SAAC 23—Charlotte Motor Speedway, 1998

July 28, 1998: It’s been over two weeks since I returned from the “right” coast, from my trek to cover SAAC’s annual big bash. Customarily I manage to provide for you my show/track/race photographic/feature coverage up onto our Cobra Country within, say, 3 or 4 days of a given climactic event. Couldn’t cut it this time. Sigh. Those of you who’ve encountered me at recent track events have noticed that I’ve been been hobbling along with a significant limp. Defective left knee (meniscus terribilus, legus painus, meines Beinus schmerzus), you see. On Friday of the event and only a day after I landed in The Queen City (Charlotte, of Mecklenburg), I finally got a schedule for surgery… early on Saturday morning. Sigh. I arrived home in Los Angeles at 1:00am on Saturday, July 14, and at 7:30am I was on the operating table at Henry Mayo Hospital. You get my drift: putting this SAAC-23 coverage together necessarily got prioritized to back burner.

Most of this article consists of photos and brief captions (or no caption at all), since that’s the only way I’ll manage to put this (show coverage) challenge to rest ‘fore I collapse. That caveat aside, SAAC-23 was one heckuva blast, a tribute to Rick Kopec, Howard Pardee, Ken Eber and all the other standard-bearers in the club that choreographed it all. SAAC is top-notch–one of the finest motorcar-enthusiast clubs on the planet. And a special tip of the cowboy hat to (Shelby team driver) Bob Johnson and his wife Nancy, who always grace the annual Shelby bashes with their unfailingly cheerful presence, and to William Jeanes, Editor-in-Chief of Hachette Filipacchi’s Classic Automobile Register magazine, and an eminently entertaining guest speaker at the convention banquet. And to (Mustang Quarterly Editor) Bob McClurg, who’s been diligently covering things Ford- and Cobra- and Mustang-related since before the fall of Fort Sumter, even through challenges that would’ve daunted a lesser soul.