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Unforgettable cars get bigger, better venue at Lake Lawn

Photo

Photo by Terry Mayer

Ed Yaeger of Lake Geneva, a self-proclaimed Ford man, looks at an old Ford on the shore of Delavan Lake during the July 8 Cars Time Forgot event at Lake Lawn Resort.

Legendary drag racer Arnie Beswick signs the dashboard of someone’s classic car during the ninth annual celebration. Terry Mayer photo.

DELAVAN -- Hindsight is usually 20/20, but organizers for the ninth annual Cars Time Forgot celebration can now brag about their prognostication abilities.

They predicted that moving from the downtown area to Lake Lawn Resort would provide a boost to the car show.

However, they couldn’t have guessed at just how successful the switch would be.

An estimated 575 to 600 cars participated and between 3,500 and 4,000 people attended, numbers that naturally had officials bubbling about the July 8 event and the possibilities for the future.

“We have a lot of land here, so I can see us getting up to 1,000 cars,” said Tom Hyslop, director of sales and marketing at Lake Lawn. “The question would be the parking. We’d also have to start earlier to get everybody in.”

The organizing committee will work those details out in the coming weeks and months. As for the activities, July 6 through July 8, things couldn’t have gone much better.

“From the resort’s standpoint, we were happy with attendance and that there were so many people who hadn’t been to Lake Lawn before or were back for the first time in a long time. And we lucked out with tremendous weather.

“We certainly think this was great for Lake Lawn, for the chamber and for the community of Delavan,” Hyslop added. “We’re looking at making it even bigger and better.”

Jackie Busch, executive director of the Delavan-Delavan Lake Area Chamber of Commerce, agreed, although an assessment of what the effects of the move had on the downtown area hadn’t been determined.

“The comments I’ve been getting via email and people stopping at the office are all saying they’re happy with the change in venue,” Busch said. “It would have been chaos trying to get that many cars into the downtown.

“Overall, it was fabulous and more than we could have hoped for,” Busch added. “It was a phenomenal show, and Arnie Beswick was awesome. The road rallies ... were successful, and we’d like to build on the chicken barbecue. The exposure alone was great, and that’s pretty much what the goal is.”

See additional photos in the July 15 Walworth County Sunday. More photos online at www.communityshoppers.com/photo-gallery,