The American Performance Car Show was alright. And by that I mean everything about this car show was “All Right” – the weather was right, the cars were right, the music was right, the food was right. Well you get the picture.

This car show also set a record for the partnership of DAPA and Sewell doing a car show together, 104 cars were registered and hundreds of people came by to see the cars, listen to the music, and just enjoy the day.

The American Performance Car Show was a bit of a departure from what DAPA and Sewell have done the past couple of years. It was opened up to all brands of American performance cars which of course allowed a larger number of local car clubs to participate. Consequently, higher registration equaled a larger donation to our charity, the American Cancer Society.

Once again, we need to give a Huge Thank You to the staff of Sewell for their efforts and generosity in putting this show together and serving up a great lunch. We would also like to thank Jeff and Lee from Gasoline Alley Car Shows for their efforts in judging 104 cars in a timely manner which allowed us to stay on schedule and have the awards presentation right on time. Maybe it’s just me, but during the awards presentation the word Mopar seemed to come up way to often… just means us Pontiac owners need to try a bit harder next time.

Autorama Dallas
February 15-17, 2009

The Autorama Car Shows are a series of events at major cities across the country.  Dallas often appears on the schedule the second weekend in February – Valentine’s Day weekend.  This year, Saturday, usually the biggest day of the three day show… was Valentine’s Day.

This dilemma weighs heavily on a man’s mind when he needs to decide if he is going to enter his Pontiac in the Autorama DAPA display; or spend the weekend with his Wife/Significant Other.  Hmm, the wife/S.O., or the other girl in his life, his Pontiac?

But wait! This is not a problem for half of our DAPA displayers.  Their women folk came out to Autorama on Valentine’s Day to spend it with their family members, their husband and their Pontiac!  Brenda and Frank Moren, Colleen and John Darling, Judy and Tommy Rivers, Gloria and Ken Davis, and I think Ellen was there with Shawn Pergande; all spent the day together and appeared to have a wonderful time.  I’m fairly sure the remaining DAPA displayers took off early enough to take their ladies out for the evening.

This appeared to be the case for many of the attendees too.  There was a great crowd in attendance throughout the day on Saturday; right up until about 4:00pm when the Market Hall mysteriously began to thin out – remember the show continues ‘til 10:00pm on Saturday.  Call it a compromise: he gets the day to play with car toys; she gets the evening to toy with romance.  Ahh, “give and take”, the glue of marriage.

OK, reality check, here are the Autorama 2009 results of the DAPA display:

Congratulations to All!  And the rest of you remember, DAPA tries to include different Pontiacs in our display each year at Autorama, so you have a whole year to prepare.

Saturday, October 18, 2008, the day of the B-O-P Car Show hosted by the Dallas Area Pontiac Association, and sponsored by Sewell. Sure, it’s billed as a Buick, Olds, Pontiac car show… but is in fact a Buick, Olds, Pontiac, Pontiac, Pontiac car show since once again Pontiacs ruled the show field! We also had several other flavors of GM vehicles show up, Cadillac and GMC = invited; Chevrolet, maybe not invited but every bit helps towards the charity.

The weather was good as the cars rolled into position in the morning. The more the cars filled the lot, the better the weather was looking. By mid day, we were at 60 cars, blue skies and sunny. Now it’s time for the barbeque lunch Sewell graciously throws in to feed the car worshipping masses. It’s all good – food, people, cars, music, weather. Next it’s awards time and 50 were handed out to the top cars as judged by the participants

By end of day, DAPA and Sewell raised $1,600.00 to benefit the American Cancer Society. And would you believe it, a Cadillac won the Best of Show award. It was a good day all around.

Thank you Sewell once again for your generosity and making the B-O-P Car Show 2008 a great success.

It’s late September and you know what that means: The Tigers Prowl in Grapevine

And so did a whole lot of other Pontiacs. Saturday, September 27th, 2008 was the 11th Annual Tiger Prowl Car Show hosted by the GTO Association of North Texas and sponsored by Sewell. This is an all Pontiac Car Show that has been held at the Bass Pro Shops parking lot for the past few years.

We couldn’t ask for a more beautiful day, a cool morning gave way to a bright sunny day that made those Pontiacs sparkle. The Tiger Prowl show field consisted of just over 60 Pontiacs , primarily consisting of Pontiac muscle: GTOs and TransAms. A nice variety of other Pontiacs were also represented from the 30’s right up to the hot new G8. We are proud to say the Dallas Area Pontiac Association was there in force, with 17 cars entered in the event.

The Tiger Prowl is a benefit car show with proceeds benefiting The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.

Click a picture to see a larger view.

It was a beautiful Saturday in late September, the 22nd to be precise, and the Tigers Prowled.

The event was the 10th Annual South Central Tiger Prowl put on by the GTO Association of N. TX. This is an all Pontiac Car Show that once again brought out some of the best Pontiacs the area has to offer. The site was the Bass Pro Shop in Grapevine as it has been for the past several years, a good venue in a central location within the Metroplex.

As always, the GTO Assoc. of N. TX put on a great show with proceeds benefiting the MD Anderson Cancer Center. The show field consisted of about 65 cars, most of which are pictured below. DAPA Members that were in attendance included Don Fenton, Shawn Wheeler, Bob Cook, Brian Donahue, Mark Waterman, Larry Rawlings, Phil Madden, Randy Allen, John Darling, Colleen Darling, John Oliver, Deanne Wagner and Tony Ricci. Hope we didn’t forget anyone, but probably did.

Click a picture to see a larger view.

July 10-14, 2007
By Rob Bender

McKinney , TX to Tulsa . This caravan included Don and Stephanie Fenton, Larry Rawlings, Brian Donahue , his buddy Rick Theissen, Jim Kerbel, son, Jake Kerbel , James Morris, and yeah, I was there. On the way up we were joined by George Reaves en route, and later in Tulsa met up with Lee Green and daughter Jennifer, Shawn and E.J. Wheeler, Randy Allen, Bryan Liptoi and John and Dawn Wolf.

Already on the scene in Tulsa were Bob and Linda Cook, Mark and Lynn Waterman, Ross and Dorothy Clegg, Tommy and Judy Rivers, John and Colleen Darling, Robert Kern, Marty and Paul Parker and Shawn Patterson.

This event was well put together. POCI, in working with the Oklahoma Tourism Board, had blocked off several square blocks of downtown Tulsa for the convention. There were city parking lots reserved for in and out POCI member parking, the Swap Meet in another lot and a display by Pontiac that included the Solstice GXP and yet to be released G8. Trailer parking was available a few blocks away and POCI rented vans for shuttle service. Even a couple of hoses were set up in one of the trailer lots to hand wash your car.

The weather cooperated on the days that counted, including race day and show day. It rained part of Thursday, but there were a couple of seminars to choose from, as well as several vendor booths and displays to keep us occupied. The day at the track, Friday, the 13th was hampered by rain early on, but the track was dried and ready to go by late morning. The only affect Friday the 13th had on us was it hexed our times in the bracket racing – at least that’s the story we’re sticking to. By late afternoon, all of us “he men” were sitting around staring at each other while we watched Jennifer Green go round after bracket round making it all the way to the Finals. Shawn Patterson also hung in there and made it to the Finals in the “Dirty Bird”.

The Popular Vote Car Show day was Saturday, and it turned to be a perfect day with the weather sunny and warm. There was also a Points Judged Car Show on Friday. I understood there were 360 cars in the Saturday show field which stretched for several blocks. All cars were in specific classes and positioned accordingly. For example, not only the GTO’s would be lined up together, the 1965 GTO’s lined the better side of one street! You can’t forget the beautiful vintage Oaklands which were set under a row of trees. And it was the 30th Anniversary of the Can Am; they of course were grouped in a prestigious location.

POCI had indeed put on a great event. We were fortunate to have it held close to Dallas in 2007 allowing a fair contingent of DAPA members to participate.

By Rob Bender

We have a beautiful Saturday morning today, June 9, 2007 for our DAPA hosted; Sewell sponsored B-O-P Car Show. It’s warm, sunny, a bit muggy, but the cars are rolling in. Sewell Buick Pontiac GMC, our sponsor for this event, has cleared the entire upper lot facing Lemmon Avenue for this event. By 10:00am the cars are rolling in strong, Pontiacs , Oldsmobiles, Buicks, Cadillacs, GMCs and more Pontiacs . Even 2 or 3 Chevys showed up for this Buick, Olds, Pontiac, Cadillac, Hummer show. By the time registration closed we had 77 cars registered filling almost the entire upper lot.

It’s now 11:30am, the sun is high in the sky, the DJ is crankin’ out tunes and he announces “lunch is served”. Sewell once again provided free lunch for all, burgers, dogs, all the fixings, sides, drinks and dessert! Your $10.00 registration gets you lunch AND the $10.00 goes right to our charity benefactor – the American Cancer Society.

Raffles were sold and cool stuff was raffled off throughout the day. After a big lunch, you want to walk it off; ahh, the perfect time for participant judging. Pick up your judging sheet and walk the show field. As you will see in the photos below, we did have some great cars in the show, from the early years to modern muscle.

As the judging sheets were being tabulated, a cloud appeared in the sky, right over Sewell. It was a large, dark cloud. A few drops started to come down and we helped the DJ cover his equipment. The drops got larger, then more frequent, then the cloud tore open. We all scrambled under the Sewell portico for cover while the storm dumped several inches of rain, strong winds, ear splitting thunder and lightning down on us.

Tabulation is now complete; we are under cover and out of the rain so we began the awards presentation. We handed out trophies to the top 50 vehicles along with some Best in Show trophies. The storm finally subsided after 40 minutes at around 2:00pm and we began to wonder out from cover and back to our cars. Some wiped their cars down and waited for dryer roads, others chose to leave and opt for a car wash and detail at a later time.

As always the staff at Sewell did an outstanding job with this event. Sewell picked up the costs for the lunch, the trophies, provided the DJ entertainment and part of the raffle giveaways. All funds collected for registration and raffle tickets went directly to our charity and totaled approximately $1,400.00 for the American Cancer Society; many thanks to the generosity of Sewell and their staff.

All in all, it was a great day and a great show that we hope reflects the appreciation of both DAPA and Sewell for our members and customers.

Click a picture to see a larger view.

Race Report, by Harold Baker, DAPA Race Director
April 29, 2007

DAPA was out in force for quarter mile madness in Rusk Texas. We had 10 racers make the long trek to Rusk to kill some Mustangs, sink some Corvettes, and demoralize some Mopars.

Harold Baker went 5 rounds to take 1st place in Super Muscle with his 2000 Trans Am. Bob Davis took 3rd place in Pro Muscle with his 63 Tempest, and David Dudley captured 2nd place in the Race of Champions. Seven of 10 racers won 1st round eliminations. James Ash made a strong showing in Pro Muscle winning 2 eliminations with his 67 GTO. Marty “the machine” Parker won his first round with a .004 reaction time. Bob Cook won his Super Muscle first round elimination in his 2006 GTO. Randy Frazier twisted my arm to let him race his 2005 Mustang GT for DAPA in Super Muscle – No apologies, with a 69 Mustang in my garage, I sometimes get soft when it comes to Mustangs and as always I welcome Super Muscle participants. David Dudley won his King Muscle first round elimination with his ’62 Vette. Jessica Dudley, likewise won her King Muscle first round elimination in the 67 Firebird.

HR Dudley valiantly lost his 1st round elimination in Street Muscle piloting the 79 Trans Am. I was happy to see Art Birdwell take a quarter mile pass in Stock Muscle with a mostly stock, daily driver, 1963 Catalina undergoing restoration.

It was great to have the support of DAPA race fans Paul Parker, Carolyn Dudley, and Ryan Dillemuth

Click a picture to see a larger view.