OK OK so it wasn’t exactly a hurricane by the time the low pressure moved through central New England, but it sure did impact this one. As kind of our perennial favorite ‘last show of the year’, Staggered has now come and gone. After a seemingly endless summer, we were excited to load up and head out to one of the closest shows on the calendar, right up in Springfield, MA in the Big E fairgrounds. If you aren’t a New Englander, the Big E (also known as the Eastern States Exposition) is a ridiculously huge urban fairground with many permanent buildings. Be sure to make it out around the end of September to be left in awe of what a regional fall fair can provide. Anyway, the week after the big one, Staggered takes over and fills the fairground with show cars.
This is an all-makes-invited exposition with an indoor and outdoor show, drifting exhibitions, and BMX demos. The focus is on stance, an exceedingly controversial topic these days. Forgoing that, we always love to show up and hang out with people that are truly passionate about their craft. Whether it be taking an obscure car and decking it, or something common and making it your own, Staggered is the type of show where everyone is proud to show what they’ve been up to all summer, and meet up with their show friends/clubs.
Unfortunately this year, like many shows we’ve been to, it rained. It rained hard and it rained the entire time. I believe we are just about dry after this Sunday’s event, but in the end it was a worthy cap to a soaking wet show season. Managing to still get around 200 signups for our $15 show site credit (if you ever see us at a show, come sign up for your $15 credit too!), as hard as Matthew tried, it wasn’t a wash. At least the system had more or less fizzled out by the time it got this far up the coast. The tent almost blew away a few times but we managed to hold on.
The BMX demo went into the building, and the drift exhibition collected some extra participants due to the rainslick tarmac. One notable instance of this was a full size dually diesel pickup venturing out for a bit of the slideways. It eventually was scared off when a pro in a setup Nissan wanted to do some tandem work, and the truck said ‘uhh no thanks!’ and darted. We eventually moved into the building as well to hang out with Foundation Blue, a great charity and a great group of people.
It’s now full speed ahead to winter, so be sure to get your maintenance done while it isn’t agonizing to be outside, and we hope to see you at Lime Rock for the 2016 Winter Autocross!
