Here Today, Gone Tomorrow

I'm unsure who coined this phrase originally. It may have been the same person who originally came up with, "snooze... you lose." I've encountered this scenario multiple times especially when purchasing classic cars. In most cases, I'm one of 258 people calling and/or asking about a certain rig and I'm usually one to three calls too late. A can also remember on several occasions when I should've listen to my gut and made the call earlier, but didn't. I always made some excuse of not doing it - usually blaming the other party I had yet to talk to. It was, "I'll probably get voice mail. They won't listen to it anyways, and call me back at some inopportune time," or "I don't have a great deal of time, and the seller will go on forever about their ride." But that's a gamble I have to take. I can't get pissed at someone else for my lack of initiative.

This lack of initiative can also equate to a here today, gone tomorrow. Remember the brief Gasser wars that mostly took place in the 60's? The NHRA class was in existence from 1958 through 1969, but it was most predominant from late 1964 through early 1967. For the first eight years, the class was loaded with antique vehicles from the 30's and 40's. The nostalgia factor alone was enough to make it popular. But when several key teams and drivers (Stone, Woods, and Cooke as well as Big John Mazmanian to name two) saw rule changes coming down the pike, especially for 1967 (like allowing late-model vehicles), there was no initiative for them to stay in that class. In less than three short years, Gasser's lost all their popularity. And faster than you could say "6-second quarter mile", they were gone.

I've written on this event before, but it was on the East Coast version - The Race Of Gentlemen. In this post, I'm going to focus on the recent west coast version that was a total wash out at Pismo Beach back in mid October. While we'll never be able to control the weather, we can control if this event happens in the future. As of this post, there are no dates for the 2017 event. The reason being that the organizers took a huge financial bath, even though there was an approximate head-count of 12,000 people or so. This is what happens when things get rained out for about a third of the Saturday and all day Sunday with no racing. Here's where some initiative comes in, or we'll have another "here today, gone tomorrow". This event will need some serious sponsorship or individuals with deep pockets to keep it going, even though the east coast event is unaffected. It always bothers me that many a cool thing either stays or goes all because of money (or lack of it), but sometimes that's exactly the way it is. As a good friend of  mine once stated - "...whether amateur or professional, local or national - there is no racing (or any other car related event) without money."

I can remember traveling down to southern Georgia a few years ago. While having my vehicle serviced at a small-town garage somewhere in central Virginia, I noticed a small junkyard adjacent to the garage. Apparently, it had been there for years and the owner never really sold anything out of it, nor would let people walk through it and take pictures. While I was there however, I learned from the owners wife that her husband had passed and I was welcome to walk through the mass amounts of vintage Detroit iron. She thought it was cool that I photographed old rusty cars, but she told me to be careful. She added, "You better do it now; it'll all be gone by the end of the year!" And it was the beginning of November. Scrap prices were pretty high back then, so on one hand, I can't blame her. She went on to say that she was sick of all the bullshit from people wanting to buy, trade, blah, blah, blah.

On my way back north about 4 1/2 months later, I stopped in again for an oil change service. Sure enough, all the cars were gone just like she promised. Another example of here today... gone tomorrow. This goes hand in hand with last weeks post about shredding your bucket list. None of us are guaranteed another day. If you have the opportunity do something, especially if it's positive, just do it.

Until next time, peace out.
Dave