Have you ever wanted to participate in a Triathalon...Mustang style?
The season has begun!! It’s time for car enthusiasts to take their special cars and hit the streets for some cruising (and show and tell!) with a whole lot of pride and joy. It’s also time plan a calendar of the special Mustang events you’re going to attend during the warm months ahead. Making this plan is one of the hardest parts of my job because there’s sooo many, very cool, very well-run events and sooo few weekends to play!
The team at MRT attends car shows, club events, National events, Drag racing, cruises, and road course track events – some are focused solely on Mustangs and others have “open arms” to all makes and models. At each event, I am intrigued and amazed at how different each person’s vehicle is and how differently we have “fun” with our Mustang. Another cool part is how many people share this passion. Mustang events nearly always draw a great crowd…sometimes even in the pouring rain! In the past several years a few Mustang enthusiast-run groups have expanded into venues I like to refer to as a “Mustang Triathlon”. Simply put, a Mustang Triathlon consists of several venues contained in one big event, such as Road racing, autocross, drag racing, a car show or cruise.
The idea of a triathlon is simple but the event coordination and logistics become exponentially more difficult as the number of venues expand. The triathlon structure seems to be catching on like wild fire and I’ve seen attendance (I should say participation) increase steadily over the past 10 years. Families are showing up and making these events their primary family vacation. The reason is pretty clear - everyone can participate. I see families where Dad and Son team up to prepare their car for the Road Course and just as soon as the road race is complete, they make a few set-up modifications so Mom can run the car hard at the drag strip. After all this track activity, everyone in the family – Dad, Mom, Brother and Sister - gang up to clean and detail the car for the evening’s cruise and/or tomorrow’s car show. What a nice way to share some family fun!!
Throughout the Triathlon and felt by all is the formation of a community sharing fun, laughter, speed (!) and lots of Mustang enthusiasm! Pretty soon a pattern develops and you find the same people participating in the same event every year and many, bring one or two friends with them who in turn quickly become Mustang Triathletes themselves. If you participate in a Triathlon, you’ll soon develop 2 to 300 friends. Yes, even if your homes are thousands of miles apart, you have become part of a Mustang community that lasts a life time.
I usually do not push many company names, or brands, or endorse many groups by name. But I have to break my silence on this topic. If you have not heard of an event called “Mid America Ford and Team Shelby Nationals” which (as you’ll probably guess), located in Tulsa Oklahoma, you really need to check it out. It is held June 12 through 15th (Check details at www.midamericafordmeet.com) and is exactly the kind of Mustang Triathlon event I am describing. It now spans Wednesday through Sunday and starts the event with a driving school (with in car instruction), Open track, a vintage car race (a spectacular high performance driving exhibition with legitimate vintage race cars in the field), followed by a High performance late model driving exhibition (with legitimate late model race cars and professional drivers). After the track, it’s off to the cruise, where hundreds of cars shut down an entire street – what a beautiful site! The next day brings fast cars, smoking tires, fast cars with quarter-mile drag racing. Topped by an evening banquet and a leisurely Sunday stroll through a field of show cars generating hundreds of prizes and a once in a lifetime experience. If you have never made the trip to Tulsa and think you have fun with your Mustang now, you haven’t seen anything yet!
Yes, fuel prices are high. Yes, it takes time from work. Yes you may need some more cool parts for your car and yes it’s worth it! To “calibrate” you and your Mustang for a Mustang triathlon, I have a few suggestions. First, pick a venue provides activities you find fun….even if it just means meeting new people and watching events for the first time. When you meet the people, you quickly find that everyone is just a Mustang person having fun playing in our favorite Mustang sport. The other cool part – you might even get a ride in one of the vintage or late model super stangs! I am looking forward to meeting all of our new friends this year’s Mustang events – Triathlons and the car shows! As always, if you need any help preparing your car, or information about this kind of event, drop the fine folks at MRT a line at www.shopmrt.com or call at (734) 455-5807. See you on the track!
- Scott Hoag
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