I'd like to thank some people for their help with the Lateral-G party

[camcojb]

I've had nothing but positive feedback from those that attended our party this year. While I definitely appreciate the thanks given to me personally, there were several people involved without whom it would not have happened.

First off, Mark Lengal (bigtyme1). After Steve Sandlin passed away the Lateral-G Sema parties pretty much ended. Mark took it on himself to pick a spot for those that wanted to get together for a casual meet and greet at the Sin City Bar in the Flamingo hotel. After several years of success it finally got to the point that we had outgrown that venue, plus they didn't really have any food there, so people had to leave once they got hungry. Mark approached me to see if we could come up with a different venue, with food, beverage, and service that would be large enough to hold our members.

We turned to Curtis (spiffav8), one of our moderators. Curtis lives in Las Vegas, and being local was able to come up with the idea of renting a room at Margaritaville. In addition to the idea, he hammered out the details, signed the contract, and actually wrote a check for the deposit. I appreciate that level of trust from him, as we had only met in person briefly at last years Sema event.

Of course an equally important thing was a private donation, without which we would not have been able to afford this room. You know who you are, and realize that it is MUCH appreciated.

I also want to thank my moderators. Stuart Adams and Jim Hall (Ummgawa) manned the front table and got everyone signed in. Dave Gordon (Flash68) and Brent Dupont (Ricochet) helped with the party and banner setup, as well as several early arriving members who pitched in for final preparation.

I also want to thank our very own Scott Siegmund (Sieg) for the fantastic camera work. In addition to taking photos of the party, he took Sema and Ousci pics for us, which took up a lot of his time. We will be posting many of those when we can get them sorted out and uploaded.

Finally I want to thank the vendors and members who attended. Without you guys the site doesn't exist, and I definitely think we have an incredible group of members on this site. Total head count was about 130, a very good turnout. Vendors and members also donated gift certificates and items, and our own Bill Howell gave his winning certificate back in order to re-auction it for charity. I had the pleasure of making that $800 donation today, in memory of Todd Gartshore of Baer Brakes. I would definitely like to include a charity auction in our next event.

We are definitely going to do this again next year, and will likely opt for a bigger room so more of you can attend. I hope everyone had as good of a time as I did. It's amazing sometimes how this site has grown, from a simple idea of Scott Gulbranson to what it is today. I have met many of you at different car events over the years, and everyone has been top notch, great people to know. Thanks again for all your support.