With the temperature getting up to 60 degrees today the 10th Annual Blanket Run was a huge success. People started to gather at Godspeed at around 7:30 am and the group continued to grow until we left for the first stop at around 9 am. I have lots of photos of the cars that were there but I will start off with the basics of the event itself (and it is indeed an event now). T shirt and hoodie sales were brisk and the guys were flat out for a long time. There were lots of HAMB'ers there including paintcan54 who rolled up in his vintage T bucket as usual, rugged up in the cool of the early morning. Jim (Harrison here on the HAMB) was in town from Knoxville, TN on business and ditched the job for the day to join the fun. That jolly old guy in red was also on hand Tom fills the masses in on the schedule for the day. Then I borrowed the ladder in an attempt to get a shot of all the participants but they spilled over the edge of the lens. Before we roll on here is a shot of the trophies-hand made as usual and typically awesome The whole point of the exercise is to provide blankets for those in need and this year they filled the back and also the front seat of this truck as well as all of Tom's four door pickup to the point where there was nowhere for him to sit. The rest went into a van project that Tom had on hand. The first stop was the Indianapolis Motor Speedway museum where all on the Blanket Run were granted free admission to the museum and the bus tour of the track itself thanks to some serious lobbying by Tom's GF. Those of us who live in the Indy area get used to having this place in our back yard but for the out of towners (and there were lots of them) it was a bit of an eye opener with so many of the winning cars on display. We then headed out to Red and Bonnie Bledsoe's place in Danville (about 20 miles west of the track) for lunch. There was a bit of the speedway on display there as well as one of Red's numerous buildings has some of the original Gasoline Alley doors installed in it After lunch we headed back into downtown Indy and the Stutz building, former home of the automobile manufacturer and now home to Turner Woodard's car collection as well as a collection of art oriented businesses. This is one of the best known cars to come out of the building, the legendary Stutz Bearcat. The last stop was at Jerry Baker's shop where some of the greatest metalwork on the planet is performed. Jerry gave a demonstration of shaping using his Yoder power hammer and the visitors drooled over a Watson Indy roadster project as well as a Kurtis midget. The shop itself is pretty cool too. To give you an idea of how big the event has become the staff at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway reported that they handed out 397 passes to participants. Roo
More: And finally, the people behind the run-Thom and his GF. There were plenty of others who contributed in various ways but this event is Tom's baby and has been doing good things for those less fortunate than most of us for 10 years now.
Nothing artsy-fartsy- I just try to get simple shots of the cars for those who were not there. Shot with a Canon XTi with an 18-135 IS lens and all available light so I don't have to have a big flash hanging off the camera. Roo
I messed up, pulled the heads and radiator last weekend. Looks like a perfect day, sorry I missed it. Great job Tom!
Thanks Roo for the pics, and congrats to Thom and everybody who helped. What a great thing he does for the people of Indianapolis. I enjoyed the run again, he'll have his work cut out for him next year, to top this year.
Awesome looking event and great pics. Thanks for posting Rooman and congratulations to Thom for the great turn out. .
Huge thanks to Tom and all the locals for letting me crash the party! It was good to meet Tom, Rooman, and Kelby (4gotn1) here on the HAMB. It was a great event and every stop was awesome! I can't imagine the work involved. The 6 hour bansai run from Indy to Knoxville went without incident. My "Cam Man" long distance award is proudly displayed on the fireplace. Thanks so much! Jim Sent from my DROID device using the TJJ mobile app
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