January 2020 Mass Cruisers Newsletter

Crusin’ at the speed of fun

Mass Cruisers Auto Club January 2020

36th Annual Daytona Turkey Run

INSIDE:

Riding Shotgun with V.P. Larry Jack Lane Remembered 36th Annual Daytona Turkey Run Car Shows & Events

We’re on the Web

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April 2017

Celebrating 29 Years of Cruisin Volume 29

January 2020

Issue 1

www.masscruisers.com And Facebook

MONTHLY CRUISIN

We’re on the Web! www.masscruisers.com

Contact us by snail mail: P.O. Box 217, Wrentham, MA 02093 Or by email: HO350@comcast.net

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Our monthly meetings are held in the Bass Pro Shops Conservation Room (1 Bass Pro Drive Foxboro, MA) on the third Thursday each month at 7 PM. The monthly business meeting is held one hour earlier. Visitors, guests and

those interested in joining the Mass Cruisers Auto Club are welcome to attend one of our monthly meetings

Club Officers

Front Cover Page

1

Directory

2

Riding Shotgun Cruise Night Schedule

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President: Mark Crichton Vice President: Larry Nyborn

Jack Lane Remembered

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Secretary: Lesley Corda-Majeski Asst. Secretary: John Guravage

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Treasurer: Kevin Rushlow Asst. Treasurer: Rich Armando

2019 Daytona Turkey Run

6

Special Assignments

Daytona Turkey Run Photos

7

Cruise Night: Steve Huntington

January & February Events

8

Car Shows: Rich Armando

Support our Advertisers

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Webmaster: Steve Vining

Mail Cover & Back Page

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Managing Editor: John Buchanan Newsletter Editor: John Guravage Digital Graphics: Diane Thornton

Jack Lane Photo Montage

Reduced size business card ads are only available to our cruise night sponsors and club member’s businesses.

Facebook: Patrick Touhey New Members: Diane Thornton SSgts. at Arms: Rick Lawlor John Sturniolo Charity Coord.: Frank Bryant Food Pantry: Bob Okerholm Steve Fernald

By-Laws: Wayne Lestan MAAC Reps: John Buchanan John Guravage

Monthly Cruisin

Riding Shotgun

with your Vice President, Larry Nyborn

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Looking back on 2019, it’s been another successful year for the Mass Cruisers. President Mark Chrichton has demanded and gotten the most out of club members while reminding us how important it is to say ‘thank you’ for all of your efforts. Our Cruise Director Steve Huntington has orchestrated another great cruise season at Patriot Place despite some very challenging weather interruptions that hit us. Also, the club has made available a number of events for all to participate in like the annual April Show & Go Car Show for the Seekonk Speedway’s opening race season at the “Action Track of the East”. Seekonk’s Ed St Germain responded by inviting club members to enjoy a V.I.P. Day of races in July. We also continue to support the R.T.S. Model Car Exposition in Taunton by setting up a display at their annual event and sponsor and award a trophy to one of the outstanding home built model cars judged by our club members. We continue to support the Annual Norfolk Lions club with a display of club member cars and, in turn, club members continued to step up and organize cruise events throughout the season for everyone to enjoy like the club’s annual anniversary celebration, the Newport Auto Museum cruise, the Old Orchard Beach weekend cruise and car show, the U.S. Route 6 Cruise Weekend to Provincetown and the recently reinstituted Waters Farm Days cruise. And we can’t forget the Valve Cover Racing programs and Trade School Engine Build-Off Competition.

Thank you to all those members responsible for another record collections for the five local area food pantries.

Thanks to the members that attend our Bass Pro Shops cruise early to help Steve setup and members that come later to clean up and pack away all the gear back into the club trailer. It is these background tasks, including directing traffic during the cruise and managing the T-shirt, 50/50 and queries at the club’s cruise H.Q. that continue to make our cruise nights successful.

It’s also important to note there are many other annual car shows and events that club members attend and they can help our newest members join with them like the Boston World of Wheels, the Barrett & Jackson Auction at the Mohegan Sun, the Adirondack Nationals at Lake George, NY, the Right Coast’s Syracuse Nationals, the N.S.R.A. Northeast Nationals in Burlington, NY are among the most notable. So if you want to attend any of these, let us know and we can direct you to the appropriate person to provide more details.

It is also with sadness that we not forget the loss of club members during 2019; Roy Rossman, Marie Armando, Roger Reizovic and Jack Lane who contributed mightily to the success of our club.

As your VP & acting president in Mark’s absence, I welcome the freedom of thought & expression by our membership while at the same time I am proud of how the club can unite and stand behind each other when the need arises. While the club does honor its bylaws and maintains a rigorous schedule of events, the bottom line is to have fun! With this theme in mind, 2020 is shaping up to be another momentous year and don’t forget we are working on details for our annual Anniversary Party to be held sometime in April, so stay tuned. .

Happy Cruising into the New Year Larry Nyborn

Monthly Cruisin

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John “Jack” Lane Born October 31, 1938 - Entered God’s Rest December 12, 2019

By John Buchanan

The passing of long time Mass Cruisers member Jack Lane, since 2003, was a double edge sword for me. Jack and I became close friends in the Mass Cruisers when he started joining in the Annual multi-club U.S. Route 6 Cruise Weekend back in 2012. His love of jumping into his 1951 Ford business coupe, a plain Jane driver as he called it, with its trustworthy 95 hp flathead 6 cylinder engine, two-speed rear end and three-on-the-tree standard shift, and cruise anywhere with us a the drop of a cap. During the summer, when he was quartered at his Lake Winnipesaukee summer retreat, Jack would drive down to Foxboro for our bi-weekly Thursday cruise nights to help with the 50-50 drawings, holing up in his camper parked nearby for a few nights to also take care of his personal business.

That was when I’d get a call to find out what other area cruise nights we could attend while he was here.

Another new ritual for us started in 2014 when I started going to the Daytona Turkey Run over the Thanksgiving weekend, following many years of fellow club members Bob & June Smith telling me to “Come On Down” to the greatest annual car event in the U.S.A. Jack would cruise over from his Bonita Springs Florida winter retreat in his camper for the weekend and we’d spend three days cruising the massive 180 acre Daytona Speedway infield in a golf cart that he’d chauffer using his past stock car racing skills maneuvering through the crowds while I would take pictures and videos to post. When Jack discovered it would be less expensive to co-rent a two bedroom two bath Daytona Beach ocean front condo than pay the jacked up camp ground rates at the Speedway, we started sharing a condo. Every year it was a different condo. Of course, part of the experience at the Turkey Run was to also join with other Mass Cruisers in attendance for a Thanksgiving dinner that Bob & June Smith would organize.

It was always a blast but this year it was only Jack and me at the Turkey Run on Thanksgiving.

A few days prior to this year’s 46th Annual Daytona Turkey Run, Jack sent me a link for a Toby Keith song “Don’t Let the Old Man In” which was inspired by then 88 year old Clint Eastwood’s response to Toby’s question, “how do you do it?”; referring to Clint’s continued working on projects, acting, directing and producing at his age. The song was used in Clint’s movie “The Mule” and Jack and I quickly adopted it as our own mantra at the 2019 Turkey Run whenever we experienced one of our age related warning signs; “Don’t Let the Old Man in”.

After the Turkey Run on Sunday we both cruised from Florida’s Atlantic Coast to the Gulf Coast, Jack back to his Bonita Springs condo and me to my brother’s home in Naples for a few day’s visit. Jack asked me to contact my old friend pinstriper Alex Olivera, who winters in Naples, FL, to see if he could line up one of his fellow AACA member garage tours for us on Monday and then on Tuesday join him and his Lake Winnipesaukee neighbor who was flying down from Long Island before I headed back home Wednesday. We did that; lunch with Alex at Spanky’s in Naples then an awesome garage tour of a superb 1932 Ford hot rod collection - video posted on the Mass Cruisers Facebook page. Then, on Tuesday my brother Dave and I had a very nice dinner with Jack and his Winnipesauke neighbor Nancy at DeRomo’s Restaurant in Bonita Springs. 2019 turned out to be the best Turkey Run week for both of us with Jack commenting let’s rent the same Ormond Beach condo next year.

Up until our last cruise together, Jack was still planning ahead for the recent major change in his lifestyle; flying down to Florida for the winter instead of driving his camper. On the way over to Daytona Beach he stopped to look at a 35 foot Class A camper he saw for sale and was also planning to look at another one on his way back to Bonita Springs on Sunday. At the Turkey Run he was negotiating a potential trade of his Florida daily driver 1996 Lincoln Town Car for a 2006 Town Car he spotted in the Daytona Turkey Run Car Corral. At the Saturday “Daytona One” cruise night across from the Speedway, Jack also found a very nice 1951 Ford Victoria hardtop for sale that the owner, who attends the Monday Merchant’s Crossing cruise nights in nearby North Fort Meyers, was going to let him test drive at the cruise. His plan was for the Vicky to become his Florida cruise car having left his “Plain Jane” ’51 stored for the winter back in Massachusetts. Jack wasn’t going to Let the Old Man In despite his near constant battle with aging.

Monthly Cruisin

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John “Jack” Lane Born October 31, 1938 - Entered God’s Rest December 12, 2019

Photos by John Buchanan

Ever the salesman, Jack would set up every year at Great Woods to sell all his accumulated parts.

Jack loved Woodies. He sold this 1928 but bought a 1929 Woodie last year to replace it.

Jack’s ‘51 Ford was the 2018 Route 6 P-Town Flag Car At the ProNyne Motorsports Museum Cruise in Pawtucket, RI

Jack poses with a Chevy stock car like the one he used to race at Norwood & Seekonk

Jack’s 1953 Country Squire which he sold

Jack’s “22777” MA plate hangs in the Mendenhall Museum in Buellton, CA

One of our Daytona Turkey Run Group Shots

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Monthly Cruisin

36th Annual Daytona Turkey Run

By John Buchanan

It is with a heavy heart that I am reporting on the 2019 36th Annual Daytona Turkey Run as it was the last one I would enjoy with my late friend and fellow club member Jack Lane. For us it was also the best one to date with perfect 75 – 80 degree sunshine for the entire Thanksgiving weekend. This year however, golf carts were no longer made available for the media as had been the case in past years. Jack and I had to go the personal scooter rental route this year.

Covering the 68 acre infield filled with over 1,200 car corral spaces, another 5,000 show car spaces, 1,500 swap meet vendors on foot over the 3 day Thursday through Saturday morning & afternoons, plus the Daytona One cruise nights across from the Speedway is just too much for our aging legs.

For first time readers of the newsletter, here’s a brief description of what Bobby Smith used to tell me was the best car event in the country. The fall Daytona Turkey Run runs for four days over the Thanksgiving weekend, Thursday through The lineup of spectators outside Daytona Speedway was constant Sunday.

This is a Cadillac Low Rider Club lineup inside the Speedway

Flea Market vendors have interesting stuff for your man cave and Vendors like Mecum Auctions can give the scoop on their upcoming 2020 auctions

One day at the Turkey Run on foot cannot do the event justice. Ask Fred Tierney. He and his Florida neighbor attempt a one day trip on Black Friday every year. Two of our club members; Bob Wood bought his 1947 Ford Tudor at the Turkey Run four years ago and Bob Smith pulled off an even swap for his 1940 Ford Sedan there 6 years ago. If you are looking to buy a collector car, the fall Turkey Run is one place everyone likes to goes shopping over the Thanksgiving season, a virtual candy store for gearheads and collectors alike. All the major aftermarket parts suppliers set up shop and there are gems to be found in the expansive flea market area as well. There is an arts, crafts and fashion area for the ladies as well. The Daytona Street Rods handle the event registrants entrance for the show cars while the Daytona Beach Car Shows runs the overall event. I started going 6 years ago, by driving down and back in my truck, two days down and two days back and then extended my stay by swinging over to the Gulf Coast for a few days to visit my brother in Naples, FL. I fly down now and rent a car for a net saving of three days travel time and arrive relaxed rather than spent. I realize Thanksgiving is a time when families get together to fight over the drumsticks and to get dibs on breaking the wishbone. But, the all-you-can-eat Duff’s Thanksgiving buffet at Belair plaza is a popular plan “B” during the Turkey Run weekend and, there’s no fighting over the 46 turkeys they cook every year.

Monthly Cruisin

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36th Annual Daytona Turkey Run

Photos by John Buchanan

Rather than bore you with pictures of very nice original, custom or hot rodded vehicles, I’ve selected some of the more interesting, odd or bizarre creations, too many of which there would not be enough space in this newsletter. The link for the video showcasing some of the more interesting gems to me will be posted on our Mass Cruisers Facebook page.

Mad Mod Kustoms Rat Rod Ford

Boy likes his toy ladder truck more than Batmobile Cool Model A Ramp truck for a cooler T-Bucket Street

Fighter plane wrap used to transform Studebaker

Putin & Trump came to the Turkey Run in a step-up Van

1950 Ford Custom with gull wing doors

Daytona ONE nightly cruise had interesting rides

Would you have guessed a 1941 Buick?

Monthly Cruisin

Cruisin’ at the Speed of Fun

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Monthly Cruisin

Cruisin’ at the Speed of Fun

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January 2020

Last Page

Member meetings are held the 3rd Tuesday of each month

P.O. Box 217 Wrentham, MA 02093

Monthly Cruisin