WALDORF, Md. – One of the most ambitious independent car clubs in my area has to be the DMV Rods and Classics, located in Waldorf in southern Maryland. I have considered them on several occasions over the last two years after they started holding their large shows in the spring of 2023, and they continue to put on three excellent events annually with attendance above 125 cars, if the weather permits. I know of no other club locally that puts in more effort than the DMV Rods. Their Fall show last year was scheduled for late September, in the same huge parking area at the Shops at Waldorf Center. Their format was much the same as before. There were 99 awards available, which is very generous, of which there was a Top 60 for all makes and models of cars, as well as additional trophies for trucks, motorcycles and other special categories.
This was a judged show, and the club used independent judges, but I was never clear on exactly how our cars were judged. At one event I thought I saw a judging sheet being used, but at others the judging seemed to go by too quickly for filling out score sheets. Regardless, my Mustang friends and I were fortunate to be selected a few times. The club members try very hard to run a good show and generally succeed. Add in that the 60-minute ride from Baltimore early on a Saturday morning down I-95 to the Capital Beltway, and then south again to Waldorf is not bad at all, although my return flight typically sees much more traffic, and so I usually go by a different route. Once a show is over, there is no hurry to rush home, so I just sit back and listen to Sirius XM.
As we approached the last weekend in September 2024, the threat of rain on both days was very real. A show I wanted to drive to on Sunday was postponed by that Thursday, but the DMV Rods held steady with their Saturday plans for the 28th. When I got up early that morning, I saw that it would stop raining in Waldorf by 5 a.m., and their show was still on. But I live an hour north where our forecast called for rain until 7:00-7:30 a.m. When I pulled out of my driveway at 7:15, the skies were dark and it was raining. In fact, for the first 40-minutes of my drive it rained on the interstates.
As I approached Waldorf, the weather changed to foggy, and finally the sun was out as I entered the city limits, and the DMV Rods were soon letting cars onto their show site. This worked out fine for the weather, although my Mustang was now a disappointment with wet, dirty splatter everywhere; all over the front of my car, up in the wheel wells, and even on the tops of my engine. It looked terrible! When we registered soon after, we were given our number cards, and for the first time ever the club gave us our scoring sheets, and by golly, they really do exist! The club was using a simplified 50-point system, with 10 points each for Body, Interior, Engine, Paint, and Tires/Wheels/Hubcaps. Each area also had a notation that the judges were looking for CLEANLINESS! So I now had my work cut out for me.
I spent over an hour and a half cleaning up my pigpen on wheels and tried to make it look like a show car once again, rather than a sloppy mess, which was exactly how it looked. I used every old baby diaper in my travel bag, a lot of Windex and many paper towels to get my Mustang ready for the judges. No kidding folks, it looked bad when I got to Waldorf. Also, the parking lot was still wet. I have never sat on wet macadam before and cleaned wheels like I did on this day. But my car pulled through the intense operation, and it looked much better by the time I’d finished. Within several hours the remnants of the rainy weather blew away, and we were left with a beautifully sunny mid-day and afternoon, and the temps went up to about 80. For as lousy as the morning was, the afternoon was the exact opposite. It turned into a perfect show day.
One interesting new change that the DMV Rods instituted for this show was to split the Top 60 awards into 2000-and-newer cars, and 1999-and-older, with 30 trophies for each group. This is a trend that we are seeing with some of the more forward-thinking car clubs here in Maryland. There has long been a perception, at least in our area, that the older cars were the favored ones at an all-makes-and-models event. What this old approach failed to recognize was that there were growing numbers of the newer cars at these shows, and that it takes as much effort to keep a post-2000 car show-worthy as it does for a pre-1999. By splitting the 2000-and-newer out from the group, it was recognizing these facts and making the awards more favorable for both sides. Finally, I was very fortunate to have my car selected for one of these awards.
This was a great show season for the DMV Rods and Classics. They have grown and adapted and made changes as needed for their excellent shows, and I will greatly look forward to their 2025 events.
FORD PERFORMANCE PHOTOS / COURTESY RICK MITCHELL
