The purpose of this blog is simple and easy. I wanted to give a back story to how our car club thing began from my perspective...
The MoonShiners C.C. is a traditional car club. We aren't going to be to picky about it, because after all we are cars guys, and everyone is different (just like snowflakes), but we believe in tradition, in heritage, in proven cool.
As the fearless leader of the Club, it seems appropriate to explain my past. I have always been into cars, and specifically big body 50's customs. You can thank Ghostbusters for warping my young mind with that big beautiful 59 Cadillac in the movie. Like a lot of car guys, I grew up around them. Pretty standard recipe to raise a Gearhead, with a soft spot for land yachts.
It wasn't until I was around 12 or so that my natural instinct of looking up to big brother introduced me to the culture of hot rods and customs. The reeeeal deep historic old school rockabilly hot rod "Kulture". My obsession has only deepened.
In high school I drew pictures of Rat Fink and flying eyeball headed drivers in chopped and lowered hot rod Ford's. Designed flamed paint jobs for cars I thought I would never owned, and basically didn't pay to much attention to anything but cars. At the same time with the guidance of backing of my Dad, my gearhead big brother, and the talent and teaching of "Shooter" (pinstriper extraordinaire) , I got to really see what driving a traditional styled hot rod was all about. Meet "Anabelle"... 1954 Buick Special Mild Custom
Started by my Brother John and my Dad,
Finished (a that point) by Shooter and a 16 year old version of me.
Now, driving around in this car at 17 had its benefits, and short comings. One of the best parts about it was the people you meet. Its hard not to look at a car like this these days. Especially with every modern car looking like a river rock. Thus, I always had people asking things, telling me stories, introducing me to their own view of what I myself was learning. The old ways. I loved the stories and wanted to know more history of hot rods at every opportunity.
In my hunger for hot rod car themed stories, I became ever more interested in the illegal whiskey world known as "moonshining". Not that I wanted to make it at the time, I just wanted to find stories, about running from the Revenue Agents in hopped up jalopies. There is something really cool and pure American about it. Little did I know at the time what Sheridan County, as well as the rest of Wyoming had a whole hell of a lot of stories... just gotta ask the right people. The name MoonShiners was stuck in my head from that point on.
Meanwhile, the idea of a club spun around in my teenage mind. A couple friends and I, namely Nate and Toad, would talk about it and even considered it official. We were the Moonshiners beta 1.0. We drove around town and cruised the main drag in our old school hot rods, truly enjoying something that was no longer normal practice. We in a sense where following in the footsteps of the old timers. We were a high school car club and we had fun. Youth has a way of tricking you. I had alot to learn before shit was "official".
Years go by and I continued to learn. Not always the easy way, but learn I did. A few years my car sat, broken, and untouched as life lead me down different paths. My passion for traditional custom cars only got deeper. I always tried to follow a couple important things along the way.
1. If your going to do it, do it right.
2. Open your ears, and shut your mouth. (especially around old guys you can learn from. which is hard when you're young and think you know everything)
Which leads me to this point. I returned to Sheridan (via Denver), finished some goals, and got back to my Anabelle. I found a shop to call my own and learned by doing, until a fresh hot rod power train brought my beloved car back to life...
In the back ground of this several different things were happening.
One, I was discovering the car club history of Sheridan. Which is deep, mind you, all the way back to the early fifties. The Conquistadors, followed by several others thru the years until it seemed they no longer existed but in local lore.
Two, I was meeting people, and reconnecting with old friends, that shared not just a passion for cars, but a respect for vintage hot rodding. Guys who in different ways had the same mind set towards keeping the spirit of tradition alive in the modern day.
Three, I had a goal to share my passion with people. I wanted to put together a car show, were people could see why for the last ten+ years a few punk kids have been spending all their free time playing with old junk cars. I wanted to have a car show be fun again, minus the high dollar, built by someone else, soulless kit car garbage. I wanted people to see more of the made in the garage type cars, like they did in the past. I wanted to resurrect the car culture of the 50's and see people enjoy it like I do.
The combination of the three wasn't all to my credit. Tommy, My Brother John, Nate, Rusty, Shooter, and I had long talks about it. They all in different ways lead me to deciding it was time to take it serious. If we came together and formed the MoonShiners Car Club, we could achieve common goals, spread the knowledge that we learned for the old timers to the next generation, build and drive awesome vehicles, keep local history alive, and have a good damn time doing it.
At 25 years old, I have a lot to learn about how to run a club with such big ideas.
however, we have successfully accomplished the Car Show that I hoped for titled the Absaroka State Takeover, and plan to keep it going for years to come.
If all goes right we will only get better.
