Pig Juices and Ribbons of Smoke...

Car clubs are perceived at times to be ruffians that just want to race around, and are often overlooked for the good they do for a community. The Shafters in Fallbrook, SoCal, do something quite unusual for their local community every New Years Day.

The backstory on the Shafters goes like this.  The Shafters started in 1949 with members like Dode Martin and a few others. In the early years they were quite active with reliability runs and drag racing at some of the local tracks, along with building rods out of salvaged parts. But, as life changed for many and time went on, the club almost disappeared, but thanks to a few members it has been revived to be an extremely active group.

Today, one of their members, Mike Hayden, a noted engine and drag car builder has his own private concrete launch strip planted between his house and shop. The strip was built to test cars for his customers and himself, and it makes a perfect venue for the Shafter's annual New Year's "Burnout" party.

Racers arrived from as far away as Orange County and the crowd grew to over 200 with the action starting about 10 a.m. and breaking around lunch when the cops showed up. After lunch it restarted and ran until the black and whites returned to the scene to try to kill the vibe. However, it's pretty hard to put a damper on the mood when these guys get together to have a good time in this nonalcoholic event for a worthy cause. The annual "Burnout" party is held to collect money for the "Wounded Warriors Project" and local groups on Camp Pendleton, that it does. As mentioned earlier, the lunch break is not your normal lunch break. It's a bitchen' belly busting BBQ with Tri-tip and a pig feast put on by Shafters member George Sevelle, with his family providing most of the food along with many of the lady Shafters cooking up their best. But, there was more...hot dogs cooked up on a cart and burgers were grilled for others.

Several Marines from the nearby base volunteered to do parking, crowd control, and help arrange the car show with many sweet rides. To top it off, there was a PA system and music provided to supplement the ribbons of smoke rolling off the hides, as cars made passes with cheers and smiles exploding on the faces of onlookers.

All in all, it was one more wide open, full throttle, sweetheart kinda' day with the Shafters. When it was all counted, they had raised over $5,000 for their Charities. Not bad for one of those ruffian car clubs...

Our hosts, the Haydens.

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