Event Coverage Announcing The Gear Jam Drags, show and swap! May 11, 2013

You ever go to an event and think "Man, I'd LOVE to put on one of these! But if I did, I'd do this, this and that differently"?
Well, after covering some of the greatest events East of the Mississippi for 15 years as a magazine hack, I've decided "Man, I'd LOVE to do one! And I'm gonna do this, this and that differently!"

Announcing The Gear Jam vintage drags, traditional hot-rod and custom show, and swap meet! Rescheduled for September 28 at the Atlanta Dragway in Commerce, Georgia.

We’re shooting for traditional-looking race cars—not bracket Camaros with throttle stops and launch control.
Heads-up racing in five different classes for ’66 and older: Gasser, Front Engine Dragster, Altered/Comp Coupe, Nostalgia Super Stock, Hot Rod, and a Muscle Car class for cars ’74 and older.

My purpose is to give guys a vintage race, with cars running in-class with evenly matched competition, from qualifying to the final rounds of Top Eliminator.

Qualifying will be by class in the morning, and in the afternoon/evening the Quick 8 will run for purse money, everyone else in class will run a best 2/3 shootout with the car closest to your ET. This way, the heavy-hitters can run for the money, and the rest of us slow pokes can still run heads-up through Eliminations Rounds with someone we’re close to. Because the point of having a vintage race car is to make passes and have fun, right? Getting put on the trailer after qualifying, getting your doors blown off every round, and handicap/bracket starts off the line all suck!

At the end of the race, the six top qualifiers from each class, and the two fastest qualifiers who didn’t make the cut, will battle in a Round-Robin Quick-8 elimination for Top Eliminator of the event.

The car show portion is open to 1965 and older traditional hot rods, customs, trucks and bikes.
Store-bought trophies suck, as do judged shows. I’d much rather see some clubs build trophies and give them out to their favorite rides… To me, those mean a lot more than some gold plastic thing or judging by points or even worse, popular ballot-box-stuffing.
If any car clubs would like to build a trophy for your favorite vehicle, pick one of these categories and let me know.
Flat-out Bitchin! -- The Sock F'ers cc
Best Paint-- The TW's cc
Best Survivor -- The Cross Memembers cc
Best Tradtional-- The Iron Lords cc
Trick Truck-- W&H Restoration and Performance
Best Use of Louvers- Bright Star Hot Rods

Quality Breakage (Breakage coming to or at the event, including race cars)
Best Engine
Best Race Car
Best Wheelie
Best Custom
Best Interior
Just Kicks Ass!


We will be running the North East Georgia Swap Meet in conjunction with The Gear Jam--we've been getting 200+ vendors and over 1,000 spectators for the swap meet…We expect to have 175-200 vendors for The Gear Jam. Also, note these are actual vendors, not vendor spaces… Our spaces for The Gear Jam are $25, for all the space you want. Most swap meets have limited space sizes, and many vendors buy multiple spaces for their stuff, and the shows advertise their size by vendor spaces sold. A lot of our guys would take up 2-5 spaces at other shows.

Hot Rod Deluxe magazine is sponsoring the burn-out contest, winner gets a set of tires.
We’re looking for sponsors for the race classes—if you’d like to be involved, drop me a note at: brad56@windstream.net

We’re also trying to keep this a family-friendly event, by making the prices something a family can afford. As a father and husband, there's nothing I disliked more than having to pay to enter my car, pay for a Spectator entry for my wife, and pay again for my son. Times are tight, but even if they weren't, why should it cost a family $100 just to be part of a car show?! There isn't enough family-oriented stuff these days, so I'm gonna do my part:

Race entry:
$50 per car; covers Driver, Pit Kitty and your little grease monkeys.
Show car entry:
$35 for your show car, your chick and your little grease monkeys.
$10 entry for anyone else. (So your adult brother riding shotgun in the show car, or crew members for your race car, will have to pay $10)
Spectator Entry:
$10
Swap Meet Vendor spaces (including one helper)
$25

We’ve got a few other things in the works for the event, so check out our website, or shoot me your email address and I’ll put you on our update list.
For more inforation, shoot me a note at: brad56@windstream.net, and check out our website at www.gearjamdrags.com

The Gear Jam--Take Your Hot Rod Out and Beat It!

 

Sounds like a jam up event! Can't wait to do some drag racing.

 

Sounds like fun. I'm too far to attend-----You forgot "Best Appearing Crew". Would be neat if teams got some cool white coveralls or whatever just like they did in the 50's and 60's. Just an idea for you. No charge.

 

This gives me a good reason to get some real slicks.

 

Sounds AWESOME Brad!

 

Sounds like a helluva good idea!

 

Cool, I love the near by events.

 

That's the beauty of this one... we're only 3-4 hours from Charlotte, Chattanooga, Knoxville and Birmingham... EVERYWHERE is "near by" for this event.
Heck, it's a 12-hour drive from every major metropolitan city east of the Mississippi, except Minneapolis.

-Brad

 

Sounds like a good time to me.

 

I'm marking my calendar!!!

 

Looks like you got a GA. following already. Bring it on!!

 

Im in from Florida.

 

A little out of my realm but good luck to you.

Blue

 

How early or late for swap vendor?? I think I will by pass local shows and save my swap things and come to your show. thank You

 

We will probably open the vendor gate at 7am, but we MIGHT open it by 6am... I haven't nailed that down yet.
But there is no "too late" time for a vendor set-up... we'll let vendors come in to set up all day long if they want. Too much rigidity makes things unfun. We'll go out of our way to work with people to make sure everyone has a good time, and more importantly, thinks it was worth their effort.

-Brad

 

Also, someone sent me an email, so I need to clarify this:
ANY TRANSMISSION FOR THE DRAG CLASSES!

 

I doubt I can make it, but this should be bounced back up anyway. Sounds like a good time for sure. Good on ya Brad.

 

Count the Iron Lords in!! We'll have a nice caravan from Charlotte. Anytime we can spend time with the Sock Fuckers is an Awesome time!

Looking forward to it Brad.



BloodyKnuckles

 

Finally some competition!

 

Did Craig actually say he was coming?

 

bttt

 

I'll e-mail ya a pic of the FED we build last year...Injected Arias for power....looks like we would have to take the wings off?? Just want to make sure this "style" of FED is "allowed"??!! FYI - we are starting an "old-style" chutepack bodied digger that I KNOW will follow your "guidelines"! But we would like to come play with this one too!

 

Tim,
I got your email yesterday with the pic of your rail. As you said, the nose cone/wing ahead of the front wheels and the small wings ahead of each slick are deal-breakers. I know they make the car quicker, but they also put the car into the "modern" era of FEDs.
If you're willing to remove the wings (and it sounds like you are), I'd LOVE to have you at the show! That huge injected Arias engine is awesome, and I'd be honored to have it thundering down the track at my event!

-Brad

 

best of luck, brad

 

Brad do you know how much Tech we need to pass on our digger to get on the track?

 

I'm ready to sponsor a "Back Up Girls" contest. It will tie in great to my FaceBook page "Drag Racing Back-Up-Girls" that has over 12,000 folks from around the world.
Not a beauty contest, but the best BUG who performs on the track.

 

Calendar marked. Sounds like a good time!

 

Holy crap, I hadn't thought of that!!!
We need to talk!!

-Brad

 

Wellllll... my rules are that it has to pass NHRA tech, because it's an NHRA venue.

I don't know exactly what that entails...
If you have any specific questions about the car, bring it up to the track before the event and see what they say, which should give you enough time to get it squared away before The Gear Jam.


-Brad

 

I "LIKE" the sound of THAT!