From what I could see, the Motor City Marauders 1st Annual Woodward Dream Cruise Meet exceeded my wildest expectations, not by a little, but by a seeming longshot! I can easily say this rivialed the National meets in intensity and enthusiasm. Our club added more members, most of which were local michigan folks that were cruising Woodward, saw our huge display of Marauders, all parked 3 feet off Woodward! The look on their face was priceless! Most stopped in on the return trip and visited and even joined us in our display, joined the club, and enjoyed our usual "Marauder" hospitality. I need to double check, but the best count was at least(if not more) 25 or 26 Marauders! We had every color represented, from bone stock to show stopping built, like Lidio, Mike, and mine. Kirk and Larry also brought up their 1963 Marauders as well. Kirk also recieved a certificate from Ford Motor Company, presented by Steve Babcock, for being the first retail customer for the first Marauder sold in the country!
The site itself was second to none, I think Mike will agree with me, this was the biggest undertaking either of us have taken on, ever. Planning and adding additional and better parking space was just finished last week. The site was easily the best we could have hoped for when it came to displaying as many Marauders as we had and make a huge visual impact to both the crowds on the sidewalk and those cruising, we were right in the middle of the sidewalk and the roadway, it was beautiful!
We attracted local Media, both television and the local radio stations interviewed us. Imagine this folks, I heard that the cruise attracts 30,000 + cars, and this year the police said there were more than that. In that number of cars along a 10 mile stretch, we had the largest display of the same car of anywhere along that 10 miles of the Woodward Cruise.
This was brought to us by the local Media folks, hows that for how your group is described at the World's Largest Car Show...To top it off, if that is possible, Steve and Carol Babcock were our guests for the day. It was truely an honor to spend time with Steve and have him shoot the breeze with a very happy bunch of Marauder owners! Folks were having fun finding new and improved things for Steve to sign!
In closing I have to thank so many folks for stepping up and helping Mike and I out. I can honestly say that I have never worked as hard at something like this before, ever. 5 hours of sleep the last couple of nights, solving problems, directing traffic, listening to suggestions, etc etc! Mike and I figured we got to sit down a total of maybe 1 hour the last two days at the cruise! BUT, without Mikes wife Angie, Jerry Barnes, Darryl, Mike A., Paul, Robert, Paul E., and every other person that helped out, this event would not have been the HUGE success that it turned out to be. I owe you guys a huge THANKS, you made this thing what it was.
To the other members out there that missed this one, its gonna happen again next year. We have already negotiated another location, even better than this one, for next year. There is no reason we cant make this the huge event it deserves to be. Ask the guys that came from out of town, and had never seen a Dream Cruise before, see what they say! Mostly that they had never dreamed of something like this in their wildest immagination! Keep it in mind folks, biggest car event in the world, and you can have a front row seat, really, front row...a foot off Woodward! Plenty of time to think about it.
Now, having said that, I will let those that participated in the Cruise speak up and tell you what they thought!
PS...I may have to edit this tomorrow cause I am really, really, really tired!