sure to mention Speedster Owner’s Group.
Check in is 4:00pm (I assume that you can arrive earlier) and Check out is at Noon. Hotel reservation cut off date is May 1st 2021
Important: After you register, please.... post "Coming & how many " on this thread.
Carlisle Car Show Event details and registration here :
Carlisle Import & Performance Nationals (carlisleevents.com)
Thank you Alan! Great work. You neglected to mention another advantage of the venue change - that we will not be overcome by fresh manure fumes from the field behind the CY-Shippensburg.
That was a feature, Lane.
Appreciate it for the goodness that it was.
What Lane, you didn't enjoy the inescapable smell of crap for 4 days straight.... Unable to drive far enough away ...... Tasting it in your food .... Worked into your clothes for a few wash cycles.... Nightmares for a few weeks after.
I rather liked it.
Of course you did, Chris. Of course you did. 
Smell of crap? You urbanites must not realize where food comes from. Food comes from farms, and farmers need to use fertilizer to make the food grow.
Either they spread industrial chemicals on their fields - which do nothing whatsoever to help the health of the soil - or they spread organic matter - yes, manure - that builds up the soil.
With the rise of factory farming, too few farms actually have access to manure. Using manure helps to complete the soil cycle, and keeps topsoil healthy.
If you actually thought about it, about four or five inches of topsoil means we actually can grow vegetables and raise animals, so you city slickers can eat.
So, that smell you smelled last time, is something you should appreciate. It means some farmer is able to farm in a more natural way, and you get to eat more natural foods.
I am certainly no urbanite. I grew up all around farms and worked some. We get some of the fertilizer smell every spring, there's a good-sized farm a couple miles away.
It did seem as if the Shippensburg fertilizer was a particularly potent type is all.
@Alan Merklin :Excellent job, well done, and thank you.
It was barely noticeable, and added to the "bucolic" vibe of the place. For those from more urban settings, that was dairy farm manure. Be eternally grateful it wasn't from an egg farm.
Any time you need to slow down for an Amish buggy on the road, you're probably going to get a whiff of manure from somewhere. I'm glad they were spreading it on the field, rather than dropping it in the road.
This is too funny to read... I can only imagine the great conversation with this group at the event.
I'm visiting Alan tomorrow morning to get a look at progress on the speedster he is building for me. Should at least have good pictures of the progress to share at Carlisle. 
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@MarylandGuy I especially like that last photo. I know every single part in that "exploded view" LOL! It's funny, there were a couple people on here that told me I'd either not get mine back together or I'd have parts left over. Neither was true!
Please replace that brass shift fork with a steel one, known weak spot.
Nice color.
Either way, we are excited to go to Carlisle, crap or no crap. Alan, I will work on the registration over the next few days but if it happens, wife and I are coming. You can count us (2).
I realized that between this, my vacation, holidays and requested time off, I won't have a full week of work for a month and a half.
Correction on the number
Call 717-766-9006
A true disappointment, you have no idea as to the work that was involved importing the Sweet Country Air . You people are unappreciative of my efforts. Hence, I will forego importing said aromatics for this year and as your mother's use to say; " You'll have to do without " !
Hotel Reservation: 717-766-9006
Alan and Ed........Glenn and I are both coming.🧓👴. Will be there Thursday thru Sunday. Once again thanks for all you do. Paul
And contrary to what Stan says about egg farms - really, what is an egg farm? Do they plant eggs like potatoes, and they multiply underground? - Chicken farms I have heard of.
Just be glad the hotel was not next to a pig farm.
People would have checked in on Thursday, and checked out on Thursday - and not the next Thursday.
It would be a same day exodus of screaming speedster owners...
Hotel and Carlisle Events are done. If Glenn finishes Alan's referral he will have time to install my rebuilt trans that we converted to IRS last year and change my camshaft and install additional spacers to get me out of using Octane boosters. If not we will come in his Yaris.
Gee Chris I haven't worked for 21 years unless you count the honey do time🤗
Anyone else having issues paying for show field passes?
@Alan Merklin, wife and I have the hotel.
Add 2 for us Alan. The smell didn't bother me either. I grew up around farms and worked for 5 Summers on a tobacco farm, starting a week before my 13th birthday. Pick and haul, 65 cents an hour and all the nicotine you could ingest through your skin.
We have a whole different aroma around here when the marshes thaw in the Spring.
I like that too.
It is the new old fragrance of barn life.
I'm done. A few attempts and no dice. If we go to the show field, I will pay at the gate. It's not working and I am annoyed.
@Bob: IM S6 posted:And contrary to what Stan says about egg farms - really, what is an egg farm? Do they plant eggs like potatoes, and they multiply underground? - Chicken farms I have heard of.
Just be glad the hotel was not next to a pig farm.
People would have checked in on Thursday, and checked out on Thursday - and not the next Thursday.
It would be a same day exodus of screaming speedster owners...
"Chicken farm" connotes roaster (meat) chickens. "Egg farms" have the same 4 hens in one sq/ft cages for two years, 2 to 3 layers high, crapping on the the other birds in the cage, or on the ones below them. Chicken manure smells like sewage that has been soaked in ammonia.
I lived across the cornfield from one while growing up. The egg farm was about a mile to the NE, which was not the direction of prevailing winds. However, if the wind was blowing just right-- WOW. My good friend lived on that farm, and when we would go over there, we'd gather eggs. I high-school, we'd load pullets (take them off a truck and put them in their cages) or hens being cycled out when they'd reached the end of their productivity. It was good money and nasty, depressing, horribly hard work.
Laying chickens in cages have to be "de-beaked" before being put in with other chickens or they will peck one another to death in short order. As it is, when changed out for pullets, the old layers have maybe 50% of their feathers left and are scrawny and mean. They will lay an egg a day for the entire time they are in confinement. A typical egg farm has at least 20,000 birds laying. It's depressing in the extreme. Cage-free eggs are one of those things that I do because I know what's involved when they're not.
An egg farm in a midwest summer smells worse than a hog confinement.
I can second that. I've worked in barns with cows, horses, etc. but chicken is the worst thing going. Summer winds? OMFG.
Now, if it was a boneless chicken ranch....
Stan. I must admit I have never heard it called an 'egg farm' before. That's what struck my funny bone...
We used to keep a small flock of hens for eggs. Not much better than a fresh, farm egg (grown by free range chickens, that is...) 
Is anybody arriving on Wednesday?
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@Al Gallo posted:Add 2 for us Alan. The smell didn't bother me either. I grew up around farms and worked for 5 Summers on a tobacco farm, starting a week before my 13th birthday. Pick and haul, 65 cents an hour and all the nicotine you could ingest through your skin.
We have a whole different aroma around here when the marshes thaw in the Spring.
I like that too.
We call it skunk cabbage here...
As for all this farm stuff- I'm pretty much a city boy. Never had the pleasure of working on a farm, but am familiar with what they smell like. I know why manure is spread over the fields- it means food is growing. In my later childhood there was a mushroom farm at the bottom of the hill, (a couple miles away?) and when the wind was just right- oohhh boy it was ripe!
@Lane Anderson posted:Is anybody arriving on Wednesday?
Karyn and I plan to arrive Wednesday but it is largely weather dependent. We've done this each year we attended to give us the flexibility. Rain on Wed, leave Thurs if no rain. Rain on Wed and/or Thurs and Sun, take something else on Wednesday.
I have a few things to button up for both the trailer and the top for the Spyder. If I get them done, it won't matter about the weather but it's already the end of March and I've done nothing.
Karyn wants to bring the Thing up this year so I have to contend with both cars, capability, weather, etc.
@ALB posted:We call it skunk cabbage here...
As for all this farm stuff- I'm pretty much a city boy. Never had the pleasure of working on a farm, but am familiar with what they smell like. I know why manure is spread over the fields- it means food is growing. In my later childhood there was a mushroom farm at the bottom of the hill, (a couple miles away?) and when the wind was just right- oohhh boy it was ripe!
we dont have skunk cabbage,,its called skunk weed:}
my Sis lives in southern Md. chicken growers everywhere,,on a hot day and the wind right itll take ur appetite away