Mopar Nation Midwest Meet 2012

I haven't gotten to make many shows this year, but one I did get to make was the 2012 Midwest Meet.

One of the reasons the M10 appealed to me was being able to just hop in the car and drive...Shows that seemed like a rough trip in an old car (ie 4.10 gears, are there enough gas stations etc) turn into just a leisurely and enjoyable road trip.

Things lined up and a few of us from AAM headed over to OKC over the weekend of July 27th-29th, 2012.

The line-up was pretty simple:

Friday 7-27-2012: Dave & Busters, Thunder Valley Raceway
Saturday 7-28-2012: Andy Alligators, Night Show at Riverwind Casino

I headed out Friday morning eagerly looking forward to cutting some good times at Noble.  Thanks to the 75 mph speed limit I was able to cover ground pretty quick, and if not for some construction on the Oklahoma side of the state line it would have been record time.

This is what most of the drive looks like:

This does tend to get your attention.  It is in Groom, Texas and is the largest cross in the Western HEMIsphere (see what I did there?):

Farther to the east, things were strange...green in fact.  It was easy to tell where the rain had fallen and where it hadn't.  I didn't take this picture because of the terrain, but simply because of the color:

I was able to get in ahead of the official schedule, but to my surprise as I pulled in to Dave & Busters (roughly 1 hr ahead of schedule), folks had just gotten in, parked, and were headed in the door.  I'd never been to Dave & Busters and figured the food would suck...it was honestly pretty good and being that this went down Friday at lunch time, the crowd was a non-issue.  Several of the games were fun as well...still don't quite understand their points/scoring, but oh well.  Main thing is it was fun!

Here is a shot of what I found in the parking lot:

And a little more of Dave & Busters:

Next stop was the hotel where a few of us were bedding down for the night:

A little after check-in, it was time to hit the track:

Special thanks to the photographer who got these shots:

Ruby vs Destiny on the Track!

M10 Ready to Launch (check out the wicked glare...you try finding a green bulb looking into that!):

If you recall, I had mentioned my hopes of "getting some better times."  Ordinarily, Thunder Valley in Noble is a great place to go fast compared to the home track.  It mainly comes down to DA and prep.  The prep was fine, but the weather was not.  This entire weekend was like a sauna...but no one wanted to be in it.  The track opened and the air temp was hovering around 110 and couple that with a pretty high humidity and it made things miserable not only for racers, but the cars as well.  Nonetheless it was a good time and I'd love to go back in the fall some time to get some better times in the M10.

I think I only made 3-4 passes.  The first one was quite interesting due to the fact I was looking right into the sun.  I cut a red light against a Mopar 11 equipped with nitrous, but was ahead of him the whole way down the track.  It worked out quite well to redlight there as it kind of made up for their deeper rear end gearing.  It probably looked pretty cool from the stands if nothing else, lol.

And just in case anyone reads this and is inspired to hit the track...the road out is pretty littered...with law enforcement.  I don't think I've seen that many police cars waiting in the weeds in years.  Luckily not knowing your surroundings and being in the dark you tend to go slow.  I know a lot of people leave the track and get on it...I held off, and I'm glad I did!  I don't think the folks in Noble will have any trouble with returning racers speeding through town again.

I got back to the hotel...drove to a car wash and did my best to make it presentable:

Came back to the hotel and talked to a friend that redlit in the finals.  Woke up to find the sauna was already heating up at 7 AM and hit the town for some more fun.  Look what I found:

Before you knew it, it was time for the show...It was a solid turnout and there were actually a lot more late model Challengers than anyone expected.  This show is usually LX heavy, and I truly think the Challenger showing caught everyone off guard...Can't complain about that though!

As you might have guessed, I was the only M10 in attendance.  Some day the Trinity will align!

Anyway, I was in the Stock Challenger class (fewer than 3 mods), and found once again that there are still a lot of people that have no idea what a Mopar 10 is...and yes, this was an all Mopar show.  I really need to get a poster made to explain what the car is.

Regardless, one of the "mods" (although I consider it more of a custom styling accent than a mod) is of course the lighting.  First I swapped the interior lights....then the fog lights...and wrapping up right before I left the house for OKC was Phase 1 of  Cloud 10: Footwell Lights and Underbody Lighthing (Phase 2 Coming Soon!).  I was really inspired to get this taken care of because this show is a night show, and thus the perfect setting to display the custom work.

This might be my favorite shot...Really shows that the underbody light makes people step back and think about things...or get down on the ground and try to figure it out:

Well, as fate would have it the weather was so disagreeable the show wrapped up a little early.  Hard to get votes for something when no one knows you have it.  Luckily, a few folks on the judging staff saw it and must have appreciated it because the M10 was selected as the winner of "Best Lighting!"

In addition to the trophy, I got $100 to Fasty's Garage...although I still haven't received it or any info on it, but I at least have the trophy!  I consider it to be more a testament to a car than the driver in most cases, but I will gladly take a little credit for the lighting.  I know a lot of people don't like it, but hey...it is my car and I think it looks like it belongs there.  Plus, when was the last time you saw a Challenger that was blacked out with a blue glow at night?  The pics really don't do it justice, and I think it really suits the car.

After that the fun was over and the next day we all headed back.  I did stop for a few more photo-ops:

First up is a rest stop overlooking a canyon.

And of course, here is the largest cross in the Western HEMIsphere once again...

I did make one other stop, which I decided to chronicle in a separate post.

All-in-all it was a good time.  The M10 got some valuable highway miles, which is rare given the multi-hour run times.

Dave & Busters was great, the track was nice, had a lot of fun the rest of the trip, and the show was pretty good too.  The fact that the just completed Cloud 10 garnered "Best Lighting" just made things that much better!