A Tale of Two Books

As the amount of different car clubs and vehicle enthusiasts has increased so has the number of car shows and events geared toward that end. Getting these different and diverse organizations on the same page is a task that only P. T. Barnum would attempt. Somehow the Rusty Nuts has achieved that with the "All Clubs Meeting" held in the spring of the past few years, to accolades from around the state. Now we have less overlap and repetition of dates and events.

Now that the organizations seem to be on the same page, getting this information to the masses has always been word of mouth and those damn fliers or as my grand dad would have said "handbills". You know the stuff that clutters up your car, falls into every nook and cranny , fly around as you drive down the road and are just a general pain in the ass. Then you get home write down all the dates and have this stack of colored paper that is totally useless. You can't even use it for emergency ass wipe, it's usually colored and who wants a green or orange neon skid mark in their shorts.

Enter the Motor Menders. These guys & gals came up with a way to get the information to the masses and raise money for their charity of choice, a book. They sat down and did some major leg work and came up with enough advertisers to cover most of the cost of the book. Using past contact information they contacted a lot of show organizers and got the info needed early enough to put out a comprehensive publication of events. Given free to the public with donations taken but not demanded. All done for their charity.

Now into the room enters a 400lb. gorilla. There is a private company that will be renamed Slick Paper Products for the sake of this Blog. After seeing the success gained by the Motor Menders in their endeavor, the owners of Slick Paper Products saw an opportunity to profit from an others idea. They used every ploy known and came up with the glossy papered book full of flashy ass ads and look what we did attitude.

The only problem was the content. It was a mess to put it kindly. If you needed to find an event you would still need a map and compass to be able to find the correct page you were on. Dates for events were so screwed up you wondered if a Chinese calendar was used.

After allegedly fixing the publication for the next years run the content hasn't really become better, but at least you can put away the compass (keep the map out) and a Julian Date system has been used on some events. Given free to the public. All done for profit.

Its sad when a volunteer organization gets overrun with glitz, glamour, flash and frills. But rumor has it the Motor Menders no longer will be publishing their book after this year due to the competition for advertisers and time involved.

Next time you see a Motor Mender thank them, that's all they asked for.