Michiana Monthly

Busy, busy, busy, and so many things to do. With this being the 45^th anniversary of the Mustang I am anticipating a great turnout for the show and shines, cruise-ins and parades. It would be nice to truly show everyone what makes this pony car the longest and most consistent production car. That’s something that we all can be proud of.

The details will be forthcoming either at the meeting and/or email the three Memorial Day parades. Don’t forget that we are not allowed to throw candy. Make sure you check the website or newsletter for upcoming club events.

Those of you who were at the last meeting know how hard it was to hear. The Board met and decided to try the Firefighters Hall again. The hall has a new manager; I have talked with him and we will eat on the bar side and have our meetings on the hall side. I’m hoping everything works out better this time.

There are a couple of people I would like to thank. Fred Dosmann, Dec-o- Art, for making more club window decals. This is a great savings for our club and, Brad Milliken, for setting up the Mustang birthday party at ‘Mustang’ McDonald’s. We had a good turnout; check out Howard’s article on it.

Members that are planning to go to Spring Fling in Brown County might want to find out when others are leaving so you can caravan. It can be a lifesaver having someone else with you when you break down. I know from experience!

Start thinking car show and begin bringing in those door prizes. Don’t

wait until the last minute and make Carl panic. We are bringing back the Prayer Corral. Curly Long has agreed to be in charge of this. If you or you know of someone who has any health concerns or in need of words of encouragement, please let Curly or myself know.

I hope those of you who went to the 45^th anniversary show had a good time and I’m looking forward to hearing your stories. Bob

Remember: NAMETAGS ARE REQUIRED for the meetings! There is a $0.50 fine for non-compliance.

Minutes from last month’s meeting:

President Bob Goeller welcomed all, including new members Paul Rogers and Mark Zerkel. Welcome back from wintering in Arizona Karon and Curly Long.

Our thanks to Nick and the servers at the Volcano Restaurant for having us back again.

Members attending were: Art Anderson, Scott Anderson, Blake Pierce, Howard Barrett, Art Campbell, Gloria & Dick Cornman, Alex Denysenko, Vic Garrison, Pat & Bob Goeller, Terry Gunderman, Rob Killingsworth, Shari & Blair Knaak, Sandy & Joe Kraatz, Neal Lewis, Karon & Curly Long, Valerie Frances Malecki, Rose & Hal McClure, Charlotte & Ron Newcomer, Phil Nicodemus, Arnie O'Blenis, Kevin Price, Diane & Kenny Reed, Robert D. Relos, Paul Rogers, Pat & Ted Sauerbeck, Jim & June Schmidt, Ken Schmitt, Mona Spitaels, Mark Taelman, Shirley & George Wachs, Shirley & Larry Weaver, Alan Wright, Jane & David Yoder, Steve York, and Mark Zerkel

The minutes were approved as read with one correction: instead of no

applicants for the Neal Decker Scholarship, there were two received. A sign-up sheet was passed around for those planning to attend the Brown County SAAC Spring Fling and who want to participant in our annual cookout at that show. Chef Diane Reed will be able to coordinate the meal again.

Members were reminded to wear their nametags. The 50-cent penalty was waived. Please see Dave Yoder for a temporary tag or order one through Brad Milliken for $8.30.

MCA REGIONAL DIRECTOR, Jim Schmidt reported that our club show date and information has been sent to Mustang Monthly and the Mustang Times for publishing in their magazines. He reports that the insurance is pending for our show on August 8th.

Besides Jim, Kevin Price, Curly Long, and Ken Schmitt plan to work at the Birmingham 45th Anniversary Show. At least 20 members have plans to attend that show.

Members were reminded to register for the National Show in Indianapolis the first weekend in June. The deadline for registering to have your car judged is May 11th.

Twenty-five members attended the Bowling Event and had a great time. Plans are to have another in the fall. Thanks to Brad for again making the arrangements.

April 17th will be a Mustang anniversary celebration at the Mustang McDonald's on Grape Road. Attend this party if you can't make Birmingham.

The treasurer's report was approved as read.

Head Judge Ron Newcomer has agreed to have some judging training sessions at our Show and Shine events. Show Flyers for our August 3rd show are in. Please plan to pass them

out at upcoming shows and Mustang events. We are hoping to have cars participating in the Elkhart, Mishawaka, and South Bend Memorial Day Parades. Line-up time for the South Bend parade is 8:15 a.m., so hopefully some can attend that parade

Minutes from last month’s meeting:

(Continued from previous page)

Curly Long is making arrangements for our club at the Essenhaus Restaurant Cruise-in on the first Thursday of May. Come on over to show your car, meet your friends and have a good meal.

President Bob would like to have our club participate in food drive, "Neighbors Helping Neighbors" with other car clubs in the city. This would happen next year.

Membership anniversaries: Marilyn and Pete McClure - 20

years. Wedding anniversaries: Sandy and Joe Kraatz - 47 years and Janette and Kevin Price - 1 year

Valerie showed a framed display of a shirt and patches worn by her soldier grandson who has returned from active duty in Iraq.

The Board of Directors will meet after this meeting. All members are welcome to attend. The meeting was adjourned. June Schmidt, Secretary

Hot Rod Power Tour

Hot Rod Magazine sponsors a weeklong tour/cruise each year in different parts of the country. This year they are passing through South Bend with an overnight stop at the St Joseph County Fair Grounds. This is a time to see some awesome cars! People will be arriving through out the day, and they have all kinds of things (like food, music, and vendors) that day and evening at the fair grounds. You can register to show at South Bend that evening for $25. If you want to do the whole tour it's $80. They start in Madison, WI on Saturday the 6th of June. They stop at Racine, WI for Sunday, and then to South Bend for Monday, June 8th. From South Bend they leave for Warren, MI ( GM Tech Center) Tuesday morning and go on till the end. The whole thing ends at Bristol, TN on Friday and Saturday at the Speedway. More info can be found at the Hot Rod Power Tour web site (http:// www.hotrod.com/2009powertour/index.html)

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Happy Birthday, Mustang!

A great time was had by those who came to the Mustang McDonalds for the birthday party. We had over eighteen cars on display and we drew quite a crowd of onlookers. The weather was just beautiful and it was just great to be outside again talking with club members and to those who stopped by to look at the cars. Of course, we ate our supper there and afterwards we had birthday cake. Those who stopped in the restaurant were quite surprised also when they were offered birthday cake. There “were” two huge sheet cakes and when we left it was all gone. It was really great to drive home with the top down since it was warm enough to do so. A special thanks to Brad for making all the arrangements and ordering and bringing in the cake.

Treasurer’s Report: April 2009

Anderson, Art & Fran Buell, Pat & Calvin Christena, Becky Delchambre, Pete & Chris Garrison, Vic & Connie Ippolito, Alan & Lisa Springer, Vince & Helen

May

Barrett, Thad Goeller, Bob & Pat Janowiak, Tim Kern, Christopher McClure, Pete & Marilyn Milliken, Brad Ross, Randy & Lorelei Sands, Bo & Amanda

June

Anderson, Scott & Chris Brewer, Eva & Wayne Campbell, Art & Rebecca Chupp, Ruben & Idella Eggers, Darrell & Nancy Kindig, Carl & Brenda Spitaels, Dick & Mona Woody, Kami & Chad

This Month...

Membership Anniversaries

Pete & Chris Delchambre 30 years Dick & Gloria Cornman 17 years Steve York 15 years Bob & Pat Goeller 11 years Bruce & Becky Langton 9 years Bill & Patricia Stickley 9 years Dick & Mona Spitaels 8 years Randy & Lorelei Ross 4 years Fred Garafalo 1 year Tim Janowiak 1 year Chris Kern 1 year

Happy Anniversary!

5 Kami & Chad Woody (8 years) 11 Marilyn & Pete McClure (7 years)

Car Show Calendar

Cruise-In Calendar Sunday

• Bonnie Doons, Lincolnway near Ironwood, Mishawaka

Monday

• Legends Restaurant, Edwardsburg

Tuesday

• Steak N’ Shake, 933 & Cleveland, South Bend

• Arby’s, Bittersweet & Lincolnway, Mishawaka

• JD’s Truck Stop, Granger

• The Pitt Stop, S.R. 23 & Adams Rd., Granger

Wednesday

• Blaz-N-Chik Restaurant, Niles

• Simonton Lake Drive-In, S.R. 19, Elkhart

Thursday

• Das Essenhaus, U.S. 20, Middlebury

• Long John Silvers, Nappanee St., Elkhart

Friday

• Advance Auto Parts, McKinley Ave., Mishawaka

• Aaron’s Plumbing, Roseland

Saturday

• Pizza King, S.R. 23 near Bittersweet, Granger

This information was provided by MichianaCruisers.com. If you hear of a cruise-in being scheduled, let me know. I’ll list every one I hear about.

Coming Next Month…

We finally have another ‘My First Mustang’ story (Thanks, Bob). You will also see reports from Spring Fling, parade reviews, information about the Bremen and Eby Show and Shines, and the annual club picnic.

Mustangs 45th Anniversary Celebration

by June Schmidt

STARS FELL OVER ALABAMA is the motto on the license plate in that state and one of those stars shone on each of the 12 cars driven by the Michiana Mustangs members. Included in this galaxy were: Kathy Bringman and Bob Miller, Carol and Dave Cooper, Karon and Curly Long, the famous McClures: Marilyn & Pete, and Rose and Hal, Janette and Kevin Price, Diane and Kenny Reed, Jim and June Schmidt, Becky and Ken Schmitt, Mike Sebella, Shirley & George Wachs, Shirley and Larry Weaver, Dave Yoder and Phil Nicodemus.

Jim and I arrived at the home of the Coopers on Wednesday morning, ready to start the trek south. Unfortunately, Dave thought we were not leaving until Thursday, so we left them to meet up with the Longs, someplace south of Indy on I-65. A few hours later we landed in Franklin, Tennessee where we planned to spend the night. That Franklin is not be confused with Franklin, Indiana or Franklin, Kentucky where the rest of the Mustang herd planned to camp.

Up on Thursday morning and down the road about 200 miles and we arrived in Birmingham for the big 45th anniversary celebration of the Mustang. Since we had plenty of time, we decided to head straight out to the track to "reserve" our parking spots. im turned on his "faithful" GPS with the route to the track pre-programmed into it. It turned out to be a "faithless" GPS when it kept telling us to go back to the same place. After much driving, probably in circles, we had a few Big Macs and tried one last time, finally arriving at the famous Barber Motorsport Park.

For those of you whom had been there at the other celebration, you will remember the tiers of Mustangs and the sloped driveways or grass ways to walk on. The tiers were still there, but since they expected 5,000 Mustangs, there were several other parking lots. Arriving as early as we had, we got a purple card assuring our parking spot on the tiers at the paddock.

Lot E was the one where Curly, Dave, Jim, Ken, and Kevin were assigned to park cars. This lot was waaaay over on the other side and would soon be filled with at least 600 Mustangs from almost every state in the union and several countries; namely France, Denmark, Puerto Rico, and Australia. It gave our group a chance to chat with these other drivers, also. From what the guys said it was a pleasurable experience.

Since the lots were spread throughout the grounds, our means of transportation, once the car was parked, were 3, 2- section trams pulled by Ford 150's. They ran constantly, almost always filled to capacity. They only ran in one direction on the circular road, so if you missed one, it would be only moments before another came by.

The vendor area was 4 aisles, each about 2 blocks long. As many were heard to say, they had never seen so many vendors at a National or Anniversary gathering. In addition to the free t-shirt that everybody could win, it was mostly new and used car parts. (You should see the cute fenders that Dave Yoder took home, after he and Phil carried them back from the vendor to where we were parked.) There were numerous 2009, 2010, and concept cars and trucks to look at. The most talked-about car was an old Hertz Mustang literally found in a barn and driven to the show with only a circle wiped off on the windshield.

After driving the 30 mile round trip for 4 days, some of us were ready to come home early, but we waited until Sunday afternoon to head back north. Judged Awards were won by Curly & Karon and by George & Shirley.

Our weather down there had been a few rain showers Sunday, but some sun and wind everyday. The temps were about the same as ours up north -- cool mornings and pleasant afternoons. We headed north on Sunday, escorting Dave & Carol and soon ran into a frog-strangling rainstorm. Within a mile, there were 4 single car accidents (no Mustangs) caused by speedy drivers not taking the weather into consideration.

After an overnight stay north of Nashville, we came back to blustery, cool northern Indiana.

(For more trip highlights, be sure to read Curly's story about Dave: So YOU THINK YOU HAD A BAD WEEK).

Mustang 45^th Birthday Party

Well, after having been to the 45^th Birthday Party, all I can say is WOW, what an event!

Becky and I drove down on Thursday. We left Goshen at 6:00am and arrived at Barber Motorsports Part shortly after 4:00pm. We were surprised to see Kevin and Jeanette Price in line also.

After we got our info packet, we waited for Kevin and Jeanette before we all made the 20 minute trip to the hotel. After checking in, we discovered that Kevin had tickets to the Thursday night cruise to Homewood that night as did we so we decided to join the cruise with them.

We got back to Barber a little after 6:00pm and discovered that we were well back in the line. Of the 500 cars that where suppose to have tickets, we were probably near 480 in line.

As the cruise got started it soon turned into a foreboding of what the whole weekend was going to be; not that well organized. By the time we got out of the park it had become basically a free for all, get to Homewood any way you could. The driving instructions where very confusing and not all that well written for some one not from Birmingham who didn’t know the local roads. Fortunately, we got behind a local Mustang and we made our own cruise route.

Homewood turned out to be kind of a trendy collection of small shops and restaurants. Kevin, Jeanette, Becky, and I found a small deli where we could get something to eat. That experience could be a whole story by itself but the food was good.

After walking the main street lined with Mustangs for a little while, we all decided it had been a long day and returned to the motel.

Kevin, Curly Long, Jim Schmidt and I had volunteered to help out at the event Friday morning. We arrived back at the show site at 7:15am and spent the next 45 minutes trying to figure out where we were supposed to be. No one seemed to know where the volunteers were to park or check in. We finally parked in the volunteer parking lot only to be told we had the wrong color hang tags and were told that if we didn’t move our cars in the next hour, we would be towed. This was from an MCA staff person. Some start to the day.

After checking in, getting our yellow volunteer shirts, and being told where we would be helping out, we returned to our cars and moved them to lot E where we were to help park cars.

Lot E was the biggest of the parking/display lots and could hold well over 1000 cars by itself. Again the lack of organization raised its ugly head. We were basically left to figure out what we were to do for ourselves; our instructions were not that good. 4 hours and a couple of hundred cars later, we turned the lot over to the next bunch of volunteers and went back to the hotel to pick up our wives before returning to display our cars.

Once back at the park, Kevin, Jeanette, Becky, and I hopped the free tram for the ride to the vendor display area. Ford had a huge display with 2010 Mustangs everywhere in different colors and models. Personally, I really like the new Grabber Blue and Sunset Gold.

There where quite a variety of vendors available. I think you could assemble a whole car there just by walking from booth to booth. Parts and accessories for the earliest to the latest where there somewhere, all you had to do was find them. While the temptation was there to grab up some neat stuff, Becky and I got out of there with a couple of anniversary tee shirts and a $3.00 bottle of coke.

Saturday dawned warm and a little cloudy compared to Friday. After a quick breakfast, Kevin, Jeanette, Jim, June, Becky, and I made the short trip to the park. Somehow, Jim had 2 paddock passes, including one with a judging number on it even though he wasn’t in the judging class. It took some fast explaining that he wasn’t in the judging class before we all parked together in the paddock area.

We all spent the day looking at the other cars and enjoying each others company. Becky’s first Mustang was a gold 73 Mach 1 and we were able to find a 72 Mach 1 in the same color but no 73. My first Mustang was a celery green 72 Coupe but I wasn’t able to locate one like it no matter how hard I looked.

8:00am Sunday morning we started the long trek home. Kevin and Jeanette made the trip with us. After a stop for breakfast at Cullman Alabama, it started to rain. The rain continued as we drove north till we got just south of Indy and began again north of Kokomo. The only breaks we took where for gas every couple hundred miles. Shortly after 9:00pm we were back home

Mustang 45^th Birthday Party

(Continued)

Was the trip worth it? Absolutely! Would I do it again? In a heartbeat. Just seeing that many Mustangs in every variety of ages and styles was worth the trip. There where everything from totally restored ‘64s to brand new 2010s, from bone stock to all out street rods and everything in between. The chance to see about 3,000 Mustangs gathered together is something to see.

I don’t know where the 50^th Birthday Bash will be but I’m planning on being there.

Ken and Becky Schmitt

‘72 Mach 1 Lot ‘E’

Saturday Group Thursday Night Cruise

Things For Sale! Two Engines

One is a 5.0 and has been rebuilt and is ready to be bolted in. I also have the fuel injection to go with it for $1,000 or best offer.

The second engine is the 3.8 from the 1983 Mustang. It has been totally rebuilt and has only 1,000 miles on it.

If you have any questions, you can e-mail Harold at hjedrzejewski@yahoo.com

***

I still have 5 like new P185/75R14 tires for sale, white wall. One has NEVER been on the ground; still have the wear tips on yet. The other 4 have 4/32" wear left on them. They are already off the rims.

For anyone who is a club member of M.C.A. or the Ohio Classic Mustang Club I will sell ALL 5 for $175.00 (That's $35 ea.) Four of them are SEARS tires & one is a Cooper Tire, but all of them match.

If anyone wants these tires, they can e-mail me at phigley@srscnet.com

I still have a 289 Engine (Block, heads & intake). Also a FoMoCo 1965 Ford Mustang AM Radio, LIKE THE ONE THAT WAS IN THE CAR when it came off the line. Good condition. Will sell for $50.00.

Phil (Higley) M.C.A. member

***

1985 mustang 5.0 ho, automatic, lx hatchback. All original except exhaust and paint. Motor has new oil pump and timing chain, but transmission needs work. Very drivable after trans repair but lieu of, very good for parts. Like to sell for $950.00. Well worth it just in motor and rear axle. If interested please call Harry Scholz at 574 -291-9085 home, or 574-386-7512 cell.

***

• 9“ Ford center section - 4.56 gear with spool set up for a 31 spline axle $450.00

• 428 4-barrel intake (C68E) $150.00

• Set of cast iron factory headers for a ‘71 429 $250.00

• 428 FE block (C6ME) $200.00

For more information call Ken Reed (269) 6412120

***

• 1994-95 Automatic Transmission; 80,000 miles, works great. $150.00

• Black 1994 convertible interior; no tears, a little sun damage. $250.00

• (4) Stock 17” rims (no tires); good condition $100.00

Call Steve York 574-532-4810

Looking For... ***

WANTED: 1965/1966 parts car for use as an assembly guide to finish my convertible. Tim Janowiak at 574-271-7568.

***

I am Looking to BUY an O.E.M. ‘65 FORD RADIO.

Must have a ‘5’ in the upper left hand corner of

the face of the dial & play. If you have one, or know of someone who has one for sale, e-mail phigley@srscnet.com

If your item has sold or is no longer available for sale, please contact the newsletter editor.