Spring Social

The Delorean Mid-Atlantic club started 2005 with a BANG! We set out to have the largest event we have ever hosted and the annual Spring Social was the perfect event to shoot for breaking all the records. With months of planning and preparation, the only thing that could stand in our way was the weather.

JZD must be up there in heaven watching over us, because we had a beautiful weather the weekend of the event, and everything turned out to be just perfect.

This year's social was a two day event. The weekend kicked off on Saturday at Hackettstown Motor Imports in New Jersey. The weather was perfect that day to have a DeLorean event, and the club had gone all out to prepare for the event.

Registration packets that were provided to members when they arrived that detailed the weekend's events, provided directions to all our destinations, included lunch and dinner details, and also had a sneak peak look into our upcoming Summer Fun Run event for this summer.

We took many new approaches this year to make the event the best we could. Our activities director "Evil Dan" reached out to the DeLorean venders and members of the community to ask for donated items to raffle off. The response was nothing short of incredible! Car parts, DeLorean logo wear, books, photos, toys, etc. Pretty much everyone went home with something that day.

We really want to thank everyone who donated items to the event There were so many people who contributed: PJ Grady, John Hervey, DMC Houston, BTTF.COM, Lorrain Hinojos, Nick Pugliese, Marc Levy, Ken Koncelik, Gullwing Magazine, Larry Arnold, Scott McMullan, David Heise, and Kevin and Cheryl Abato. THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!!

As always, during our Spring Social we have a lot of events to occupy the members – door adjustments, tech sessions, safety inspections, raffles, music, and FOOD!

The shop owner's wife offered to cater the event for us, and we gladly accepted. The food they had that day for us was amazing! Breakfast with coffee, tea, bagels, pastries, etc... Then a huge lunch with so many items to choose from, it was impossible to sample it all and still have room to eat dinner later that night.

Everything was so delicious, and the members who attended really seemed to enjoy the vast selection. Our thanks again to Ray, Lisa and everyone else from Hackettstown Motor Imports for all the help you gave us that day, and for use of the shop!

The event proved to be a huge success for the DMA Club. We had a grand total of 38 cars in attendance, and over 85 people! This was definitely our largest event ever and we hope that everyone who came out to enjoy the weekend with us will continue to support the club and attend future events throughout the rest of the year.

The club has a great bunch of people to hang out and socialize with. Several members of the Mid-State club attended the event and even complimented on the fact that it is a "Social" and not just a tech session. This made it fun for everyone who attended the event. (Hey.. not everybody wants to talk about fuel pumps and torsion bars ya know...)

After the dust had settled from the raffle we shifted things into high gear. We departed from our kind hosts at Hackettstown Motor Imports and headed to Chester, NJ for a photo shoot and dinner. The photo shoot was taken at Alstede's Farm near their apple orchard trees. Again, the DMA Club officers wish to extend a special thanks to Kurt Alstede for letting us use his farm for the shoot. It proved to be a great backdrop.

After the photo shoot, everyone was ready to eat again. We had selected Larison's (a.k.a "The Turkey Farm") in Chester, NJ for our dinner that evening.

Dinner was a great buffet style spread of food with several main dishes and side dishes to choose from. The nice country style dining environment was very relaxing, and we had the largest dining room reserved for just out group.

No dinner is complete for us without a few words from a guest speaker and a few other select people!

Our Guest Speaker for the evening was John Conway. John was heavily involved in the development of the Island twin turbo kit for the DeLoreans. It was interesting to hear John recall his business relations with all who were involved, and also to learn some more details on this rare part of the DeLorean history.

Since we had a PA system, why not continue to put it to good use!? Both Rob Grady and Ken Koncelik made some small announcements... well, they may not have been that SMALL, but they were informative! Rob had a segment on his shop airing THAT NIGHT on a NYC Japanese channel. Ken gave us the scoop on DeLorean Car Show 2006 in Chicago. We can't wait for that!

With dinner completed, many members left for home, or went back to the hotel for a much needed night of sleep.

The next morning we were back on the road heading towards Englishtown, NJ for the huge car show and swap meet. The show always provides an interesting array of classic and collector cars. The Englishtown show is a great way to spend the day looking at all types of cars, and shopping for useful and sometimes unusual parts in the swap meet/flea market area of the show. This year we made a showing of 13 DeLoreans for the crowd to gawk at, and they definitely did.

As it is with any time you have a DeLorean on display, you tend to get a lot of questions. Some are commonly asked throughout the day. For this reason, the DMA put together a tri-fold FAQ (frequently asked question) sheet to hand out to all the people who were interested.

Food, swap meet, cars, fun... it can only last so long. The day drew to a close and we all said our goodbyes and departed for home. It was a great weekend for everyone who attended and we are all looking forward to getting together again at the Summer Fun Run in July! Keep checking back on our website for details on all of our upcoming events. We would love to have you come out and share in the fun with us.