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Kickin'
Rocks
The Triple Threat Trophy Hunter-Gatherer
Way back in the day of the caveman when that little guy in the B.C. comic strip invented the wheel and put us on this path of psychotic car collecting, all the cave-dwellers were generally in two categories, they were either gatherers and hunters, some were both. After years of research and contemplation I now believe that the pile of rock chips left from the first wheel were used to make the first trophy, probably by the guy who did the wheel to pay homage to himself. There are people (and you know who they are) that are glitter compulsive, they have shinny fake gold stuff everywhere and they just keep piling it up, these people are both hunter and gatherer, kind of a bi-thing.
Rewards about recognition for spectacular craftsmanship or appreciation for unselfish acts are always warranted and respected, it's the nonsensical pursuit of the glitter that is annoying. There is a distinct difference between those of us who have the occasional award sitting on a shelf or hanging on the wall here and there, and those who hire an architect, cabinet maker, electrician and climate control engineer to spend a week or two creating spectacular burl wood cabinetry to house the shinny little dust collectors. There may not be another thing on the face of this earth with such a useless life, except maybe a diamond unless it is embedded in a grinding wheel (your wife will agree with this). It is absolutely mystical what compels trophy people to keep gathering, and they usually can't help it, all they need do is show up at an event and they get Sweepstakes Show Up. Your could disable their car, tie them to their bed (there may be some acceptance of this concept somewhere else in the household) and they would still get the Hard Luck Award, or a trophy for having their 117 consecutive win streak broken. It's very mysterious how this happens, these are the same people that always win the raffles, it must be a force from another world, no way are they human.
There are all kinds of trophies/awards out there. The real hero ones are made of marble roman columns mounted on a massive hand rubbed walnut base, with a gaggle of lady liberty's cousins standing around a gold plated loving cup holding up wreaths offering their virginity to the car gods. As the years have passed this two hundred pound quadralift design has "evolved" into those puny plastic things that your six month old shitzu puppy drags around the house and turns it into a pile of plastic chips in five minutes flat. Fortunately some really cool wall plaques have become an alternative, although not the perfect eight foot tribute to the American hot rod or custom, some are very cool such as the Bob McCoy originals, others have functional clocks, full weather stations or a flat screen computer with built in massager.
Trophies are an essential part of the hot rod and custom car experience. When this car trophy thing started, or at least became part of hot rodding, trophies represented a small accomplishment with your car, they weren't too large and felt really cool to fondle. But that seems to have changed, the new age plastics proclaim that on a particular day someone was king of the world and the rest of us just a steaming mushy pile. It has got to the point that when going into someone's garage or home and not seeing any of the shinny stuff, you wonder who this loser is. On the other hand if huge trophies are positioned in very obvious places with a couple of thousand dollars of feature lighting shining down on them and a recorded message plays as you approach, your should assume that the owner is a premier hunter and gatherer.
Many think that possessing one of those behemoths can be a very costly and time consuming endeavor. Building a car, getting a killer display together, a covered trailer and truck to drag it around, then months and months of cars shows not to mention the pimping of the magazine guys, (they like cash). You may be surprised to know that it doesn't need to be that way. You can just "acquire" trophies through all sorts of circumstances. Buying them works well or you can get them in a package with some other stuff. One thing you do need to be careful about is to make sure you don't get them locally, it can be very embarrassing getting caught telling this long winded story about how you won all this gold with your mega dollar car which took over two decades to build using parts from 27 different countries, and the guy you are telling this too remembers seeing the trophy at the last swap meet for $15.
Some trophies mark important places in car history. For example in 1952 the Maremont Muffler Company sponsored a grand trophy that was awarded to the fastest car at the annual Bonneville Nationals. It was given only twice, in 1952 to C-T Automotive's City of Burbank liner and again in 1953 to the Xydias-Batchelor So-Cal car, two very significant cars and events in Bonneville's history. Other trophies have experienced illustrious lives perpetuating historic institutions such as The Stanley Cup or America's Most Beautiful Roadster giant loving cup. Now that's a trophy!! Anything that stands eight eight tall, weighs in at around four or five tons and you don't have to feed or clean up after, may be worth having.
Sooner or later you are on the podium overwhelmed by the thunderous applause, this is a dangerous time, you go into kind of a cosmic state, not hearing much and your acceptance speech is all blobidyblobidyboob. Be real careful here, if you don't control this feeling it can make you, a normally sane car guy tear a perfectly good car (often just finished a week of two before) down to the bare frame and systematically "invest" another fifty in the car you already have fifty in, just so you can hear the applause again then sell the car for thirty so you can build another fifty car. The thirty and the fifties previously mentioned are thousands of dollars, but you knew that didn't you.
Well....gotta go. My buddy just walked in with this flyer in his hand about a rod run down at the donut shop. Looks like there are trophies for about 65 classes and he says there are only 20 cars there. This could be a triple threat day.
Kick a shinny rock. DP |