Club News & Info

Text Box: Merc/Deuce Reunion - May 12, 2007 Russ J., Zimm, and Ellis drove down to Darryl Starbird’s National Rod & Custom Car Hall of Fame and Museum in Afton, Oklahoma on May 12, 2007. They went to the 75th Anniversary of the Deuce, a massive outdoor custom car show. Zimm and his wife served a great breakfast early that morning and the ZimmMobile headed south. There were about 100 cars at the show. The weather was perfect and they got the chance to visit with Darryl Starbird, Jerry Titus, and Elden Titus. Of course, no trip to Oklahoma would be complete without a visit to the National Rod and Custom Museum. All in all, a great day with good times and good friends! Check out the pictures on the Photo Page! KAMS Contest - Newton, KS, April 7, 2007 Congrats go out to Slammers Russ J., Chris Lewis, and Ellis Kendrick for their wins at the 12th Annual Model Contest held on Saturday, April 7, 2007, in Newton, Kansas. Russ took a first place with his Fire Truck in Commercial, Chris placed second in Lowrider, and Ellis placed second in Out-of-Box. Thanks go out to our Kansas Modelin’ Buddies for a great show , contest, and an excellent vendor area! 2007 Darryl Starbird Rod & Custom Show and Model Car Contest - Wichita, KS, January 19 - 21, 2007 It was another great Slammers’ adventure, road trip, time machine to our childhood years, whatever you want to call it… IT WAS GREAT! Darryl Starbird’s 50th Annual Rod and Custom Show (and we thought WE were doing good with the Heartland at 16 years in a row). Let’s see… we had Darryl Starbird, Joe Bailon (creator of Candy Apple Red Paint), George Barris, the Titus Brothers (Elden and Jerry (KKOA President)), and the King of Lead, Bill Hines. We were up to our necks in greatness and a good number of us bought the 50th Annual t-shirt and got the autographs of these internationally recognized greats of the customizing world and our childhood heroes. It was hard to take it all in and to really appreciate who we were around. Amazing stuff! It was a great show with over 400 custom cars in 4 major exhibition halls. The cars ran the gamut from full-on customs to rat rods, to street machines. Great vendors and custom pin stripers were there as well! Bobby Vee was there singing the oldies as well as a number of other bands and, of course, the Texas Bikini Squad performed on stage and helped to ward off the chilly weather and snow (over 8” of the white stuff on Saturday). It worked! There were 108 model cars on display with between 15-20 modelers. Rich Newberry won Best of Show with his “Thrillbilly Deluxe” and he also won 1st Place in Large Scale with the same car. Mitch Capps from Wichita finished 2nd in Large Scale with his custom ‘32 Ford Roadster. Dan Cozine won Best Truck with his teal Chevy Street machine pickup with Russ Johnson in 2nd Place with his ‘36 fire truck. 1st Place in Customs went to Chuck Larsen from Wisconsin who built a killer, scratch-built. open-top sports car (kind of looked like a Ferrai Mythos). Orbie Hardister took 2nd in Customs with his ‘56 Ford Custom pickup. Chuck Larsen took 1st place in Rod with a really neat Mini Cooper that was tubbed and running a blown Hemi - another very well-built, highly modified kit in Gulf Oil colors. Bill Barker finished 2nd in Rod with his ‘40 Ford rat rod coupe. In Competition, 1st Place went to Gary Marchi from Wichita with an Earnhardt #3 Intimidator black car and 2nd was Bill Barker’s 1990 Nigel Mansell Ferrari F1 car. The special award of “Darryl’s Pick” went to Chuck Larsen’s yellow custom roadster that also took 1st in Customs. Our marathon weekend ended with the trophies presentation and Darryl Starbird saying some very nice things about the K.C. Slammers and recognizing our club as the reason for a successful model car show within the larger show. We connected with other modelers, other clubs, vendors, and we have a wealth of great ideas to make our club even better, more noticed, and to greatly increase the enjoyment factor. Suffice it to say that if you missed the 2007 Starbird Show in Wichita and the weekend with the K.C. Slammers, you missed a great time. - Bill Barker, 2007 KC Slammers President

The Titus Brothers, Jerry (left) and Elden (right), were our special celebrity judges at our 2007 Heartland Model Car Nationals. The Titus Brothers have been responsible for many first-rate custom cars throughout the years. Jerry is president and founder of the KKOA and Elden is creating new “Kustoms” in the spirit of what a true custom car is all about.

The KC Slammers are proud to call these two guys our friends!

Clyde Young Memorial Award announced

At our regular club meeting on August 8, 2007, the Slammers honored one of our founding members, Clyde Young, by refurbishing a sign Clyde created many years ago for the club. It will be proudly displayed at our Heartland Model Car Nationals Contest and Show held annually.

Clyde was the club’s first President which makes him kind of our George Washington! Regrettably, Clyde passed away on Nov. 16, 2007. We lost a good friend and modelin’ buddy and although he is now gone in body, his spirit and all the work he did during the years to make this club the success it is will live on.

In his honor, the Heartland Nationals Champion Award will be henceforth co-named as the Clyde Young Memorial Award.