PORT TOWNSEND — Old-time hot rodders Marvin Miller, Vic Olson and Jim Franklin are celebrating a big honor bestowed on the 53-year-old Rakers Car Club .
The Washington State Hotrod Association recently honored the club for contributions to its community and hot-rodding, throwing a dinner party in Tacoma where the association gave the Port Townsend-based Rakers club — represented by club President Miller and other members — a plaque.
“I don’t think there’s a lot of clubs that old,” Miller said of Rakers, which was founded by Olson and others in the year of the sweet, smooth and sassy ’57 Chevy, perhaps General Motors’ most classic model.
Olson remembers starting the club with six members. Today, there are 75 members.
Olson calls classic cars “a real disease hobby” because it’s impossible to quit once you’ve got the bug.
He stood next to a 1934 Ford he restored by himself, just like other club members do.
Miller stood by his sexy blue 1965 SC Cobra convertible he also restored on his own.
“I’ve had it up to 135,” he said, adding he could have gone faster, but he ran out of track on the straightaway.
The club’s annual car show, which exhibits classic cars entered by club members and others around the Northwest, will begin at 8 a.m. June 26 and run until 4 p.m. that day at Jefferson County Memorial Field.
Up to 180 classics, hot rods and antique beauties will be displayed on the field’s green.
This will be the show’s seventh year.
The show draws hundreds who mill about the shiny classic cars, muscle cars and trucks, so polished people can easily see their reflections.
Club members, said Franklin, “Are old retired guys like me and all the way to those in their 20s who are just starting out in the hot rod business.”
Quality in workmanship is not required of members, Franklin said, but it is an unwritten standard to expect quality of members.
Franklin said Rakers members hope to perhaps join other North Olympic Peninsula car clubs in putting on an even bigger show that would include Clallam County classic car and hotrod enthusiasts.
“A two-club show would be a good idea,” he said, adding that Rakers members are discussing that idea.
Rakers Car Club meets at 7 p.m. on the first Tuesday of each month at the Highway 20 Roadhouse restaurant, 2152 Upper Sims Way and features car-related speakers from around the Peninsula.
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Port Townsend-Jefferson County Editor Jeff Chew can be reached at 360-385-2335 or at jeff.chew@peninsuladailynews.com.
