Gratitude - that is what I have today....I am grateful that the good Lord above brought us all together to celebrate. (Can I get an Amen!) I am grateful that so many people selflessly gave their time and money to come to the show - spectators and especially volunteers.I am grateful to all the car clubs who recognize that this is a unique event-and if they do not support it - it will go away. I am grateful to all the vendors that came from New York to California, as well as those that chose to set up in the swap meet area. I am grateful for the artists that contributed pieces to the art show - without this we would have lost money at the show. I am grateful that the local community opened their arms and welcomed us without judgement or fear. I am grateful to my wife for working so hard with me to make this dream a reality. I am grateful to my children for understanding that I can not always be there for the special dates because I am on the road promoting Vintage Torque Fest. For all the people that came out - thank you - we truly appreciate it.
The list of individuals that went way above and beyond the call of duty is far too long to list and I hope to be able to thank all of you in person when I am in your town throughout the year. But we can not let this event go by without recognizing the car club that gave us the money to start the entire show - Los Punk Rods from Kansas City. They continue to support the show and they are like lost brothers to me and I can't thank them enough. The Coronados car club from Maquoketa were amazing. The entire club were behind the scenes for months leading up to the event getting legwork done that I simply did not have time for. Rich Current and Dave Stockham both have really gone beyond "helping", and it should be noted that only a few of the guys in the car club could even get their cars into the show since this was a pre - '65 only car show. The members did not care - they knew that this would be a great thing for Maquoketa and they set THAT as the priority. The Oliver Group was in charge of all the volunteers and had everyone actually reported to their shift I am confident that the show would have run much smoother. Lefty aka Bruce Oliver did not stop all day - and his wife Darlene seemed to be everywhere helping out as well. Rocky & Dane came to the rescue countless times as well - either getting things on the track or working the front gate, it seemed they were there from the very beginning until the doors were locked. Again - there are so many people to thank....but I would wind up writing a 5 page document if that were to happen. So overall - thanks to all that helped contribute to the show.
In this world that is infatuated with numbers, winners/losers, the question that keeps on coming up is "how many cars were there?" and "How many people were there?" We simply dont know. We can take a really good guess though. There were 545 car registrations given out, but there was a bit of a communication problem with some of the volunteers when they were checking in cars. During the main part of the day on Friday we did not hand out car placards to those that were entering. This lasted about 3-4 hours. I had people coming up to me on Saturday asking for the car placards and I would tell them -"You got those when you drove in." They said they did not- so we suspect about 40-50 cars got in without getting the car placards. And we also need to take into consideration that not all the pre registered vehicles showed up. The forecast of rain on Saturday made some stay home. So with the pre registered vehicles that did not make the trip and the cars that did not recieve their car placards I would say we had about 575 vehicles. I have checked this number with others that go to shows all around the country as well and they feel that is an accurate number - some said 600 for sure....others said 550 - but all said over 500. Overall the event turned out amazing and we hope to be able to come back to Maquoketa.
As it stands right now, there are negotiations between the Jackson County Fairgrounds, Bob Wagner (leases the track in Maquoketa), and Torque Fest to try to make this happen again at the same location.
Thank you for supporting the show and we hope we can make it happen again in 2012.
John Wells
The list of individuals that went way above and beyond the call of duty is far too long to list and I hope to be able to thank all of you in person when I am in your town throughout the year. But we can not let this event go by without recognizing the car club that gave us the money to start the entire show - Los Punk Rods from Kansas City. They continue to support the show and they are like lost brothers to me and I can't thank them enough. The Coronados car club from Maquoketa were amazing. The entire club were behind the scenes for months leading up to the event getting legwork done that I simply did not have time for. Rich Current and Dave Stockham both have really gone beyond "helping", and it should be noted that only a few of the guys in the car club could even get their cars into the show since this was a pre - '65 only car show. The members did not care - they knew that this would be a great thing for Maquoketa and they set THAT as the priority. The Oliver Group was in charge of all the volunteers and had everyone actually reported to their shift I am confident that the show would have run much smoother. Lefty aka Bruce Oliver did not stop all day - and his wife Darlene seemed to be everywhere helping out as well. Rocky & Dane came to the rescue countless times as well - either getting things on the track or working the front gate, it seemed they were there from the very beginning until the doors were locked. Again - there are so many people to thank....but I would wind up writing a 5 page document if that were to happen. So overall - thanks to all that helped contribute to the show.
In this world that is infatuated with numbers, winners/losers, the question that keeps on coming up is "how many cars were there?" and "How many people were there?" We simply dont know. We can take a really good guess though. There were 545 car registrations given out, but there was a bit of a communication problem with some of the volunteers when they were checking in cars. During the main part of the day on Friday we did not hand out car placards to those that were entering. This lasted about 3-4 hours. I had people coming up to me on Saturday asking for the car placards and I would tell them -"You got those when you drove in." They said they did not- so we suspect about 40-50 cars got in without getting the car placards. And we also need to take into consideration that not all the pre registered vehicles showed up. The forecast of rain on Saturday made some stay home. So with the pre registered vehicles that did not make the trip and the cars that did not recieve their car placards I would say we had about 575 vehicles. I have checked this number with others that go to shows all around the country as well and they feel that is an accurate number - some said 600 for sure....others said 550 - but all said over 500. Overall the event turned out amazing and we hope to be able to come back to Maquoketa.
As it stands right now, there are negotiations between the Jackson County Fairgrounds, Bob Wagner (leases the track in Maquoketa), and Torque Fest to try to make this happen again at the same location.
Thank you for supporting the show and we hope we can make it happen again in 2012.
John Wells
John you are your crew ROCK!!! Definetly one of the best shows out there :)
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