Happy Birthday Cowboy, Carroll Shelby Turns 85

This past Friday, StreetFire was honored with an invitation to Carroll Shelby's 85th Birthday in Las Vegas. I can't begin to communicate how much of an honor it is for a humble group of guys from Georgia to be invited to the birthday of such a legend, but I can, at least, share the highlights with the community and let you know what happened. It started early on Friday morning near our new offices in Los Angeles. Days prior, Andy Duncan from Bullrun had called to make sure I wouldn't embarrass us by showing up in the wrong kind of car... you know....something other than a Ford or Shelby product. So thankfully I had landed a convertible V6 Mustang as our steed for the event. As I pulled into the Peterson Automotive Museum, the spectacle laid itself out before me...

...Over 100 cars bearing the Shelby badge were crammed into every available parking space with more arriving every minute. From Brand New GT500 Super Snakes to classic Cobras and KRs. Even a pristine condition Shelby GLH made an appearance. A Shelby pilgrimage was about to unfold that would end with the man himself at the factory in Las Vegas.

Bullrun had organized a proper rally to celebrate the occasion, and included stickers and car numbers for full effect. We wouldn't receive the checkpoint information until we departed the parking deck, but thankfully I was armed with two co-pilots, Chris and Julie, redundant GPS systems, Hertz's lovely but useless "Never Lost" and Chris' Mio. Thinking back, we hadn't thought through our parking location in the garage, and when Andy Duncan released us Le Mans style from the driver's meeting, we were close to dead last getting out of the Peterson's parking structure. Okay, not off to a good start, but I'm too competitive to let a bunch of Mustang drivers beat me to our Checkpoint, Rental V6 Mustang or not.

As we pulled out of the deck, we got our instructions, head to Ghost Town Road in Yermo, CA. We pulled out the Mio, and were instantly let down, it was literally displaying a windows Error Message! ACK! Portable GPS's are NOT supposed to be as unreliable as my workstation. The Hertz system proved too cheaply designed to use (highly recommend never getting a car with it, it's useless).

Given that we were headed toward Vegas, I at least knew to take I-10 west, and with that as our start I blasted the highway like a robber fleeing a bank while Chris and Julie tried to bring the Mio back online. It wasn't long before we had that sorted out and were passing 600hp Mustangs with our meager V6 sheerly on the basis of disrespecting the law. Later I would find out that Patrick Dempsey was unintentionally running interference for us as all the po-po was looking for him in his 600hp Super Snake instead of us....always something to be said for making sure someone else is a juicier target than you.

Rather than incriminating myself with details, I will say we got to the checkpoint in the top ten out of 100 cars (ahead of Dempsey even), largely based on a combination of luck, liberal interpretation of speed limits, and the fact that all the V8s had to stop for fuel. :-)

The stop over in Yermo was actually very enjoyable, and we were able to make some new friends, stretch our legs and grab some lunch. Julie and Chris decided my driving was more than they could handle, or quite possibly that my desire to ride top down was too loony. Regardless, Jonathan our Podcast Producer drew the short straw and had to ride the rest of the way with "loony Shinkaze" to Vegas.

If you've ever had the fantasy of driving a convertible from LA to Vegas with the setting sun over the desert, let me just tell you I just lived it, and it's better than you can imagine. This is a must do for anyone with the heart of a nomad. The desert vistas with snow capped mountains in the distance look mythical in the fading light, and right before it gets too dark to appreciate, the neon of the Las Vegas strip lights up the path before you.

Due to some karma surplus from a previous life, we managed to score an amazing place at the Wynn Hotel. But I didn't get to stay long, because we had to get cleaned up to meet the man of the hour himself.

Carrol Shelby's factory lays where it should, right across the street from a race track...the Las Vegas Motor Speedway just north of town. The lobby is the automotive equivalent of the Louvre with every car you've ever lusted at there in raw metal. Small placards as matter of fact as Carrol himself let you know you're looking at such icons as the the first Cobra ever, or his latest beast with over 700hp. They moved us through the factory and along the way you could see the pride the Shelby team puts into their work, their cars and their facility. The place was spotless, the cars crafted with care. One cobra sat up on the stand it's body being polished, you could tell it was being done by a master craftsman, cars don't have this much character when they're built by robots.

A pavilion was set up at the rear of the building after a nice walk down a red carpet flanked with increasingly cool Shelby Concept cars and products. I won't spoil the video we are releasing by giving all the details of the evening, but when I saw the guests in attendance I knew I was in rarefied company, and even Dempsey was a little guy compared to the people that were there. As a working media-goon I chose to try to become invisible and get out of the way of the guests, though I think I might have annoyed Dutch Mandel from Autoweek by hovering near his table. That's okay though because despite having a big StreetFire logo on my shirt I really don't think anyone in that room knew who we were anyway.

Amy Boylan, Shelby Company President, led off with a speech followed by an impressive succession of guest speakers telling stories of their life with Carroll and how he is such a huge impact to all of us who love cars. Carroll took the stage and took the crowd's well wishes with his typical Texas charm, if he truly is 85, then he didn't show it, maybe all those aftermarket body parts have given him another 20 years of energy in addition to saving his life.
Ford presented Shelby with the debut of the new Shelby Mustang GT500KR, both real and then later in the form of a cake. Both looked tasty to me, hopefully I didn't get in Dutch's way again as I dove in to grab a quick piece myself. The mood in the tent was thankful, appreciative and happy, and I think we all owed the Shelby family a touch of thanks for making this milestone birthday an event others could share in as well.

I closed the night out in the hotel bar reflecting on the day as Chris hit on Andy Duncan's team of cute flag girls. Seeing the cars on the rally, meeting the people associated with the brand, I realized these were more than cars, and it was naive to assume you could ever really own one. A guest speaker that night said that if you were lucky enough to have a Shelby car enter your life, you were merely its custodian for a time, and you should appreciate it while you could, appreciate it by driving it, which is exactly what happened the next morning.

We woke early (a hard thing to do in Vegas), and made our way to the track. Pretty much all the cars from the rally hit the track hard that morning and I was especially surprised to see the priceless V10 Cobra Concept smacking the cones even more violently than the rest. These cars were meant to be raced, and I got the rare pleasure of seeing a hundred Shelby Mustangs and Cobras peal off hundreds of dollars in rubber.... I would hazard a guess that some of those Black and Gold Shelby's might even find themselves in the rental car return the next day with warped rotors showing belts. But such is the unspoken purpose of the GT-H.

We had a great day in Las Vegas, and I felt very lucky to have been a part of the experience. Despite the fact I don't drive a Mustang beyond what I rented, everyone made us feel welcome. It's an easy fraternity to join and a fun group to share comradeship with. The man himself helped bring this group together, and when I saw his friends talk about him the previous night it was like witnessing the Rat Pack marching into a Casino. Fitting it happened in Las Vegas then.

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