43rd
Annual Spring Fling
By Ken Bounds
The Spring Fling has been an Early Ford V-8 Club Memorial Day tradition in the
Central U.S. since 1974. The Fling
is hosted by a rotating group of Regional Groups (currently six); this year’s
host group was the Cornhusker Group in Lincoln, Nebraska.
Naturally, everyone wanted to go since Lincoln is the home of Speedway
Motors’ Museum of American Speed.
On a beautiful May 26 morning, 10 participants from the NIRG met at the DeKalb
Oasis on I-88 to begin the 500-mile trip to Lincoln.
Driving Early Ford V-8 vehicles were Ken Bounds – 1951 Mercury Sport
Coupe, Joey Novak – 1953 Mercury Monterey, Dan Pudelek – 1950 Ford Crestliner,
and Ron Steck – 1940 Ford Pickup.
In modern iron were Roger Obecny and his friend Mason Maynard, John & Este
Scheve, and John Slobodnik and son John.
Although he has been in the club for nearly 40 years, Roger said that
this was his first long-distance tour.
This was also a special trip as it was the first long-distance drive for Dan’s
“new” Crestliner. Everything went
along smoothly as we crossed Illinois and Iowa with a lunch stop in Newton,
Iowa. That is until we made our
final gas stop less than 100 miles from our destination.
At the gas pumps at a truck stop we noticed coolant running from the
Crestliner. After we determined
that a water pump was leaking too badly to continue, we sent the modern vehicles
ahead as we made plans to make repairs.
Fortunately, Joey had spares with him.
With a little teamwork we were able to replace the faulty pump and were
on our way in about three hours.
When we arrived at the host hotel, the welcome dinner was in full swing.
We are grateful that our early arrivals tipped off the host group that we
were running late and they saved us plenty of food.
We did not go hungry. Or
thirsty.
We had a great time that evening renewing old friendships with the 104 folks in
attendance. We did a little tire
kicking as we made plans to do some additional troubleshooting on Dan’s car
which was still losing coolant.
Saturday morning was the highlight of the trip with the visit to the Museum of
American Speed. This museum is one
of the best in the country and probably has the largest collection of Flathead
V-8s and Flathead speed equipment anywhere.
The vast collection fills 150,000 square feet on three levels.
There are dozens of vehicles, race cars, and engines in addition to a
huge toy collection, pedal cars, and much more.
We took advantage of the knowledge of the docents, several of whom are
members of the Cornhusker group.
For lunch we were treated to pizza and a presentation.
After lunch, many participants went on to visit a nice private collection while
a few of us went back to the hotel to replace the thermostats in Dan’s
Crestliner. Problem solved!
We spent the rest of the afternoon kicking tires and soliciting signups
for the 2018 Grand National Meet before walking to a nearby steakhouse for
dinner. Then back to the chairs in
the parking lot where we solved several problems facing the world.
Sunday morning brought the traditional car games and people games.
This year we brought one car game – blind tollbooth.
Everyone took turns hosting our game while others tried their luck at the
wide array of games presented by the participating Regional Groups.
People had a fun time at our game.
It was won by first-time Fling attendees Clyde & Gail Bangiola as Clyde
dunked the toll right into the basket on his second try.
After the games wrapped up, most of us visited the very popular historic
district in downtown Lincoln. We
dined at a terrific brew pub and thoroughly enjoyed the house-made beers.
On Sunday evening it was time for the awards banquet as we began to wind down
our time in Lincoln. After a
delicious buffet dinner, we learned that the 2018 Spring Fling will be hosted by
the Tulsa group (probably in Claremore, Oklahoma).
As the awards were passed out, we presented 1st Place in Blind Tollbooth
to Clyde Bangiola and 2nd
Place to Randy Plant of Oklahoma City.
Yours truly took first place in a driving game and a sparkplug changing
game, while John Slobodnik took first place in ring toss and Flickin’ Chicken.
Notably, he set an all-time scoring record in the chicken game.
As the banquet came to an end, it was time to say our goodbyes and look
forward to Oklahoma next May.
Bright and early Memorial Day morning we began our drive home.
We stopped at Steak ‘n Shake in Iowa City and were safely home by late
afternoon. The cars ran great on
the return trip. We were also
grateful that the gas prices were about $2 per gallon lower that they were on
our last Spring Fling trip to Lincoln in 2011.
Thanks to all the NIRG people who attended and special thanks to the
Cornhusker Group for hosting a wonderful event.