Bud Shuback passed your e-mail to me for a response. I have responsibility for the car show portion of our Wings & Wheels event in August.

This is our first year with this event and, in the early planning stages, we realized that we had limited space to accommodate aircraft, show cars and public parking. As our plans progressed and interest in the show increased, we quickly realized that our resources are even more restricted than we thought. We decided that by controlling the number of show cars we could keep the greater majority of our show car and general public participants happy. This control came in the form of restricting the age of vehicles asked to participate. Even with this restriction, we may be forced to cut show cars at 950 participants.

We realized that this would make some people, such as you, unhappy. But, as this is our first year, we wanted to start with a restricted base, gain some experience, and then decide what changes may be made for future Wings & Wheels. We picked 1988 as the cutoff point because 25 years is the generally accepted age of vehicles being recognized as antique or vintage vehicles.

The Mustang with Mustang photos on our website were provided by the owner of the plane that will be at the show. Because this is our first event, we had no file photos to draw from. After our August show, the website will be updated with the appropriate photos.

I can't do anything at this point to resolve your disappointment. I can only explain our rational and hope that you stay with us as we grow some experience. Please come and enjoy the show. Stay with us. You, and a number of others, have offered suggestions on how we can improve the show for next year. Our experience this year and all of these suggestions will be input to our post event discussions.

Paul, get back to me with any other comments or concerns that you have. If you do attend the show, please follow up with more suggestions on changes we should consider.

Paul -

We have received a fairly large interest from Mustang owners from throughout the Northeast about having their pictures taken with the Mustang plane that will be at The Great New England Wings & Wheels on August 24 & 25. This interest has caused us to revisit our position on car show participation. For Mustangs only, we have opened Class N on our registration form to include all years. This will now allow you to register your car and to have your vehicle's picture taken with the Mustang plane. However, we have space limitations that cause us to limit Mustang registrations to the first 104 vehicles.

If you are still interested in our event, please go to our website www.greatnewenglandwingsandwheels.com to register your car. Again, interest levels are very high. I suggest you pre-register on-line and do not wait to register at the show field.

Hope to see you next month.

Bill Hick