Lake
Geneva Classic Car Rally
By Ken Bounds
Late September brought the annual tour to Lake
Geneva for the 29th annual Classic Car Rally. Through last year this event has raised over
$607,000 for childhood cancer research.
With a $200 donation from the club and contributions from members on the
tour, NIRG contributed over $600 to the cause this year.
Although our attendance was down a bit this year because of
the threatening weather, those who made the trip had a great time. Fortunately, as we traveled the back roads to
Wisconsin we left the bad weather
behind us and had terrific weather for the drive. Leaving Arlington Heights were Joe & Nell
Kozmic in their ’37 Ford Coupe, Joey Novak in his ’40
Ford Pickup, Ken & Carolyn Bounds in their ’50 Ford Convertible, Dan &
Diane Pudelek in their ’53 Ford Victoria, and Marty & Leah Duling, Ron & Arlene Blum, Stan Gaynor and Art Russell
in modern cars. We toured up a series
of back roads (there may be a quiz on all the t
urns) to lunch in Delavan. There we were joined by Tom & Judy Buscaglia
in their ’51 Ford Tudor and Doug & Gail Leicht. Doug did not bring a Flathead to lunch, but
did bring his original ’37 Ford Tudor
to the show on Sunday.
After
checking into the hotel in Delavan, we had a lazy afternoon with a few people
going antiquing. In the evening we
caravanned over to Lake Como
to Earl & Gene Heintz’s cottage. George and Betty Cech
also drove up to join us. Just as we
arrived at the cottage, we had a few raindrops.
Then we heard that the Chicago
area was being hit by severe thunderstorms with even some reports of
tornadoes. We sure were glad it missed
us. Once again, the foo
d and hospitality
provided by Earl and Gene were fantastic – more than should be expected. Thanks to both of you for all the hard
work. I think we will also be getting
some recipes out of this for the Road Chatter!
After several hours of hanging out & having a good time, we headed
back to Delavan.
The weather Saturday was not bad, although we occasionally
had light rain. We began our poker run
at Mars Resort, enjoying lunch and playing the first card. From there we made a stop at Foley’s on the
way in to Lake Geneva.
There we parked the cars to play a card at Popeye’s, to enjoy some
shopping, and for beverages at Harry’s.
Since everyone agreed that we had already had plenty to eat this weekend,
we cancelled Saturday night dinner plans, commandeered the breakfast area at
the hotel, and enjoyed a meal from KFC.
Sunday
morning we checked out of the hotel and drove to our traditional breakfast at
Millie’s. Stan and Joanne Stack drove up
and joined us. The weather had turned
unexpectedly nice and the top even came down on the convertible. After some shopping at Millie’s, we continued
our poker run through Fontana,
stopping at Chuck’s Tavern, where we ran into Frank Koder. We proceeded to Celebrations in Lake
Geneva for our final card then on to the Interlaken
for the big car show and awards presentation.
None of us had hands good enough to win a poker prize, but a few did win
door prizes. There were several hundred
nice cars for the show, but not quite the 1,000+ from some prior years. As the event came to an end we all headed
home. All the V-8’s made the trip with
no problems.
George
and Jan Kreissl have done a tremendous job with this
event for 29 years in memory of their daughter, Corrine. Their ’39 Ford Tudor that “Rinny” loved to ride in is a fixture at the rally. If I’m not mistaken, Marty and Leah Duling have participated in the rally 26 years. This is really a nice event, for a great
cause, and we hope to see more members and more V-8’s participate next
year. We already have our block of rooms
reserved for September 28-30, 2007,
so please join us!
