The Shelby American (Winter 2021)

Shelby American magazine packed full of so many amazing articles. I was officially hooked and my desire to eventually own a Shelby was greater than ever. Joining SAAC included meeting many other great people with the same if not more passion than I have. One day Hans had sent me a WASAAC club email about the Lemay Concours show taking place in 2014 in Tacoma. Naturally I thought it would be a good idea to copy and paste that email into a post on the forum. What could it hurt? The more the merrier right? Little did I know that Mark Ho- vander, President of the WASAAC club, was planning to post that same email about the upcoming concours show but I had beat him to it. To show his appreciation for my interest, Mark called me and invited my Dad and I to a private shop tour that was planned the day before the Lemay show. Wow, another amazing opportunity that re- ally changed my life. During this private shop tour, I con- tinued to meet so many great people in the Shelby world. I not only met Mark, but also Chuck Cantwell, Jerry Schwarz, Jim Marietta, John Atzbach, John Brown and Jim Wicks. We were able to tour Gary McKay’s collection full of 427 Galaxies, Fairlanes, Cobra Jet Mustangs, Boss Mustangs and many other fabulous High Perform- ance Fords. Then the tour led us to John Atzbach’s collection which was out-of-this-world Shelby overload. The coolest part of the entire day was how every single person my Dad and I met were real, sincere and great people. This single act of kindness by Mark Hovander, inviting my Dad and I, hooked me to all of this Shelby hys- teria. These people made for a great weekend and as time went on, I keep learning that there are so many more great people in this club. Not to men- tion, a year later at the Bellevue Mus- tang Round-up, John let me drive 6S2378. I am still flying on Cloud Nine from that, five years later. The following year, 2015, my wife Lynda, parents, friends John Riches, Austin Morgan and Brian and Cindy Aust attended the Monterey Car week to enjoy the 50 Years of the GT350 cel- ebration. I saw Mark and John exhibit 5S003 and 5R002 on the lawn at Peb- ble Beach; possibly the only time we will ever see Mustangs at that event. It was an amazing week of car over- load. There were so many cool cars everywhere we went. Shelbys were driving all over Monterey; it was amazing to see them in normal traffic. There were Cobras parked on the side streets and roaring all over the place. I was completely overwhelmed and en- joyed every minute of it. From walking the pits at Laguna Seca or seeing the Corkscrew first hand, then being able to talk with Peter Brock and Chuck Cantwell several times; I was just like a little kid meeting Michael Jordan or Kobe Bryant. I was meeting more and more forum friends such as Bob Gaines and Don Johnson as well as new friends like Brent Galloway from South Carolina. The positive experi- ence of Shelby people just continues everywhere: proof that Shelby folks are some of the best people to know and hang out with. In 2016 I finally joined my local SAAC region, SAAC NW in Portland, Oregon. The club has always been very positive and open to me even without owning a Shelby. Enthusiasm is all that is required and they live by that. SAAC NW has many more great folks involved and they have been ex- tremely friendly in support of my Shelby passion: Brian and Lisa Bog- don, Fred and Gayle Gehring, Dan Jones, Ray and Ann Clack, Dave Lennartz, Gary Bartman, Steve Thomas, Paul Blanchard and so many others. By this time I had moved on to a 1966 Mustang fastback and was building it as a “Day 2” 1960s-type hot rod. I had added some Shelby parts like a Cobra intake, S2MS 715 carb, exhaust from 5S003 from its previous R-model configuration and a few other minor modifications. The SAAC NW group gave me a very warm welcome even though my car was not a true Shelby. This made me very comfort- able and happy to be a part of this group. While I was working on that ‘66 fastback I continued to read and par- ticipate in the SAAC forum and the discussions from that group helped me figure out all sorts of issues. I also came to know that Brant Halterman’s Virginia Classic Mustang is a great source for parts and locally I would buy a lot of parts from Ray Mason at R&S Mustang in Albany, Oregon. Both sources were a huge part of moving that car further along in the process. All this time working on the ‘66, Hans was right there as well, guiding me with different ideas and knowledge on different aspects of the car. The two of us continued our long discussions about this car just the same as any other topic. 2016 and 2017 blew by as fast as they could and before I knew it, we were in 2018. SAAC’s 43rd convention The SHELBY AMERICAN Hans exercising 6S2339. Little did I know I would someday become it’s owner. Winter 2021 60