There are a couple of well known regular car guy’s gatherings that happen around the country. Probably the most famous is the Donut Derelicts Saturday morning shindig that happens in SoCal. Longtime automotive scribe Martyn Schorr dropped us a line recently to let us know of another gathering of gearheads. This one takes place every two weeks in Sarasota, Florida, and encompasses one of the widest spreads of cars we’ve ever seen.
There are lots of high end pieces and exotic stuff, but muscle cars are well represented too. The group has no formal rules, other than no jerks allowed. It doesn’t matter what you roll up in so long as you love cars and bench racing with the other people in the group.
As more and more of these types of gatherings pop up around the country it seems to us that the typical walls that divide segments of the car hobby are slowly coming down. There was a time not too long ago that the thought of a dude who owned a vintage Ferrari hanging out with a gearhead with a Cragar-mag-equipped 1971 Camaro would have been unthinkable. An overall appreciation of neat cars as opposed to a cloistered worship of a single make or model bodes well for the hobby.
In the years to come there will be plenty of challenges and threats to everyone who is into the car hobby, especially those of us who prefer the vintage tin. Groups like the Sarasota Cafe Racers need to spring up in every city and town across the country. The bonds that are formed by these gatherings are very strong and the hobby needs all the strong bonds and united fronts it can get.
Schorr forsees this model working for gearheads from sea to sea and the Sarasota Cafe Racers website is all about helping to get these grassroots gatherings to become the rule, not the exception. We’re inspired to start poking around our own area to see if we can get something rolling.
If you know a ton of car guys that are into different things, start to gather them up on a regular basis. After a few weeks we think you’ll find that you’ve captured automotive lightning in a bottle.
Click here to check out the Sarasota Cafe Racers website!
