Especially in Southern California, leisure time on weekends often revolves around people and their cars. Since summer in San Diego is almost always accompanied by great weather, organizers can plan outdoor events with confidence.

I belong to a particularly large, active car club called the San Diego Miata Club. We frequently drive our Miatas on runs in the countryside and beyond, but this past weekend many of us entered our Miatas in a car show.

The Main Street America Car Show does not play favorites. Hosted by the Corvette Owners Club of San Diego, all makes and models are welcome, and many were represented. The San Diego Miata Club has been participating in this car show for many years — so much so that our place on a hill has been nicknamed Miata Mountain.

The location was the gently rolling grounds of Embarcadero Marina Park North, on the shoreline of picturesque San Diego Bay. Across the bay lies Coronado, the Coronado Bay Bridge, the new Rady Shell at Jacobs Park (an outdoor concert venue) and ships of the U.S. Navy.

This car show served as a charity fundraiser for the benefit of the San Diego Center for the Blind. The goal was to raise $25,000.

Included in the event was a HUGE raffle, with raffle prizes worth thousands of dollars. This year the grand prize was a Ceramic Pro Package ($1,500 value), generously donated by SD Auto Salon. I really wanted to win that! Other prizes included two Pedego electric bike rentals ($400 value), green fees for four at Willow Brook Golf Course, USS Midway tickets (I won two!), portable BBQs and BBQ tool sets, three $80 Discount Tire certificates, Jafra cosmetics, Pampered Chef gifts, restaurant certificates from Yanni’s Bar & Grill, the Cohen Restaurant Group and Rubios … and so much more!

This is a very well-attended car show, with no day-of-show registrations. Registered cars are each assigned a reserved parking place, which can be with the registrant’s car club or with the other vehicles in their class.

This is a People’s Choice car show, where visitors and car show participants alike were invited to vote for their favorite vehicles (one ballot per person). Two awards were available to be won in each class, plus sponsor awards and a club participation award. The members of the host Corvette club — the Corvette Owners Club of San Diego — did not compete for this award, which was won by the San Diego Miata Club.

In addition, the 24 class winners from the previous year’s Main Street America Car Show were eligible to compete in this year’s Gold Class for the Best-of-Show award.

The list of classes reflects the wide variety of foreign and domestic vehicles in the show: pony, sports and muscle cars; Corvettes (of course), Miatas, Ford Thunderbirds, trucks and SUVs, lowriders, street rods and customs.

Lunch was provided to registrants. I ate mine seated on the shore of San Diego Bay, as pleasure boats and kayaks passed by.

This was a great way to spend the day. Do make plans to participate or attend next year.

This was a particularly busy weekend for the San Diego Miata Club. On Sunday we met for our summer picnic. Lunch — delicious Mexican food — was catered. Afterwards there was a water balloon tossing competition. Some members cooled off on this very hot, muggy day, by sliding — in their street clothes — into the swimming pool!

We used this get-together as an opportunity to get to know our fellow club members a little bit better. In the lead-up to our picnic, members were asked to share something interesting about ourselves that our fellow members might not have known. Then, at the picnic, 42 of these things were listed on a sheet of paper, which was distributed to each of us. We wrote down who we thought might be the member, and then we went through the list, one-by-one, with members expanding upon what was written about them. My contribution was this: “I have a collection of about 400 diecast, scale-model vehicles. Most of them are 1:18th scale, and yes, several of them are MX-5 Miatas.”

To see the most photos and the latest text, and to explore a wide variety of content dating back to 2002, visit AutoMatters & More at AutoMatters.net. On the Home Page, search by title or topic, or click on the blue ‘years’ boxes.

Copyright © 2022 by Jan Wagner – AutoMatters & More #755

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