THE ACCELERATOR Mustang Memories 2010 Special Edition Page 2 The Accelerator – Mustang Memories 2010 Special Edition Field of Dreams By Mike Rey, MOCSEM President Well it has come and gone, another year of planning our biggest event is now behind us. Mustang Memories 2010 is now in the books…the record books that is! To say we had a successful show is an understatement. We all dreamed big from the moment I submitted our formal request to have the Ford World Headquarters as our new home, to all the talks and cruises leading up to it, then landing the Mustang Dream Giveaway presentation, then to setup day when the buzz was in the air, then to show day! Sunday August 8th, 2010 will forever be the day that MOCSEM rocked the Ford World Headquarters for the 1st time, with many more to come in the future! We did it! We aimed high (very high) and we far exceeded our high expectations! We broke every record this club has ever seen for a car show and I am including the huge national record that stood for 7 years from 2003 when they had 527 cars! I was joking around with Phil Smith when leaving setup on Saturday when he was saying the number to beat to be # 1 was 527! I said while looking up at the cloudless sky, "no problem.” Cocky? Confident? Sure I was but I was also scared. We had pumped up our show so big this year, it was going take a lot to live up to it. But myself, the board and all of the volunteer workers (almost 200 of them) were determined to do our best to make this the greatest show on earth, or at least that we have ever seen. I knew if we had good weather we would top 500 cars for sure. 550 would have made me the happiest person in the world, so imagine how I felt when I heard the final number of 623 registered cars! Most amazing feeling I have ever felt. I was with Ken Janus (MOCSEM Vice President) at the registration table when we watched car #600 roll in. For those of you who may not know, we could have gone over 700 cars, but due to judging time constraints, we had to turn some cars away. I have never been more proud of this club then I was on show day this year. We were on the biggest stage ever, trying to make our mark and lay the groundwork to land our lifelong dream to host the 50th anniversary show here in Dearborn at the Ford World Headquarters in 2014. We knew Ford Motor Company and many, many others would be watching us closely, and we had to be as perfect as possible. Well let me just start by saying we did one hell of a job! I have heard from many powers that be at Ford Motor Company that they had heard about the show and heard nothing but amazing things! Ken Janus and myself got a chance to walk around the Woodward Dream Cruise inside Mustang Alley this year and we came across a few people I would like to mention that all had nothing but great things to say about our event: Dave Pericak (Mustang Chief Engineer), Steve Ling (NA Ford Car Marketing Manager), Steve McCarley (MCA President) Jim Owens (Shelby), John Savona (Plant Manager at AAI) just to name a few. Those are huge names in the Mustang industry, so to hear about our show from them was absolutely an amazing feeling. I can only imagine even bigger and better things happening for this club in the near future. We had cars from Texas, Canada, etc. at our show. We also had the pleasure of having Rick Campbell there with his Mustang Owners Club of Southeastern Michigan • PO Box 39088, Redford, MI 48239 • www.mocsem.com The Accelerator – Mustang Memories 2010 Special Edition Page 3 1969 Boss 302 that was originally owned by Chrysler as a have no weak areas and continue to mold with each other test car. It is the only boss 302 to have ever received the gold and make our amazing team even better. authenticity award from MCA. We also had Vinny Barber there with the world's fastest 3-valve Mustang! I can go on all day Our club is currently around 460 active members at the time and night about our show. It was by far our best ever! The of this article and growing, please know that all 460 of you question I was asked the most throughout show day was are the reason we are so successful, and why we can put on "How are you ever going to top this?" Well let's just say it is a show like we did a few weeks ago. Thank you so much for already in the works and this is just weeks after the show. finally giving us the greatest support of club cars that Mustang Memories has ever seen. So stay tuned for another amazing year coming up in 2011. I received the highest compliments from all of our sponsors, So thank you again to everyone who has a hand in making and 2 of them already want to upgrade to title sponsors for everything about our club and our show a success on a next year’s event! Magazines were there in full force, along national level! You just wait, Mustang Memories 2011 is less with the local news stations. I am still getting emails as than a year away, Sunday August 7, 2011, and I can recently as yesterday for info on certain cars at our show, guarantee you we will top this year’s event! I hope you all because they want to do articles on them. I also got to spend have a great winter and off-season! Relax and enjoy, as we a little bit of time with some of our charter members including will be back to work before you know it! the original president Jim Egyed. What an honor it was for me to be able to stand proud in front of the club Jim and the rest of them created 35 years ago when it was literally our brightest moment in club history! It was like a storybook ending to an amazing day. I hope myself and the club have made them all proud to our accomplishments. Talk about being proud, what an honor it was to have the Mustang Dream Giveaway and the Healing Heroes Network appear at our show for the presentation of the Grand Prize of two Shelby Mustangs awarded to Robert Totten (a veteran to top it off), who so graciously handed the keys back to the Healing Heroes Network. What a gesture. The amazing news is that the Mustang Dream Giveaway will be back to present the keys to next year’s two Mustangs (to be revealed at SEMA this year). I swear I can write a whole book just about this year’s event. My whole life I have been a huge baseball player and baseball fan, so for me to say this in a car show sense instead of on a baseball diamond is huge to me, but our show field of 623 cars this year was my "Field of Dreams!" I once again want to thank everyone who helped make this happen, from all of our members, to all of our volunteer workers, judges, committee heads, board members for being the best board I have ever worked with (you guys are all my dream team), and Janet O'Connell and Dan Duderstadt at Ford Motor Company. And a huge thank you to Bob Adams from Steeda who helped me make the Mustang Dream Giveaway become a reality. Thank you to the Mustang Club of Mid Michigan who always come down to lend us a well needed hand in judging MOCSEM cars. Thanks also to George Huisman of Classic Design Concepts and to Joe King at Ford Racing for being amazing title sponsors year in and year out and giving us above-and-beyond top support of our club and our car show! Thank you to all of our major sponsors and vendor sponsors! We sold more merchandise than ever, we signed up more new members than ever before, more swap spots than ever before. Like I said I can go on and on all day, and I know I am forgetting a ton of people and facts. Please forgive me as it has been a long year of planning—but well worth it. Thank you all for allowing me to be your leader, and I hope you will allow me to continue to do so, as I feel I have just gotten started, and with Ken Janus as my VP and the rest of my amazing board behind me, I feel very confident and strong, as I feel we Mustang Owners Club of Southeastern Michigan • PO Box 39088, Redford, MI 48239 • www.mocsem.com Page 4 The Accelerator – Mustang Memories 2010 Special Edition MOCSEM Member Class Awards MC10, 94-04, Occasionally Driven (Dress-Up Modification) Bill Flynn - 2001 Bullitt Mustang MC1, 64-73, Restored to Original Specification Mark Harper - 2004 Mustang GT Convertible J & R Addy - 1964½ Mustang Convertible Jim Staup - 2004 Mustang GT Convertible Dave Rebb - 1967 Mustang GTA Fastback Larry & Mary Ligenza - 1969 Mustang MC11, 94-04, Modified (Performance Engine and/or Body Mark Storm - 1970 Boss 302 Mustang Changes) Joe & Lilly Errante - 1965 Mustang Alan Space - 1995 Mustang GT Gary Rule - 2004 Mustang GT MC2, 64-73, Occasionally Driven (Dress-Up Modification) Chuck Berry - 2003 Mach 1 Mustang George Magro - 1964 ½ Mustang Convertible Daniel Kuczera - 1967 Mustang MC12, 05-Pres, Restored/Original J & R Bradley - 1969 Mustang Ray Mitchell - 2008 Mustang GT Joe Farrone - 2007 Mustang Convertible MC3, 64-73, Modified (Performance Engine and/or Body Jerry Grezsik - 2009 California Special Mustang Convertible Changes) Rick Calvey - 2010 Mustang GT Kent & Melissa Palmquist - 1965 Mustang Bert Kovacs - 1966 Mustang MC13, 05-Pres, Occasionally Driven (Dress-Up Modification) Chuck Wheeler - 1967 Mustang Rich Kocan - 2006 Mustang GT John Schultz - 2006 Mustang GT MC4, 64-73, MACH I/Boss/Shelby (Ford Manufactured) Mark & Phyllis Berk - 2005 Mustang GT Convertible Adorno Piccinini - 1970 Boss Mustang Theresa Constantini - 2007 Mustang G.