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Chuck Eddy says it is a way to give back to the community for the support it gives them
CANFIELD
Theresa and Lou Zalac, along with thousands of other enthusiasts at Saturday’s Hot Rod Super Nationals at the Canfield Fairgrounds, have cars in their blood.
Or almost anything that has a gasoline engine and wheels.
The Zalacs, both retired members of the Berlin Center Volunteer Fire Department, traveled to the Super Nats on a Honda Gold Wing motorcycle, which has taken them to Canada and up and down the East Coast.
They were admiring an amazing ’57 Chevrolet Bel Air that brought back memories for Lou, 64, who had a ’57 Bel Air named “Warlord” that he decked out for “show, drag strip and the street.”
Except for Theresa, whose favorite car is a Ford Mustang, the Bel Air seems to have been the Zalac family car. Several have owned ’57 Bel Airs, and Lou’s brother, Gary, is rebuilding their mother’s ’57 Bel Air .
Equally enthused about cars and the people who own, restore and show them are the owners of the event, Lee Hartman, who grew up in Canfield, and his partner, Rose Seitz of Poland.
“I was a car guy growing up, and when I heard the Super Nats was for sale, I wanted to bring it to Canfield,” he said. This is the second recent year at the fairgrounds; previous owners of the event had hosted it at Quaker City Raceway in Salem.
The major sponsors of the show are Bob & Chuck Eddy Chrysler Dodge Jeep in Austintown and Summit Racing of Tallmadge.
The three-day show, which concludes today, runs from 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. followed by an after-party cruise-in during which hundreds of hot rods, muscle cars, classic cars and pickups of all sizes and ages roar their way east from Canfield on U.S. Route 224 to the Southern Park Mall parking lot where the cars are once again on public display.
“They like the cruise. After all their work and expense, they want to share and show off the end result,” Hartman said.
He estimated 1,300 vehicles were on display at the fairgrounds Saturday, and with another ideal weather forecast for today, he expects another large crowd.
Hartman and Jim Grosso of Austintown, manager of retail sales for Summit Racing, say their business models are good fits.
“Events like the Super Nats allow us to meet our customers face-to-face and see them in their element,” said Hartman.
“Their personalities show up in their cars,” Grosso said.
Sponsoring the Super Nationals is a way to give back to the community for Chuck Eddy.
“We’re blessed by the support of people who do business with us,” he said.
“It’s easy to support something automotive because the Mahoning Valley is so entrenched with the American auto, with Lordstown General Motors and Packard Electric. When Lee came along, he gave it the leadership, and I gave it the sponsorship,” said Eddy, whose favorite car in his personal collection is a ’76 Cadillac Eldorado convertible.
The stories of the people and their cars at the Super Nats are both similar and different.
“She loves cars too,” John Sylvester of Boardman said of his wife, Mary. The couple were high-school sweethearts at The Rayen School in Youngstown.
They were showing off one of the many ’57 Bel Airs at the show, this one found in West Virginia 14 years ago. “This is my baby,” said Sylvester, who retired in 2006 from Lordstown General Motors where he worked nearly 40 years.
Bob and Marlyne Young of Niles brought their ’56 Dodge Custom Royal Lancer, which he bought new. It was their honeymoon car, and after restoring it between 2003 and 2006, drove it in 2009 on their 50th anniversary trip.
Bob, who retired from Peerless Electric in Warren after 43 years, has a couple of other restored cars and is working on a ’29 Dodge coupe that he plans to make into a street rod.
Joe Mamonis, at the after-party cruise-in with his father, Jim, both of Berlin Center, said he has been coming to the Super Nationals since he was in a stroller. He has a 2013 Chevrolet Camaro that he has enhanced cosmetically and performance-wise.
His father’s first car was a 1973 Ford LTD two-door and his first muscle car was a 1968 Chevrolet Camaro.
Jim said they first learned to restore cars by trial and error. “Then, we started asking the right people the right things and pretty soon learned what we were doing,” he said.
Jim Stone of Liberty, at the show with his brother, John Stone of Austintown, has had a ’57 Chevrolet for more than 40 years.
“I put it together when I first bought it and am restoring it from the frame up. It won’t be running this summer, but maybe in 2018,” he said.
Perhaps emblematic of the show was a ’ 57 Oldsmobile 88, with fender skirts, of course, that had this detailed on the trunk: “Lost in the fifties with Jan.”