The start of the summer car show season brings something new to CarShowGuide.com. Greetings from southeastern Wisconsin! My name is Joel McNabb and I am one of co-founders of the Horicon Marsh Classic Car Club. We are otherwise known as the Marsh Rats. Our club was started shortly after the 9/11 attacks on our country. We decided to start a classic car club, pooling owners from around the Marsh area, which is the largest fresh water marsh in the USA. Since that time, we have established ourselves as one of the most proactive clubs in our area. We are constantly cruising in our cars, going from event to event, and even putting on our own car show during the Marsh Days festival in late July of each year.

Because of the many shows I attend in a season, Terry Liebenow asked me to log a review of each show as I attend. This year, I plan on attending shows ranging from Oshkosh, WI to Port Washington, WI to the nightly cruise-ins in Richmond, IL and Beaver Dam, WI. All in all, I plan to get to at least ten shows this season and many cruise-ins, so I will reporting as I go. I hope you find my evaluation of the shows unbiased and insightful.

The first car show I have attended this season was the R.A.C.E. Car Show in Ripon, WI. on Sunday, May 21, 2006. This show is a free car show to the participants and is put on in lovely Barlow Park. The local car club, R.A.C.E., which stands for Ripon Area Car Enthusiast, hosts the show which starts off the season for me almost every year. The show allows all years cars and vehicles. This year, they ranged from cars and trucks built before 1920 to brand new. I will score each category of the show from A to F. The following are my thoughts and scores of the show:

FOOD: Food is available on site. There is limited breakfast choices and no restaurants within a ten block radius except for a small restaurant downtown which we missed. The menu at the show consists of the usual brats and burgers, but does have chicken sandwiches and nachos. Beverages are sold at a decent price. There are also a few vendors selling popcorn and ice cream. Grade: B

Location: Barlow Park is a lovely park managed by the city in Ripon. The club puts this show on in the area that is not the baseball diamond which means kudos to them. Grade: A

SIGNS AND CONTRACTION: There were many signs but they were small. Someone changed the directions of the arrows, which had vehicles driving all over town. Construction was not good, but they had decent detours set up which didn't run us too far out of the way.
Grade: C+

ADMISSION PRICE: The price to get in was free! This is truly admirable due to the huge costs of all the supplies and work that goes into a show. Way to go R.A.C.E.! Grade: A+

BATHROOMS: One building with bathrooms and some port-a-potties. They were decent for a show. The only negative would be that there should be more of them in more convenient places.
Grade: B-

FLYERS & DASH PLAQUES: The dash plaques were nice but the flyers were just ok. Plus, I have attended three out of the last four years and didn't get one in the mail. I had to look it up on the internet and then the info on the city chamber site wasn't helpful other than the date. Grade: C

JUDGING: There isn't a lot expected here because it is a free show. That being said, the club uses participant voting, which we all know is the easiest way to give out trophy winners. In my opinion, no show that uses participant voting can score higher than a B- in this category. From there, I look at how much the buddy system influences winners. At this show, I noted about five groups that influenced their classes. Not bad for a show of at least 250 cars! Grade: B-

TROPHIES: The trophies were very striking and resembled the local schools colors (Orange. Hmmm....same as Horicon and our car show). They had many classes which suited the wide variety of vehicles at the show. They gave out three trophies per class which all had sponsorships. For a free show, every trophy winner got more than what they paid for. Grade: A

PARKING: This category was my biggest hang up for the show. To make it easier for participant voting, all classes were encouraged to park together. Therefore, if you wanted to park with your buddies, you almost ensured yourself no possible way of winning a trophy. Plus, they allow everyone to park themselves, which meant that I had someone trying to park within three feet of my car. Now, my car has four feet doors so this wouldn't do. I eventually had to move over to make more room. What a pain in the rear! Grade: D

Overall, the R.A.C.E. Car Show is a fine show with a rare benefit. It's free. The weather was nice, with a little chill and the park was beautiful. The club was hospitable and the company was good. The show is worth your time and effort in cleaning your car. Overall Grade: B

The next show on my list is the Memorial Day Car Show in Omro, WI. If you see me there, buy me a beer and tell me about your car. Maybe I'll find space to talk about it on my next review. If you don't know who I am, I'm the guy with the camaro, wearing a shirt with a big Marsh Rat on the back.

God Bless,

Joel