Just another excellent
whirlwind weekend. Kevin does such a good job promoting Vanfest
that I figured I better check it out this year. I was certainly
not dissapointed, renewing acquaintances with many people from
the past including Al Brown one of the Godfathers of Canadian
vanning, his club Syndicated ,put on the first Canadian van-in
and he started the Ontario Federation of Truckers (now the OFV).
Van Moose was also there with his great collection of vanning
collectibles, patches, buttons and all kinds of magazines including
Rod and Vans. Another old buddy of mine Bill Mokrczycki was there
with my favorite mid Ford ever, Ace of Spades. As well there
were a good number of people who travel far and wide supporting
each other's events, people like Howard who came from Chicago,
Three River Vans as well as Yux and the Moonlite gang from Pa
and Junior Sammett. At the CofC this year, Kevin had a drawing
for "King of Vanfest", it was rather appropriate that
Le Pied (the Foot) from Quebec was put on this great pedestal
and treated like royalty all weekend (this is also a great tie-in
to our Medieval Van-in in July 2000). The Quebec vanners were
once again a big presence participating in many of the games
of course they were the team to beat in the horseshoes and once
again took the Mr Hunk title :)
Best in Show went to Glenn Tusch's "Glass Eagle" an
absolutely immaculate mid Dodge. There were a number of vintage
panels in the show and Bars hauled the 8 wheeler out of the bodyshop
to win radical, looks like he his aiming to have paint on it
for the Nats. There was a 6 wheeler that made Bars' van and Junior's
Looney Tuney look small, a Ford with both sliding and barn doors
on the side, what a rig !
My hosts
for the weekend were Van Clan + 1, we've been hanging together
since '77, hope Denis recovers quick from his unfortunate dislocated
shoulder. But as a true vanner and following in the Van Clan
tradition that Doc started, he went to the hospital and got patched
up, then headed right back to the van-in.
It was another quick trip for me, 800 miles over two days. I
got about 3 hours of sleep thanks to being serenaded by some
of our younger vanners who will remain nameless... with some
heavy duty Rap and Reggae music from 3:00 a.m - 5:00 a.m, but
hey, these kids are the future of vanning. I can always catch
up on my sleep when I get back home : )
Virtual
The Pictures of Vanfest 1999
