The thanksgiving thread

With Thanksgiving upon us, I thought maybe we could go all Tiny Tim (the Dickensian, not the ukulele-playing kind) and take a moment to give a shout-out to a member who has made you smile, or come through with a desperately needed answer in a clutch, or who's just been consistently, maybe even modestly and behind-the-scenes, excellent in a way that made you take notice.

I'll go first, since it's my thread, and name Wally, since he's Wally and I got here first. Also Hungary Bill, who makes New Years around here a little brighter every year. Shout-out to them, and really to everyone here. It's a good crew.

I could go on and on, but my turn's over now. Who's next?

Margie

Whenever I need a good laugh, which is often, I can depend on Wally making me laugh in the good hardy way.  I wish I could return the favor to him.  

I'm thankful to NickD for the time they spend compiling and sharing a beyond-encyclopedic knowledge of railroad history with us.  It's always an entertaining read.

I'm thankful for Mr. Asa starting the story time thread.

I'll also echo all prior posts here.

In reply to mtn :

Hey! Thanks, man!

I'm thankful for Robbie for welcoming me to my first Challenge and allowing me to be on his team so that I could actually attend

I'm really grateful for Stampie inviting me to join his Challenge team this year. That was definitely the high point of 2021 for me.

I don’t want to pick any favorites, I enjoy all y’all!   Seriously, it’s really refreshing and helpful to me to know that there’s a bunch of decent people from all age groups and all parts of the US, Canada and beyond that can share their talents and experiences with the rest of us.  This IS my social media group.  

I’m sorry I don’t have any current projects worthy of a build thread or track / auto cross experience to share; work and commuting take up more time than I’d like these past few years.   I’ve had my share from restoring  a couple of old boats to building a house on an island so I appreciate what goes into your builds.  I really enjoy seeing the creativity you all bring and reading your stories, thanks for having me! 

I have a hard time making a list of the stanout members here, because there are so many. So, so many that have enriched my life, and made my world a better place when things look bleak and im overwhelmed by what i see at work. 

Im blessed to have a handful of good friends in real life (not just the internet) and most came from here: stampie, Patrick, stu, mr and mrs Shawneecreek, justjim, professor brap. So many more that i look forward to reading something from. So many i miss that are no longer with us....

I agree, so many good people here. A lot of people that inspire with their builds or impress me with their knowledge (mke , Curtis, Keith, and basically everyone that does a challenge build thread). 
One person that reached out to me when I shared some tough stuff is 1slowVW so thankful for that. It was small but it was just enough to let me know others had walked this path. 

i'll forewarn that I'm going to miss some people:

Wally a laugh a prespective that it doesn't need to be that serious, even when it's very serious. Suffering with grace and a smile is incredibly difficult, you make me strive to be better at it. 

Woody, you took me on virtue drives when I was unable to drive myself.

Duke, you challenge me to get back to autocrossing with regularity

Curtis, you made me get the escort autocrossable, for the most part, to get back to autocrossing in 2022 a likely reality

Bobzilla, you remind me that even when people may disagree on some things, that we agree and see eye to eye on 80-90% of things and that we're all going through similar messes. To continue to respect and care for one another in spite of not seeing eye to eye on some things. I love how you've taken head on the project of creating something business wise that you'll hopefully continue to be able to enjoy doing, while bringing value to your customers. 

MTN- you remind me that facts and information absolutely doesn't mean that compassion doesn't need to be involved

John Hoopes- you brought us together virtually during times when the world made it so that we weren't able to do so

Stampie- I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing that you're 750 miles away. I'd probably be healthier and get more done, but the actions and resulting accomplishments would be questionable at best. I'm a pretty solid enabler, but you may have me beat.

Pete- Dr. Dolittle with a bass. I don't know what it is going to be, but we're going to find a platform that you enjoy autocrossing that isn't murderous with regards to maintenance and reliability. 

Our hosts: this community wouldn't exist without you and we've found ourselves needing to lean on each other more in recent years than in the past, well maybe everyone other than myself, and you've cultivated a place where we've been able to do so. You've cultivated a space that when we're not about to enjoy the hobby that we love, that we can still be engaged in it, and you've created events that motivate us to improve and maintain our projects, when we otherwise may not feel like doing so. I may not have gotten to the challenge this year, but I managed to get my car down there. I'm inching closer to it. I have some charitable concepts that will likely ensure that I'm in attendance in 2022. Mental health wise, I don't know where I'd be without this place, and I suspect that I'm not the only one. 

I am grateful to the Suddards, who have (literally) given me a forum upon which to willingly exercise my meager writing skills... a feat which dozens of teachers had previously failed to accomplish through the years. 

I'm thankful to a few dozen of you and I'll miss most of them, but I'll try.

Hobiercr, PimpM3, Mr_Asa, Stampie, Barefootskater, Poopshovel, and QuasiMofo were my ambassadors of all things Challenge.  My first time was last year, and they royally took me under their wing.  It was my first autocross and they were super helpful, always answered my dumbest questions, and made it such a wonderful experience.  This year really congeled those friendships and added Pete Gossett, KYAllroad, FloatingDoc, Andy Neuman, the Nelsons, and so many more I know I'm missing.

EastsideTim and (I forget Bill's screen name) of Team LoPrep for inviting me to be a driver last year on their team.  So much fun, guys.  You helped me with a ton of firsts last year.  Major bucket list items.

Duke for selling me my dream car

How can we forget captdownshift who couldn't make this years challenge and gave me his friggin DD/challenge car to drag 1000 miles and enter it myself.  What kind of award can we give him?  My second year at the challenge and I entered a car under my own (totally made up) race team because someone I had never met just said, "here are the keys, here is the build book, here is the budget, it might oversteer a little."  Honestly.  I loaded the car, clicked print on the build book, and entered a car.  Who does that?  captdownshift does.

Patrick is my go-to Summit date.  He was just in my house last week and I wasn't even there.  I gave him the door code to my house and, to his credit, only stole the stuff that belonged to him 

Lotusseven7 opened his home to me when I was remodeling my place so I could see some masonry treatments he was doing.  Lovely man with a lot of knowledge and generosity.

John Welsh is the man who found my latest fly-and-drive, the infamous Kandy Van.  Secretariata volunteered to go check out the van before I bought it and did a smashing job with a totally awesome review of it.  The kid selling it was a little vague on details, so Secretariata nailed it.  I had no surprises when I bought that van.

Peter Knudsen lives nearby and we've had a few beers and we gotta get to the junkyard, buddy.

IanF with his freebies delivered to me in my own town.

759NRNG for dragging my shell of a Bonneville from TX to FL

SVRex just knows everything :)  Much respect for you

The rest of you can go berkeley yourselves  I'M KIDDING.  You all are my family.  Happy Thanksgiving to all of you!

Tod wawazzat hooked me up with an insiders cruise around the woodward dream cruise this year.  It was a nice chill, this is my hometown and I love it session.  It was much appreciated.

I hope I've mentioned this before, but it just popped in my head again: mndsm and his girlfriend (wife?) did something for my wife and I that was one of the best things we'd had happen to us ever. So thanks, hopefully not the first time I'm saying that. 

Nearly 6 years ago, Brett_Murphy sold me a car (for a damn good price too) through email and good old fashioned snail mail, held onto it for a month or two, then picked me and my wife up at the airport in it after our flight was delayed by hours. 

We took that car on a three thousand mile road trip, our last vacation together before kids (we didn't know that at the time). We spent weeks together in an NA Miata, beginning every day with no idea where we would sleep that night. Every time I drive it, I'm reminded of that trip, that could only have happened because of this forum and the people on it. 

I am thankful for the Suddards. This is my social media and its a friendly place to hang out. I thank you for giving me the space and policing it well. Now that I know where you hang out i am going to pop my head in and say hi next time I am in town, in a non creepy non stalky way. Happy murricun thanksgiving! (Canadians are more efficient and got it done in October already.)

Because I'm terrible with names and I know I'd leave out more than I remember, I'm thankful in general for the whole mangy lot of you.   This year was my first Challenge and I showed up solo and was welcomed by all.   You've all been endlessly helpful when I need advice and appear to be appreciative when I offer what limited knowledge I can share.

What more can a guy ask for from a bunch of internet weirdos?

I'm thankful to everybody here for keeping this a haven of good signal to noise ratio.

I've not many of you in person, but if those that I have met are representative of the quality of all of the people on the boards, I consider all of you friends. 

cmcgregor (Forum Supporter) said:

Nearly 6 years ago, Brett_Murphy sold me a car (for a damn good price too)

I'm happy you're enjoying it! You did more with it than I would have, and I'm extremely glad it found a good home.

I'm going to throw out Pete Gossett, NOT A TA and Jimgood for consistently encouraging me on my current build, gently pointing out better paths to success and celebrating the "wins" virtually. Without them (and the greater GRM community), I would be still surrounded by disconnected parts and hesitation and JG would not be yet afflicted with my fantastic disease. 
Happy Thanksgiving to all. 
 

Well, Im fairly new around here and I haven't interacted with too many of you, so its hard to name anyone in particular. Overall its been really fun reading forum posts, chiming in here and there, while finding humor and a bit of education throughout the forums. I live in NC and my family is all in CT, without being able to get home for the holidays its really great to cruise through here and smile. Good job everyone for being decent human beings and making this a really enjoyable place to be. 

I sold a BMW to Logdog through the forum, talked about his Chumpcar, and then I went to check out a race. Years later we are good friends and still doing racecar things.

I'm thankful that this place still exists and hasn't gone the way of all the other forums I used to frequent. So, everyone here is who I'm thankful for because even in the dark days, I can find a glimmer of light here to chuckle at and escape from reality for a bit.

In reply to cmcgregor (Forum Supporter) :

Sort of similar...I was at the Mitty years ago and had thrown a band together to play the grm party. I was having a wonderful time through the day soaking in the incredible machinery. It came time for parade laps and Tim Suddard handed me the keys to his '67 Shelby GT350 and nudged me out on track. I grabbed my drummer who still talks about it every time I see him. That was incredible. As far as I know, Tim was stone cold sober. (It was fairly early in the day)

I'm just thankful you guys are here.