Poway Cruisers at the 2018 Big Bear Lake Fun Run
What a fantastic weekend in the mountains above Riverside and San Bernardino. Cool Mountain air, good roads, and cool hot rods and classics, and good friends. Altogether, the Poway Cruisers has 7 cars at the show: Ed & Carol Asbury’s ’67 Pontiac GTO, Earl Asbury and Bessie’s ’65 Cadillac Convertible, Fred & Patty Adler’s ’68 Porsche 912 Targa Soft Top, George & Joyce Cowman’s ’37 Buick Coupe, Sam & Brenda Grinceri’s ’32 Ford Roadster, Jan & Gary Haugley’s Stretched VW Thing, and Ron & Kathy Shedd’s ’68 Camaro RS SS. Chuck & Jenny Bush also made the show in their daily driver.
It all started Friday morning, August 10th, with the drive up CA-38. The Asbury’s made the drive up early, with the Cowman’s and Adler’s coming up a little later along with Mark Pilch and 7 cars from the Classic Chevy Car Club. We picked up Sam & Brenda along the way. After checking in to registration and getting our parking assignment it was time to clean up. About half way up the hill we were rained on pretty good, so a complete wash was in order. We finished the day with an enjoyable evening of great food and drink at the Shedd’s place.
Saturday dawned clear and we all got into our assigned places by 8:00a, set up camp, and the first cleanup and detailing of the day began. While the cars drew all the attention, we cruised the show to eyeball around 450 really interesting and great looking vehicles and voting for our favorite car. Several small showers drifted over Big Bear Lake during the day giving us opportunities to re-detail our cars. Fun.
At 2:30 PM the awards were posted and we found that Earl’s Cadillac, Ron & Kathy’s Camaro, and George & Joyce’s Buick were tagged for awards meaning no early departure Sunday morning.
Precisely at 3:45 in the afternoon, the cruise around the Lake began. Our group elected to sit the cruiser out this year, mainly due to the threat of rain that persisted.
Sunday morning the cars receiving awards were staged by 9:00a and the awards ceremony began. Earl’s Cadillac took the “Diva” award, Ron & Kathy’s Camaro took the “Best Camaro” award, and the Cowman’s Buick was selected 1 of the Top 20 cars. The ceremony took about 90 minutes, then we hit the road for home. Rain was threatening, but held off long enough for us to get off the mountain.
Traffic through the I-10 / CA-60 / I-215 gantlet was busy but clear. The drive home was pretty uneventful until the Asbury’s GTO shredded the distributor drive gear. Fortunately it happen while they were in an uncongested place on I-15 and they were able to get out of the road safely. Thanks AAA for getting them home safe and quickly.
All things considered, a really fun weekend. Once again, the Poway Cruisers brought the fun and some.
Reported by:
George Cowman
President and Event Coordinator
Poway Cruisers Car Club
