2021 Winged Warrior National Meet

The 2021 Winged Warriors and Talladega Spoiler Family Reunion National meet was held in Murfreesboro TN in late September. My wife and I hosted the event and although it was a lot of work the people and experiences were beyond wonderful. What terrific people our car friends are. Over the next few weeks, I will post more detailed information and photos from the 3 day event.

We had many youths in attendance, making us feel much better about the future of the car hobby. Unfortunately, some of our friends were not in attendance and were greatly missed.

Brandon Atkins (Mike Atkin’s son) and his family are another reason to celebrate the future. The first day of our event was the one year anniversary of Mike’s passing. I was unaware of this when planning our event, but what better tribute to Mike than to bring a bunch of Aero Cars and car folks out to celebrate than on the anniversary of his passing. We were also missing other like Lou Whitfield. I am sure these car guys and others were watching over us.

Brandon brought his entire family and three Aero Cars to the event.

Thursday was a day to show off the attendees’ cars, get to know some new friends, and do a brief road trip with our toys. Everyone gathered at our home for coffee and cars, then headed out to moonshine distillery Short Mountain. I really believe that some cars leaving there had almost as much legal “white lightning” in the trunk as did some of the original moonshiners had illegal moonshine in theirs.

Friday saw us do a serious road trip to visit a fantastic 125+ private car collection, followed with a great lunch and a visit to the Mefford Garage famous for its work with the American Pickters TV show. Late afternoon left time for antique hunting in Columbia TN or ice cream eating with friends.

Saturday was filled with options. The official, optional event started with a busload of diehard Aero Car fans going off to Nashville for a tour of the famous Lane Motorcar Museum. I think this pleased and surprised everyone in attendance.

The big surprise of the day is when we got the opportunity to tour the “vault”. This is the basement area not open to the general public and contains cars under restoration, cars rotated out of the main room and recent deliveries to the Museum. Some very unusual and rare examples intrigued most of us. The tour guide was especially interesting and helpful in answering our multiple questions.

Our next-to-last activity for the day included touring the Gaylord Hotel with its famous and unbelievable common areas of tropical landscaping, dancing fountains, and waterfalls. They even have shops, restaurants and a boat ride inside these remarkable areas!

The very last activity was a memorable visit to the historical Grand Ole Opry with entertainment from many talented and popular musicians. I am sure many of our car owners were not sure what to expect from this taste of Nashville, but everyone who attended walked away with an enormous smile, with some even saying it was the highlight of the event!

For those who preferred to continue with the car show activity, attended the 2021 Music City MOPAR Club show in Lebanon TN just a few miles north of Murfreesboro. Although this is an all MOPAR Show, the Club invited all of our attendees to attend and display their cars at no cost, even the Fords and Mercurys!

More to come.