Carlisle Import & Performance Show 2023

Once again, the PHA put on a great display at the 2023 Carlisle Import & Performance Show.

The event was held Friday May 12 – Saturday May 13, and some cars were only on display for one day, but our pavilion was full of great examples of all of the different cars that run PHA events.

Friday was beautiful weather wise (if a bit hot), while it rained lightly on and off all day Saturday. The rain wasn’t enough to deter most people, and the PHA display was active most of them time.

Gordan Wise, John Pitman and Eric Pitman manned the PHA exhibit for most of the weekend. I didn’t manage to get a shot of Gordon in action, but here is John & Eric.

Thanks to Gordon Wise, we had a really interesting and varied set of cars on display. There was Gordon’s 1993 Mazda RX-7 Turbo:

And now for a tour around the pavilion. Also at the front of the display was Will Sekella’s 1977 Honda Civic, and Bill Feist’s car, a 2006 Stohr F1000 (thanks to Kenneth Company for bringing it).

Eli Sharp’s 1965 Austin Mini Cooper was a huge hit with the crowd, and next to it was Dan Malave’s 1986 Star Formula Mazda:.

Down the right side was a Saab, Lorn Fritz’s 1963 Triump TR4, Bill Norton’s 1958 Berkley Renault Sports Racer, and Glenn Hoffman’s 1989 Honda CRX Si. You can see John Pitman’s 1973 Porsche 914 in the background of some of these photos.

Coming back up around the left side was Keith Gerhard’s 1986 Pontiac Fiero gt, George Witman’s 1999 Mazda Miata, my 1987 VW Scirocco 16V, Mike Axarlis’s 1979 VW Scirocco, Bill Ascheman’s 1962 MG TD, Curt Bennett’s 1990 Protoform P1 Formula Vee, and Chuyck Christ’s 1960 Saab 93F. In that last photo, check out the joyous expression on the VW sweatshirted guy’s face when he spots the Sciroccos!

I missed Bryan McRea who displayed his car Friday, and I arrived too late to see it. He sent me a this picture (he was in the spot where my Scirocco ended up for Saturday).

Steve Marsh also brought his 2010 Subaru Justi, and Dave Smith his 1970 ZINC C-4 Forumla Vee, and Don McLaughlin took some great pictures of their cars.

Thank you to everyone who brought a car!

I ended up arriving at the end of the day on Friday. I left much later than planned for no good reason, and then encountered a lot of unexpected traffic. This included a long stop on the PA turnpike while I waited for a camper fire to be extinguished (talk about unexpected plans for the weekend), but traffic was bad everywhere.

I unloaded my car (and stole Bryan McRae’s spot), and then a group of 16 of us went out for an excellent meal at Fiddler’s at the Mayapple Golf Course. It was just me and Glenn Hoffman camping Friday night, and as usual, we stayed up very late catching up.

The other half of the pavilion was busy all night with other show participants taking photos of their cars — apparently the pavilion offers a great photo taking opportunity. I wish I thought to take a few pictures, as most of the cars were really interesting and quite beautiful in their own way.

Saturday I split my time hanging out in the PHA display area (and catching up with Eli & Vince) and walking around the show. I didn’t take a lot of pictures this year, but did include some of the more interesting cars below.

I also found out that I could have stayed Saturday night, and that there were events happening well into the evening, including a few bands, etc. Next year I will plan to stay Saturday too.

For more and better pictures of the show, Don McLaughlin was there on Friday and took a ton of great photos.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/mcdallion/albums/72177720308293211

Here are some of the cars that caught my eye when I was walking around on Saturday.

Note that there were 3 other Sciroccos there! There haven’t been this many Sciroccos together at one event since, well, since a PHA Event!

BTW, click on any photo in this post to see a larger image.