IN:  2005 NMRA Finals in Bowling Green

OUT:  $3/gallon gas to get there.

IN:  Installing headers, off-road H-pipe, Flowmasters, FIPK, cap, rotor, and wires on as well as buffing out your stone stock 5.0 during the week leading up to the event to be ready for the cruising action.

IN:  Breaking off a teenager in a Honda S2000 in the midst of the cruising action.

OUT:  Spanking its ass until not changing spark plugs comes back to bite you as the 5.0 starts misfiring at 4000 RPM.

IN:  Changing plugs in the hotel parking lot.

OUT:  The twerp in the S2000 was nowhere to be found once we'd finished.


OUT:  The official burnout contest was scrapped due to time constraint.

IN:  We staged our own in the parking lot of Advance Auto Parts the night before, complete with waterbox, with aid from the employees!!  It lasted for well over an hour before the cops broke it up.

IN:  Watching a diesel Ram on 20's do a better burnout than a gutted,
'glass-nosed import on the bottle.

IN:  Watching (someone else's) 5.0 completely destroy a pair of tires in the middle of town and NOT get cited for it.

IN:  Store managers giving people permission to hang out in parking lots so cops couldn't issue loitering tickets.

IN:  Being offered, and I quote, "Burnout for a beer?" in the hotel parking lot.

OUT:  Not one Corvette owner, even in Bowling Green of all places, would do a burnout.  Jerks.


OUT:  Some hater threw a bottle at a nice first-gen Camaro, actually being driven by its owner.

IN:  He got the crap kicked out of him.


IN:  Buffalo Wild Wings.

OUT:  The after effects of Buffalo Wild Wings.


IN:  Cruising Scottsville Rd.

OUT:  Nazi cops on Scottsville Rd.

IN:  Such a huge saturation of people cruising on Scottsville Rd. that the
cops had to let most stuff go.

OUT:  Of all the mayhem going on, the cops decide to make an example of a Dodge truck for doing one dryhop in a parking lot.  Multiple cops swarmed him like bees and read him the riot act while the crowd continued unabated.


OUT:  The grandstands opposite the pits at Beech Bend.

IN:  The fact that although they're not in the best of shape, they are
covered!!

IN:  Everything else at Beech Bend.


IN:  Overall they had a pretty decent swap meet.

IN:  The midway was pretty well-stocked, too.

IN:  The friendly and very aesthetically pleasing girls at the Nitto Tire
trailer.

OUT:  No Flowmaster trailer (at a MUSTANG EVENT?!  What gives, Flowmaster?!)

OUT:  No one had a blasted thing for a carbureted 351W.


IN:  Watching the jet dragster go almost 6 flat @ 261 mph.

IN:  Watching more than one doorslammer Mustang go 6.50's @ 200+ right behind it.

OUT:  I don't own anything that'll go anywhere near that fast, even in the 1/8th.


IN:  Magnante's junkyard 5-lug conversion.

OUT:  We didn't have time to do it before the event.  Could've borrowed some Bullitt wheels for the 5.0 but instead we had to sport the factory turbine wheels, chick magnets that they are...

***I tried to email this in but it kept getting bounced back.  The powers that be over there need to look into this.