Kahunaville wrap up....your thoughts are welcome...

[fireberd350]

Before I go on with my long rant I'd like to first say that the TR turnout was one of our best. I met some new faces and saw some awesome rides. If it wasn't for MAGNA that day would have been a complete waste of time....on to the rant...

For those of you who did not make it out here's what you missed.

<Begin Rant>
This was my lonnng day:

-Get up at 5am to get the car ready b/c its been raining all week so this was the only time I had to work on it. (Didn't even finish, but had plenty of time to finish before the cruise, more on that later)

-Leave my house at 7:30 to meet the caravan off 95. Get half way there and realize I don't have my ticket for the show. It specifically said you need the ticket on the letter they sent so I fly home to get it only to find it missing. 10 min(and a huge paper mess) later I'm on my way again w/ my all-so-important ticket in hand.

-8:20am arrive at Kahunaville to find my front parking light bezel is hanging by a few threads by one screw and my blackout is missing.

-9am get in line for breakfast that I thought was free(thanks herb)

-9:15am girlfriend goes to ATM b/c we realize its not free and I didn't bring any money up w/ me. I did bring my parking ticket though thinking they would need proof I was registered to receive my free breakfast. Not quite....

-9:45am we finally get to the front of the line (after 45 min of waiting, ask Benny about that one too) to get our food which cost $5/person plus extra for a drink or bagel.

-9:48am I am done eating b/c it was, well to put it nicely, not good.

-10:45am the "waterfront cruise" begins....2 and a half hours after we were told to be there.

-Since we are all in the back of the pack we didn't actually start moving until like 11:20 or so, maybe later I didn't even want to look at the time.

-The "waterfront cruise" was well over 30 min long and we traveled a total distance of less than 2 miles. Basically we drove around the stadium and outlet store parking lots and back to Kahunaville. Did I mention how hot it was? Special thanks to Banning for the halftime entertainment in the outlet lot;)

There's still plenty more but I don't want to get into the nitty gritty of my day.


Other Side notes:
-Did anyone see Dennis Gage come around back and even acknowledge our club?

-What was up with the Dennis Gage My Classic Car Restaurant that opened up (A.K.A. a pop up tent in the middle of the Kahunaville lobby.)

-The burnout contest was cancelled. Apparently b/c it was too over-crowded....hmmm maybe they should have checked to see if people were registered/had tickets before letting them in.

-I'm glad we filled out that registration and sent in the $5, it did a lot of good. I wonder who won in each class

-Oh and I got some serious sunburn.

<End Rant>

It's always a good time hanging out with the MAGNA crew but i was extremely disappointed with Kahunaville.

Feel free to share your own thoughts on the day.

Thanks again MAGNA

[FLR]

Steve, your right on all counts. I had a great time hanging with you guys. I especially liked the entertainment Banning put. What I didnt like was that so-called farce af a parade through Wilmington. All that wait to travel 9/10ths of a mile (I reset my trip odometer). And the whole time my car has no high speed fan. It damn near overheated. And when I clicked the scanmanster to th ATS, it was blinking "HOT" WTF? Anyway, Banning and I ate lunch at the Iron Hill Brewery; nice food there. Was hoping for another burnout contest, but oh well.

P.S. I heard that the Wilmington Police didnt want 600+ cars going on parade through the city. Stupid cops.

Anyway, at least it didnt rain, and I got to see some nice black Montes;)


Anyone want to chime in?


Scott

[87 WE2]

I felt the same way about the event, & cruise if you want to call it a cruise (more like a putt along). The best part was Banning working on his launch's / & bruning out in the lot before we left.

Maybe we should (anyone who would like too) e-mail Richie the Cruise master & express our opinon. Maybe to make him aware of the problem and better orginize the event's next time for future enjoyment. He does not have to know who we are specifially or that we are from Magna (we don't want to get a bad rap) just an e-mail to express our opinion in a polight manner.

My other opinion would be no more deck. Next time we attend an event down there we park out front were the cars can be seen. People did come out back, but not like they did out front.

What do they think we are some kinda tuner club

Had fun with all the MAGNA guy's, nice meeting all you new guy's

[87 WE2]

Cruise Master Richie's e-mail: rbryan@kahunaville.com

[PhillyTurboSix]

Funny you posted this Steve. I e-mailed and called Frank to let him know how it went and it almost sounded word for word like your post. I love to bring the car out and hang with you guys anytime I possibly can but I too thought this would be really cool special event (even used a vacation day!) but it was far from that. The thing that really got me is when we have Magna meets and it's somewhere there is no car show and we all come to hang out and shoot the bull and eat some food that's awesome.. but when we are at a "show" or "cruise" I'd like all of our cars to get the maximum exposer as possible to let others know about our club, the amount of these cars that are around, and for others with GN's in any condition to bring em out and join in. Well I was watching almost all day and I think a handful of people came back and saw our cars. We had a great amount of cars and some ones that don't come out all that often and the exposer at this show was horrible. Like you guys said we should have said F em and went and made a huge line in the front parking lot. We sat there all that time to be put on a back deck that sucked IMO. Like I said was great to see all the Turbo Buicks and shoot the **** with you guys but for being at a car show all those hours.. the exposer we like to get was the worst. Thanks for posting that e-mail link Ed.. I think I'll drop him a line as well. I've been to a ton of shows this year and that was the most poorly set up show yet. Don't think I'll be at that location again. I would have been happier meeting you guys for lunch in some parking lot somewhere.

[Hedzilla]

i just think its kinda messed up that after everyone paid an equal price, they realized they didnt have enough parking, and put all the GN's in the back, on a deck, w/o exposure.

most of the people i talked to who went to the show were like "i didnt see any grand nationals there......where were they at?"

yea, not cool. and that cruise was BS. shoulda called it "cattle chute to the show".

[BoostedSix215]

Felt the same way. When i seen we had the deck i thought it would've put us on some kind of special display. I was never down there before and i didnt know we would be back in no-mans-land. Next time we should try to get a line in the parking lot out front so more than 15 people could see our cars. Other than that, it was a good time hanging out with everyone. Looking forward to next month.

Nick

[1970gsx]

I agree with everything posted above. But if we do Kahunaville again, I suggest we don't put a club affiliation on the registration so we don't get stuck on the deck. We can just line up together before entering the show, so we can still park together.

[frankg]

I got there around 1:30 pm and i didn't see one turbo buick???? Where you guys still there?? I didn't walk around back so maybe i missed you guys. Frank

[1970gsx]

Yes, we were around the back on the deck. Don't worry, nobody else knew where we were either. I believe most of us left around 3:30-4:00.

[racemybuick]

Hey all. When my brother and I finally made it to Kahunaville (after 1 hour tour of wilmington thanks to directions that fly out windows randomly), we arrived at exactly 11:45. I looked for over 1 hour for the Turbo Buicks, and finally found a guy who knew exactly where they were... At that point, my brother and I found Dennis Gage, who kandidly posed for a picture (to be posted very shortly). We did mention the Buicks to him, but he was whisked away quite abruptly for another car interview, and then left the show entirely by 2 pm, to be neither seen nor heard of again. When I found the buicks, only Herb and Aaron and a couple other guys were there with their cars, but many were not (understandable with the lack of people on the deck and the crappy bands playing too).

Sooooo....My fiance, my brother and I, ventured out again to see some of the nice cars that were there, and saw that awesome corvette inside the big building. After that, we saw the buicks one last time, and said good bye to what few guys were left, and we headed off to the highway. I followed someone's GN out with jersey tags to the toll plaza, and from there it was 65mphs nonstop. The ride was fair on the way down, and I had a great time looking at some of the custom cars, gettin idea for the buicks back home...so, all in all, aside from the crappy management, the show was very large, nice, busy, and expensive! Did anyone know that there was a soda machine in the arcade that sold bottles of pepsi, mt. Dew, and all that stuff for 1.25? lol...I found it after paying 6 bux for three damn sierra mists....a-holes. Well, it was nice,a nd there were some damn nice cars there, including all the buicks. Glad to see some of you guys! I will post that pic of dennis and us hopefully tonight. Hope Kirbans is a little more eventful!

John

[TurboRegal84]

I didn't really want to post...but on our way home my GF and I spoke about the Event.

For some ODD reason our FIRST meeting at Kahunaville was a BLAST! It was fun...Burnout Contest, Organized, and just an all out good time.

Yesterday it was nice to see the Magna members, and Pretty much the most exciting part of the day was the cruise at 8:00AM from the McDonalds.

However I think the 3+ Hours of waiting in a parking lot for a 'Parade' was down right a waste of time! After standing around for 3 hours in the hot humidity with the sun beating down on us....we went for a 'parade' thru the outlets of Delaware! (ADVERTISING!) At one point when we were sitting there my GF looked over and said jokingly "You can let me out here...I'll be at the outlets". Thankfully Matt said "Forget this" and blew off the cruise.

I think after the long Parking lot wait, and the 'parade' ALL of us were a bit tired of the heat. Finally after we got to the deck I got a KahunaBurger....Which again wasn't quite as good as the one I had at the Magna meeting before. After that I walked around the car show which suffered from LACK OF SPACE and organization.

This show was a PRE-REGISTERED show only....
Why were cars parked in the isle?
Why not count the spaces for all the cars and use the method of parking that was on the parking ticket that we all got?

Needless to say there were ALOT of nice cars there, and I feel several of the cars were just 'Lost' in the mess of cars. I felt it was alot of cars crammed into one spot. Why not use the full boundries of the parking lot instead of roping off half of it?

I had the chance to walk up to Dennis Cage, and speak with him. I told him I am a member of the 'Grand National' club, and he pretty much said 'I am planning to go look'. After that he was talking to someone next to him, and pretty much ignored me. I then asked him if he had gotten my E-mail that I sent him. (I sent him a long E-mail about our Club, and how much all of the club members were excited about getting the chance to be on TV.) He said "NO".

I think Im done my rant....On the positive side of things...It was nice seeing all of you, and I am glad to finally took the GNX out for a ride that was longer than 2 miles.

[FlyinGN]

jeeze maybe I didn't miss anything..

[T-Type twin]

Hi everyone...I'm a new kid to your group and I am in the process of joining MAGNA. (I am RACEMYBUICK's twin brother). He and I had a somewhat enjoyable time at the event, but really only until we found the buicks that we traveled to see. It was fun getting a quick photo-op with this Gage character, and checkin out some sweet hot-rods, but other than that, I was pretty disappointed along with that rest of you with the poor organization and sloppy handling of the entire event. I look forward to bringing my buick to the club get-togethers but I would have felt extremely ripped- off if I was parked on a deck hidden behind the building after paying to get in and not getting any exposure. unfortunately, I didn't have my buick running to bring down, but I will voice my opinion non-the-less from the spectators point-of-view to that wonderful(note the sarcasm) event supervisor. I have been to a couple of the buick club meets with my brother and I look forward to many more. I just wanted to say that this was the best turn-out I have seen yet and it gives me more motivation to get mine on the road ASAP. Thanks for the fun guys and soon enough I'll be looking for tons of tips(other than get an intercooler) for my Hot Air 84 "T"

[J Banning]

Guys, I agree with you entirely...

1) It was nice, as always, to get together and see everyone.

2) The event organization was a MESS. Why did I show up at 8:20am? Where was the "cruise" to? And why would they put the largest grouping of a particular car type (some of which are VERY rare) all the way on the back deck, where NO ONE knows they are there?


With that being said...

It is very nice for Kahunaville to host events like this, and for that we should be thankfull. However, there are definately areas of the event that could use improvement. I'd like to contact the event organizers and tell them what we think. Please keep the thread clean and your comments well thought out. I'd like to reference it when that happens.

Take care,
-Banning.