I like cars because of tradition. I enjoy participating in the history of a vehicle. You never truly own a car, you’re just a custodian adding your own polish to the steering wheel every time you take a turn. I turned the third CRX I owned into a race car and during the build it was named “Bubba”. That name lives on today, even though it’s three owners past me, along with many of the other small things that I added during my ownership. I hope to own the car again some day but even if I don’t I hope he’s always known as “Bubba”.
There’s another aspect to tradition though: the kind that get formed around cars, in parallel with them. It’s these traditions that fed my enthusiasm. When my father and I first heard about the Amelia Island Concours, we knew we had to go. We made it to the third event and have been every year since then. Regardless of what else happens in the year, we’ll always have one weekend where we can completely immerse ourselves in the enthusiasm that we’ve shared for almost thirty years. We get up before sunrise and stand outside in the brisk morning air to watch racers with crackling V-12s file in alongside luxurious straight eights and sixes. As all of the cars we’re excited about, and some that we didn’t even know we were excited about, roll by I have the same thought that I do every year. “We are here again. I love the sounds. I love the smells. I love being here. We are here again.”
I can’t imagine not standing there with my father every single year. It’s a tradition that’s become a part of us and a part of our family. We’ve had many other traditions – waking up on Sundays to watch Formula One, spectating at every event Road Atlanta we could attend, going to the Canadian Grand Prix for a while – but Amelia Island sticks for us. Every year feeds our enthusiasm and ensures that we’ll be back next time.
So here’s the question: what are your car traditions? What feeds your enthusiasm year after year? What traditions would be worth starting that you haven’t prioritized before? Think it over. Invite someone else into your world. Start something new. If you’d like to share, I’d love to hear it.
[Source: Bill Bounds; photo: Dirk de Jager]
Fantastic short piece Bill, much like your first one.
Sunday morning at Amelia is one of my favorite mornings of the year, and it was my father who first woke me up at godknowswhattime promising that it would be worth sacrificing sleep for rolling sheet metal. He was right, listening to the birds startled awake by the thunderous growl of V12s while slugging coffee in the first light of day is as good as it gets.
Much like you, I see the physical access to these cars and the interest in them slipping away (and not very slowly), to air conditioned garages, barely seeing the light of day, replaced by internet searches and image galleries. There are few things slowing this inevitable turning of the tide, mainly car shows and historic races. Owners, enthusiasts and (more importantly) their offspring, can wander freely (for a price), sharing stories, asking questions, ogling engines and experiencing a little bit of the history. For me, a car show is not a static event, it is, much like the rest of life, what you make of it. Get up early, watch/listen to the cars wheel in, drink in the abundance of OCD and preparation, and my favorite, watching/listening to owners talk to owners about the minutiae. Stay after, that traffic jam on the 18th fairway Sunday afternoon at Amelia is a thing of dreams. I always find myself running from fairway to fairway chasing engine noises and their false echoes.
We forget sometimes that cars are just machines and without the men and women who care for them, breathe life into them and run them through their paces, they would just be still life. For some, lugging a camera to a car show means waiting until everyone is out of the shot and it’s just you and the car. That’s still life. Maybe I’m different, I wait for people to get in the shot, that’s when the car first comes to life, that’s a moving picture.
For the past two years I have been tasked with producing the official video for the Amelia Island Concours, and I can’t even put into words how much I look forward to making a third in March. Those weekends are sacred, you used the term ‘immerse’, which is how I approach my filmmaking and documenting. Immerse yourself, experience everything there is to experience, create some of your own opportunities, always carry a camera, emerge on the otherside and try to convey the experience and emotion using the sights and the sounds stored on those memory cards. Regretfully, my father is no longer able to make the trek to Florida and my task has become more difficult, it is no longer only about sharing the weekend with the world via video, it is about showing my dad that the tradition is not only alive, but thriving.
Bill, I look forward to the golf cart with the giant urn of coffee and empty box of doughnuts being passed by a 70s era McLaren F1 car at dawn while we ‘cheers’ another perfect moment and a continuation of, an admittedly, untraditional tradition.
‘Born of a Blue Sky’ recounts last year’s 18th annual Amelia and you’ll see why they won International Historic Motoring Awards ‘Event of the Year’. https://vimeo.com/63531878
Justin Lapriore///LetsMakeMedia
Justin, it sounds as though we are of like mind! I actually went to school for film and video and can’t seem to help bringing a camera of some kind to the event every year with grand hopes of properly recording the experience. My father and I passed your video around eagerly last year. Excellent work! I think there are several shots you’ve got where I have to have been within 20 feet of you.
The early morning ritual is the highlight of the weekend for me. I still remember clearly when the Mormon Meteor showed up for the first time, before it was restored. Dad and I hadn’t quite made it to the field entrance, and suddenly there was a huge booming noise from the garage. Then the Duesenberg roared out into the open, almost refusing to idle, and hastily made its way through the auxiliary road and vanished. It’s hard to think of somewhere else I could have that experience.
I’d love to talk with you more about what got you to this point of enthusiasm. Feel free to shoot me an email at [email protected].
My father took me to my first sports car race, at Mid-Ohio, when I was 5 months old. My mother worked every other Sunday, and if dad wanted to go to the race he had to take me. We have been to more races together than I could count, from The 24hrs of Nelson’s Ledges to The 24hrs of Le Mans. We went to the last runoffs at Road Atlanta and all of them at Mid-Ohio.
The big three have to be doing Sebring when I was in college, Le Mans in 2005 (the 50th anniversary of the awful 1955 accident) and the 2012 24hrs of Daytona ( the 50th anniversary of sports cars at Daytona). My brother joined us for Daytona. Now I need to get him to Le Mans & Sebring. My brother and I have been to the June Sprints at Road America. Dad has never been to Road America. I guess we need to get him to that track.