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As Sunday, May 19th rolled around, so did the Beach Blast 8 car show, which we here at Mike Kelly’s Cruise News host annually at the Holiday Inn Cocoa Beach Resort. The event was once again sponsored by All-Midwest Sales, which is owned by fellow enthusiast Ron Hassel. They represent all of the major parts manufacturers you know and love, such as MSD, AeroQuip, Jet Performance Products, Milodon, Mopar Performance, Nitrous Works, Richmond Gear, SCE Gaskets, Stainless Steel Brakes, and World Products, just to name a few.
The event once again reached the 200 vehicle limit through pre-registration more than a month before the show date. Things really started to get underway on Saturday, when many of the vehicles were already lined up to reserve a first-come, first-served chance at the promenade parking spots, plus check into the hotel for the night. Thanks to a suggestion by a group from the Vintage Vehicles car club, who help us a BUNCH with this event, we gave out claim checks to the first 50 to arrive (the approximate number that will fit into the promenade), then had them move out of the main lot by the end of Saturday evening to free up the spots for others that would remain there through Sunday, and prevent the “shuffling” of cars on Sunday morning. Those with promenade spots were then told to meet up on the side of the hotel at a little after 8:00 am on Sunday, which worked out great to keep the traffic to a minimum, and not disrupt those out in the front lot at all. Things went almost exactly to plan by the time we started bringing vehicles into the promenade area at 9:00 am, but once again will be refined slightly next year. Most early arrivers on Saturday were originally planning to attend the 5th Anniversary of the local cruise-in hosted by the Dixie Cruisers in Cocoa Village on Saturday night, but a monkey wrench was thrown into the plans. The city informed the Dixie Cruisers just a few days earlier that they couldn’t have use of the historic area that week, so “Plan B” had to kick in. Butch Johnston, who always handles the DJ duties for the Beach Blast, offered to go ahead and play the tunes on Saturday night....so the Holiday Inn front lot turned into the place to hang out. We went ahead and started handing out registration packets, which this year also included one free event T-Shirt (featuring original artwork by Adam Icenogle, which is pictured at the beginning of the article). Plus there was a 50/50 raffle headed up by Jennifer Johnston, dancing, and lots of bench racing going on. There was a brief period or two of sprinkles Saturday night, but nothing to really worry about. We also had suggestions that maybe we should just plan on having the pre-event activities on-site next year as well, and in addition to the DJ outside in the parking lot, also organize a NASCAR party for the special Winston race in the hotel’s lounge. This sounded like a great idea, so we’ll look into it for next year. Sunday morning, however, everyone was greeted to light showers. It never did really come down hard, and was never windy or anything, but it remained at a rather constant drizzle until about 11:00 am or 12:00 noon. Everyone seemed to take it in stride, and as soon as it let up many took the chance to wipe down their car, check out all the other great rides, and fill out their participant voting ballot. We were just lucky (and glad) that it didn’t rain the whole day, and never got at all “nasty”. It could have been a lot worse, for sure. We stepped things up a bit due to the weather conditions, and started giving away the door prizes on the covered Ocean Deck at about 2:00 pm. Discount Auto Parts once again came through as our official door prize sponsor, giving us all kinds of great items to randomly hand out, plus goody bags of various things that were available at the registration tent. We’ve had a long relationship with Discount Auto Parts, and have always admired their ongoing interest and support of our hobby, and hope other do as well. The awards presentation followed the door prize drawings, and everyone seemed to be in a very upbeat mood. We once again put together our own unique trophies this year, which consisted of die cast cars we got though Die Cast Cars in Kissimmee (407-932-3343), and trophy supplies bought at Dudley’s Wholesale Trophies in Pinellas Park (727-525-8061). The Top 40 were 1:24 scale ‘55 Nomads in various colors, and the Specialty awards had cream colored 1:18 scale ‘47 Cadillac convertibles. We once again received good feedback on them, mostly about how much nicer they are to display in the house than a regular trophy. We’d again like to thank Ron Hassel with All-Midwest Sales for his continued sponsorship of the Beach Blast. Everyone can thank him for the event not only being possible, but also for the addition of the event T-Shirts this year. Plus Discount Auto Parts for donating so many great door prize items, which is their way of giving back to the car enthusiast community that has treated them so well. And of course the Vintage Vehicles crew that head up the parking chores. Without their help things would not go so smoothly, and this year their determination was put to the test with the rain....but they once again came through smiling. We are already looking forward to next year’s Beach Blast. We haven’t had problems with rain at this event in the past, but despite early adverse conditions on Sunday we still had a lot of positive feedback, and thank everyone for coming out. CN
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