The Prez. Speaks!

This is the first in a every once in a while article thing I think I'm gonna write. I'm sure most of the time it will contain some things about projects that are in the works, Writing about something that we encountered at a show, or just a rant or something. It's mostly inspired by the "boulevard crawl" written by Dale Van Zant a member of a california Road Devils chapter. So on with it for the first installment I thought I would give some background on me and why i helped build the Detroit chapter.

So, While i grew up a Punk rock Skater kid in a primarily black urban neighborhood, It was the 70's and 80's and while many others in this "scene" were inspired by Ed Roth, and Rock-a-billy music from the 50's I'm not old enough to pull off that story so i'll come clean I grew up on the tail end of the golden era of drag racing when race cars were works of art and beautiful, And when ther was real art on the bottom of skateboards, Black flag, the misfits, ALD, so for me all of that went hand and hand we listend to punk when we skated and art was our expression. With that said when it came to cars....in an all uniform wearing catholic school i was the kid getting busted reading CARtoons magazine in class drawing sleds in art class. And while It's plain to see in the "scene" all the influence of Roth and his monster like cars and the 50's stigma from car show to car show and new club to new club, when i look at my car, my club, my lifestyle I don't see it. While i dig the 50's music and wear grease in my hair and am a part of it all, There is a handfull of influences that i should come out of the "non cool" closet with. First up ZZ Top while the youngsters listen to the rockabilly flavor of the month cruising around, my minds eye view of "cool" can be sumed up in one song ZZ Tops "i'm bad, i'm nationwide" . when your done reading this go listen to it close your eyes and tell me thats not badd ass. And thats punk when that came out mustangs and mullets were the style not bimmed hads gold teeth and sleds. Second while Roth was doing the monter motored cars out of roadsters and rods, Back before airbags and minitrucks George Trasley inked the pages of CARtoons mag with images that made me drool long sleds round and so low you couldn't see under let alone drive, inside was not rat monster finkerstien just a pair of eyes and a shiteating grin, and no somking tires and monster blower, instead giant writing on page "WHAAKA WHAAKA!" and squiggly lines simulating the cars heart punding so hard the ground could crack open any second. Usually under a streetlight or in a dark alleyway, put that with the zz top song and there was the birth of my dream car. Then the movie i must have watched 200 times as a kid in the late 70's .... "Corvette Summer" was it for Annie Potts, and Vetts? Nope It was for thhe mexican in the riviera on supremes draggin his bumper down the street after picking up mark hamill who asked "is this a carnival ride or something" to which he awsered "no holmes this..is style something you don't know about". Surprising isn't it some of the things that inspire you. These are 3 of the five things that made me build the car that i have recently been driving. It would seem that many others in my chapter have similar interests in car building as we have a few "High Quality" rides with ground pounding motors so low the headders scrape the concrete. Lookin at our Chapter, and our Club as a whole. I'm proud, proud that we all build the best quality cars we can with the skills, time and money we have, proud many of us drive our cars everywhere and everyday, proud that we drive to far away out of state shows. I say it time and time again one of the best feeling i have ever had was driving my car in the snow storm to detroits autorama and driving in to cobo covered in salt and slush and our club washing our cars right there while every other club unloaded primered cars of trailers, and after that weekend overhearing many people ask who are these guys where did this club come from. Detroit thats where. The motor city. where it all really started. I've gotten of track and long winded but after our recent trip to the Hunnert car pile up and kicking it with other Devils from other cities i discovered something...Yup you guessed it not only are we bad, were nationwide!