Wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas!!!!! I hope that your special Santa brought you all that you had wished for and more...
Soupy

I'm the only one on this site that can say I got over 300 votes and lost
its like winning the lottery but someone has already taken the money
this was a lot of fun and in the far future I'm gonna challenge you for a rematch Jo
I guess I'm just a glutton for punishment
I don't feel like it was my car that lost it was just great competition from another great car that won
congrats Jo
ps

thanks to all those that voted
you really made this a lot of fun

Hello all...
I am concerned about some of the groups on this site making challenges a total waste of time. Their members select cars to challenge and then all of the members of the club are instructed to vote for the club member's car, even if the car that's been challenged is far superior to some of their rust buckets. This is not why this site was setup. I, along with many others, shouldn't have to tolerate this type of behavior.
I would be interested in hearing from everyone else on this subject...
Soupy

Scotty left this world today at 330+ MPH winning a race at his home town track
He left this world a legend in funny car racing. He has to many accomplishments in his 46 years with us to list
Ive seen a lot of tough men cry today but racing will continue on tomorrow and somehow with heavy hearts and I'm sure the winner will dedicate the race to scotty and there will be tears of joy for the winner and I am also certain that that is what scott would want.
We all know the risks and we will continue to take them because racing gets into your blood and once your hooked its hard to just stop. Remember scott had retired twice but returned because he loved it so much
My prayers will go out to his family and crew but I will also be watching the races because thats what the race fans should do
it would be our best way to honor scotty
Heavy Hearted
Roger

Last week I went into the Drs. at Cleveland clinic, Well things did not go well ..I've been here for 4 days now

I'll miss my dads VA service of burial I did not want my mom to go dragged out anymore. I

have so far 6 things they are working on..And I'm asking for your prays once again. Mondays surgery I have a 50/50 change of being paralized waist down. hugs to all of you I'll be here quite a time. My laptop just got to me. I cannot go through all questions, some of the things are very hard to explain.. I've cried I've prayed..I'm extremely scared. I send hugs! with care Susie

Before this all began I was working on a dvd with music studying also the largest longest bridge in US being built by my cabin there are approximately 30 others smaller older newer rebuilt...This one is 1/8 of a mile long.
Oh guess you all get to see me now at my age......I'm 48 going to be 49 in 3 months....I'm so frightened ..its all in your prayewrs and my faith now. God Bless many hugs!!

NASCAR official killed in accident near Charlotte
By Sporting News Wire Service
April 10, 2008
03:38 PM EDT
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HUNTERSVILLE, N.C. -- Brienne Davis, a 28-year-old NASCAR official, died Tuesday night as a result of an automobile accident on Interstate 77 in Huntersville, N.C., north of Charlotte.

Heading northbound, Davis drove onto the shoulder in a pickup truck and collided with another vehicle, according to reports from the scene. Her truck flipped after the impact and split into two. Davis was airlifted to a local hospital where she later died.

Davis paved the way for females within NASCAR with her knowledge and no-holds-barred attitude. Originally from Louisiana, she entered the sport in 2002 after attending an automotive program in Houston. Once she relocated to the Charlotte area, she began working as an engine builder for Dale Earnhardt Inc. She joined NASCAR in 2004 as an official in the Sprint Cup Series inspecting carburetors.

"She had a lot of expertise," NASCAR spokesperson Ramsey Poston said Wednesday. "She was an important part of the team. As a female, even more so. It is rare to have female inspectors, though we hope to have more. Her presence as a person and a friend to all of the officials in the garage is going to be missed."

John Darby, who oversees Cup officials as director of the series, could not be reached Wednesday. Darby, along with most NASCAR officials, was en route to Phoenix, Ariz., for this weekend's Sprint Cup and Nationwide series races at Phoenix International Raceway, where Davis was scheduled to work.

"She was someone who did her job very well," Poston said from NASCAR's office in Daytona Beach, Fla. "She was also someone who was quick with a smile. She loved Johnny Cash and Elvis. A lot of times if people saw her in the garage, she would be wearing an Elvis belt. That all will be missed."

Davis spent nearly three seasons working in the engine department at DEI. She worked alongside Richie Gilmore, now the vice president of motorsports for the company. Davis joined DEI during NASCAR's early efforts into diversity, and Gilmore said she distinguished herself in the male-dominated field.

"She demanded respect," Gilmore said. "The guys knew if they crossed her, she would whip them. She commanded that with her work ethic. She didn't want any special treatment. She carried her workload. She ran our teardown department and helped set up a lot of the organization that we still have today.

"The big thing with her, when she came [to DEI] she brought a lot of energy. She was such a team player, a great person to work with. It's such a huge loss at such a young age. Everybody here is saddened today, and we miss her."

The End

WE WILL MISS HER

FOR A PICTURE OF BRIEN GO TO nascar.com

Well I am back! I have not recovered all the way and will be seeing metro trauma center a lot from my stroke right before dad passed away but thank God I have very little side effects left from it...Balance is the main one, but I'm a blonde so I can get away with that especially when I pass by one of those great looking guys ...LOL
I will be released from back surgery center surgeon in end of July. But I'm way ahead of their way of going about things. Can't keep a good lady down!
Went to two shows the first two this year and already placed a first!!! Neat trophy its a cast metal one with three deminsional look....
I had the hood finally matched it was a tuff match...a 1295.00 lesson, replaced the carpeting and the floor mats felt they had their wear, I could not think of anything else to add except a locking gas cap, and a AIR CLEANER COVER MADE FOR THE 62 VETTE....ha!
Well I sure hope to meet some new friends now again and keep in touch with the others.....So Hello again and Hugs to all!
Susie

Happy Birthday Tina, wishing you many, many more to come!!
Soupy

Just wondering how many have a mailbox designed of a car or another item of great interest to them? Well here is mine!

won't be on line onlly one more time possibly for the next two-weeks...
FYI my father has passed away. It was a very hard last day. He is finally at peace.
I'm glad it happened now and not when I was in surgery the burial itself will be later some day with family, after I recover. My mother has not decided on burial. My mother is taking it fairly well it has been very hard on all of us the last month.
Talk to you someday later my surgery preop is Tuesday and surgery is Thursday. Hopefully nothing will stop it they found I had a mini stoke sometime about a month ago they are doing ct scan on brain etc first to find out whats happening. The mini stroke was found by eye neurologist on routine test yesterday. I knew something happened I lost all my strength and could not get out of bed for about 3 days or a week and I was falling into walls etc balance and forgot everything. But I chalked it off to nerves. Well I hope it was just a nerve problem Wish me well I will be laid up for about 30 days after surgery. But at least I know my dad is watching out for me now from Heaven.
Hugs to all.....
Susie

Today, John McCain announced that he would quit the presidential race and move to the Green Zone and become the Admiral of Iraq.

Replacing McCain will be Mitt Romney, who was running a very strenuous campaign until he quit in favor of McCain earlier this year.

It is reported that Romney, who now drives a Gremlin - retooled with a Hydrogen Fuel Cell, will announce that the Rambler will become the official car of the United States and that production on reproductions will start immediately.

Romeny is confident of victory. He has received the endorsement of the RSL AMC (Retired and Still Living American Motor Company employees) now based in Boca Raton, FL.

P.S. George Romney, Mitt's Father, was President of AMC (American Motor Company) which produced the Rambler, followed by the initial success of the Gremlin. The Gremlin was introduced on April 1, 1970. John McCain's father and grandfather were both admirals.

Today is April Fools Day. !!!! :-)

Check out this internet site. They have two pretty fun videos and give you options on how you can express you disgust with the price of gas.

http://www.nozzlerage.com/

Yippy!!! Enjoy a day without rain and two bottles of wine then hear your name being called for first place!! Out of 105 in my class...253 in whole show, the wine was great, the food was great, met some awesome people ...I'm a people person did you notice?? and I'm finishing another wine now...PLACED 1ST!!!!

A little short quiz to see how well you've paid attention in life.

http://www.ol.../thinktst.htm

It's not car related, but pretty interesting... I did 22 out of 25...

Soupy

I didn't know that groups were for voting challenges I Thought groups were for people of the same taste in cars could get together in forums and talk about their cars and learn info from other members and things like that.
I joined a challenge group to learn their side of the challenges and what i learned was that no one else votes on the challenges. there is about 40 people on here that vote regularly and they control all the challenges.
What happens is when some one joins they are bombarded by challenges from these 40 people with about 5 cars apiece and they accept challenges they think they should win and two days latter they are getting their ass kicked in all challenges
so they quit.
they get gun shy and wont accept any challenges from anyone. they would like to compete but they feel the rules aren't fair. and as long as this is allowed to happen their not fair.
the other problem i see is that when they accept a challenge they only vote on their challenge and no one else's if they do start voting on all the challenges then the challenge group invites them in and recruits them and they emediately begin winning and the group has a new member
thats why i say that people should have to vote on a certain number of challenges before they can accept a challenge this would force people to vote and would lead to a leveler playing field
if someone joins and gets hit with 5 challenges right off the bat then they have to vote on 10 challenge for each one they want to accept then thats 50 votes out there to help overcome the 40 votes from the group
and if you do this i believe a lot oi the people that want to challenge but wont because of the groups will go back to challenging thus adding more votes to help level the playing field till the challenge groups finally leave or break up.
I went to a car show in Ruston La. this summer in all i spent over $300.00 by time i was back home and i didn't mind not winning but there were a lot of great cars there that didn't win because of the good ole boy judging and picking all their friends cars if you ever go to a show like that then you want go back. right now that is what we have her on motortopia is good ole boys voting all their friends and passing over some really great cars.
The show our club puts on has drive through judging and the same judges judge all cars entered into the show in two days i'm president of the club and i don't know any of the judges we have one couple responsible for bringing in the judges from out of town and putting them up in a motel away from the car people
we do not enter our club cars in the show we don't want someone driveing all the way from texas in a hot rod to come to our show just to have a local car win i promise you that won't happen.
We try to be as fair as we can on judging and its an open show just like on here cars trucks bikes hot rods all years and makes in all we give out over 150 trophy's but we have people coming back year after year and some have past show winners that don't even get their cars judged because they just like coming to our show because there's no bickering about the judges or anything they always have a good time
this is what motortopia has to do is get control of the good ole boys and replace them with some sort of fair playing field and get the people back involved in challenges.
I would also like you to add classes to our cars we could put the class for the car when we add a car and if i have a muscle car i could find other muscle cars easier.
i hope i havent overstepped my boundary's here
Roger

Hi All,
I am "Happy" to report that it was another successful weekend here in sunny South Florida with beautiful weather, a great car cruise and two fantastic car shows.
Friday evening started it all off with the usual cruise-in at the Tower Shops in Davie, followed by a bite to eat with a few of the guys at the Falcon Pub.
Saturday morning I was up early to head on over to the S.A.B.A. Car Show on Andrews Avenue in Ft. Lauderdale. S.A.B.A. stands for the South Andrews Business Association and they put on a great show from 9:00 until 4:00 with 142 cars and trucks attending.
Saturday evening was dinner out at Stevie B's in Weston - an awesome place for ribs!!!
Sunday I was up early once again and headed over to the BIG show. The last real car show of the year, and the biggest. I was out of the house at 6:15 and headed over to meet up with a few buddies to drive on over to the show. It is held at the Festival Marketplace Mall in Pompano Beach and was attended by 610 cars and trucks. I was joined by 12 other members of the Got Muscle? Car Club along with my girl Tina from MFI. The day was awesome, although a little tiring, what with all the walking around...
I wrapped up Sunday at a small cruise-in at a Bar & Grille by the name of Zo's and was finally home and in bed at 11:30...
God I hope this week goes slow enough to get caught up at the office, yet quick enough to get to the weekend...

Dave Szczublewski
Weston, FL
www.soupy28.com
www.ban-one.com
www.motortopia.com/soupy/cars

THE BEGINNING OF THE END FOR THE MUSCLE CAR ERA FOR ME WAS IN MAY OF 1969
MY FIRST COUSIN KIETH BOOTH HAD JUST GRADUATED HIGH SCHOOL AND HAD BEEN ACCEPTED TO LOUISIANA BIBLE COLLEGE TO STUDY TO BE A MINISTER. AFTER CHURCH ON SUNDAY THEY WERE GOING TO HAVE A CHURCH PICNIC AT FORD HILL TO HONOR HIM AND OTHERS FROM HIS CHURCH THAT HAD GRADUATED HIGH SCHOOL.
THE MINISTERS SON ALSO GRADUATED AND WAS GOING GO TO THE SAME COLLEGE.THE MINISTER HAD BOUGHT HIM A BRAND NEW 1969 GTO JUDGE AND SUPPRISED HIM THAT MORNING AFTER CHURCH
WELL OF COURSE ALL HIS FRIENDS HAD TO RIDE WITH HIM TO THE PIC NIC SO 5 OF THE BOYS GOT IN TO THE NEW CAR
KIETH WAS SEATED ON THE BACK RIGHT SIDE.
WHEN THEY LEFT THE CHURCH AUNT SIS AND UNCLE ALFRED WERE BEHIND THEM THEY WERE NOT SPEEDING.
THE ROAD THEY WERE ON WAS BUILT UP KINDA LIKE A LEVEE CROSSING A SWAMP
THE RIGHT FRONT TIRE ON THE CAR BLEW OUT AND THE CAR CAREENED OFF THE ROAD AND FLIPPED ONE TIME AND CAME TO A STOP 4 OF THE KIDS GOT OUT OF THE CAR AND NONE WERE SERIOUSLY HURT. BUT KIETH WAS ON THE GROUND AT THE FOOT OF THE LEVEE THAT THE ROAD WAS ON HE WAS TALKING AND MOVING HIS HANDS WHEN HIS MOTHER GOT THERE BUT HE LATER DIED IN HIS MOTHERS ARMS WHILE WAITING FOR AN AMBULANCE
THE LOCAL DEALER THAT PREPPED THE CAR FOR DELIVERY HAD PUT WAY TO MUCH AIR IN THE TIRES
CAUSING THE BIAS TIRE TO BLOW THE HEADLINE IN THE LOCAL PAPER THE NEXT MORNING READ KILLER MUSCLE CARS TAKE ANOTHER LIFE. CAR OR OPERATION HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH IT.

I wanted to do more. I wanted to help.

But, I could only stand back as our brilliant engineers worked to find the cyberproblem that was keeping Motortopia from loading up for many of you around the world. I just had to stand back and let them work.

We did a lot this week to upgrade the Motortopia data center. In our new world class location, we are getting ready for new developments at Motortopia. But, the last week, well, gave us all a cyberheadache.

The new data center is working great! But the gettin' there was a bit of a challenge.

My usual approach is NOT to blame other. We should all look at our own actions first, and take responsible action to fix the problems. But, I must say, that our team did a great job. Upgraded a data center in record time, and got things all hooked up with multiple backbone providers. And most things worked, but may of you could still not get to Motortopia.

We discovered some problems with a large upstream internet backbone provider. Someone there finally cared and we go this fixed.

We're back, but, oh what cyberheadache.

Thank you all for being online, sending in reports worldwide, and encouraging us all along this week.

Ok, back to bed to get some rest. Just checking to make sure the routes are working.

Motortopia is still here and goin strong.

Thank you, all my Motortopia friends!

David

A friend passed this one along to me. i just sold my boat earlier this year, but I live on a lake. So, I have been thinking about cars and boats a lot.

And, it seems this is a perfect matched pair. A Corvette Boat.

Offered by Mailbu Boats,this could be a dream present. Hey Father's Day is coming up ;-). I'll talk with my kids.

A quick note to all my friends here on Motortopia. I really enjoy reading your letters whether they come directly to my email or through the motortopia site. I would like to say. "Happy Valentines Day to all of you and know that I thought of my friends here today" I'm on my way to spend the day with my mom and dad yesterday ws a very poor day with both, mom is losing weight with worry and shaking more with parkensons due to the emotional toll it is taking on her. Dad is awake approximately 45 minutes to an hour now only ..during the day. He has quit eating he may take some applesauce with his 33 pills but he won't eat anymore his eyes are lifeless. Thank you to all who have listened or read my letters, its been my release from the reality of lfe here.

I hope you enjoy this photo as much as I do. It was taken at Christmas it is my dad and my little boy..(my little son is 6'3" 200 pounds and he works out all the time runs always, very sports-minded and is a honor roll student or a Deans list student at times in Industrial management with chemical degree background, he will be 27 soon) . He will graduate in June of 2009 , yes he like others goofed off a bit in the beginning. Has quite the resume now with ~ helping the cancer fight raising money through student teaching at the college he attends. So anyone looking in their business in the future please let me know he is looking were the money and insurance will take him and thats his goal.
*My father has lost about 55 -65 pounds since that photo. And doesn't even look like the same man. He is very proud of his grandson it's great to see the success your children have accomplished and I am pleased that dad has seen my son in his full element of happiness towards a wonderful future with lots of loans to pay back...(lol) He is not too proud to start at the lower end of a job and learn more he speaks that you can never learn enough.
Hugs to all
Susie

A few of you have been writing to me and I want you to know I really appreciate your prayers and concerns. Life has been so tuff on me the last few months. Last year at this time my sister in law (my dear dear friend, sissy) was just recovering from a coma from a car accident. Seems like Dec, Jan, Feb are my challanging months.
Dad is paralized on one side now his cancer has twisted into the vertebrea of his neck. Of course it is everywhere in every organ as it is. I don't think and I kind of hope because I watch the pain that it will not drag on another few months.
I have been back and forth got opinions in Colorado and back here at Cleveland Cllinic I have still not decided on what to do with my health issue. I'm very s