The Illinois Tow Show

 

Well, its tow show time again and we (Illinois) had our annual show. This was the first year back, doing the show threw the association, from our attempts at working with American towman. They screwed the association and the people attending. I don�t want to elaborate too much because this is a very hot bottom topic and there is still some dispute going on, I will leave it at that.

 

I will say this, when I first discovered how much fun tow shows were, and after my first trip to the Baltimore show, I wanted the Illinois show to be as big or bigger. When I heard AT wanted to come to Chicago, I was all for it and was vocal in my opinion. I love this city and because this town is an awesome place to have a convention, I figured this show had the potential to be bigger than Baltimore and Florida. The problem was that AT came in to Chicago from St. Louis where they had left a bad taste in peoples mouth. Hey wanted Chicago to be exactly like Baltimore, and that is exactly where they flopped. This is Chicago, not Baltimore. An if I go to Baltimore, why would I go to the same show in Chicago? They had the show in Navy pier and that was just the wrong place to have a tow show. No parking and the expenses were way too much. Any way, long story short, that show sucked and the next year, at pheasant run, they got better ideas but no one came because they thought the year b4 sucked. So that�s my synopses.

 

I have lots of good ideas about how to make a tow show better and increase attendance and venders, but this association did not want to listen to me 4 years ago, but now it�s a new administration, so maybe I will give it a go for next year���.maybe���..

 

Anyway, this year was much better. It was smaller but that�s expected after what happened last year and it rained, so that�s 2 strikes against us that we can�t do anything about! Lots of nice trucks and some great demos! � they rolled a cement mixed over- of corse, I missed it because I went to see district work the fatal rollover. They had some good food. .. oh and did I mention, FREE DRINKS!!! All weekend, thanks to our friends and world wide equipment! Honestly, my only complaint was that it was a bit crowed with all the trucks stuffed in to a smaller area, also there was not much room to bring in anymore equipment, some had to stay outside the show area. They had great entertainment including Elvis himself (well, he looked and sang like him!) well, here are the pics, I took so many, I needed to post them in more than 1 post!

 

 

 

Formerly Truck and Bus, they were bought by O'Hare towing and they did not repaint the truck yet but yopu can see the O'Hare symble on the hood.

this is an awsome truck. O'Hare's newest, they took Delivery of it at the show. they ordered it with everything the way they want it down to the last detail.

everything has its place and it is all painted.



this truck is bad ass!









Another Brand New Truck that the Bristol took delivery of at the show!

very cool truck and a nice guy (the owner) i really like the new design of the SP850

for some reason, this picture is out of order, the rest are farther below, but anyway, this is our new rotator and we, actualy Miller ind. and Lynch Chicago (whom we bought it from) got to play with a coil- 42,000 lbs for the 2 of them!!

the kids got to play!




this is my friend Larry from Carbondale Ill (my sister Meghann lives there and goes to southern Illinois University), in fact, she may have had her car towed by larry for parking in the wrong spot- who knows? any way- larry is semi retired and now speds his days taking his faverite truck to shows!

2 of O'Hares Heavys!

"Too Tall" AKA wayne, convinces J.R. to buy some straps from Wreckmaster

ahh, looking at pictures at the bar. thats my good friend Ron JR from Lin Mar, J.R. from Airline and "Too Tall"

more pics of our truck!