According to Lichter's law of containment, if one puts up a fence around an event that used to be free and starts charging admission, it's only a matter of time before things go bad.
In the early days of the Mooneyes X-Mas Party, if memory serves us well, it used to be called the Rat Fink Reunion, and it was held at Moon Speed Equipment's parking lot in Santa Fe Springs, California. Back then, most of the guys who attended were pinstripers and usually showed up early enough to park their ride inside Moon's parking lot, grab a toilet seat or a trash can, and pull some stripes.
For the ones like us who showed up later in the day, we had to park out somewhere on Norwalk Boulevard and walk the rest of the way. One of the things that was really neat about the Rat Fink Reunion was Ed "Big Daddy" Roth, who would be there in person walking around with his top hat on, smiling and talking to people. For anyone who ever met "Big Daddy" Roth, we are sure the experience left them with a memory they will never forget. One of the usual stories is how approachable he was. As kids, we used to talk with him at one of the local custom car shows while he was painting creepy monsters on T-shirts and selling them. One of the last memories we have of seeing Ed Roth in person was at the Moon X-Mas Party. It was around dinnertime, and there was a barbecue going on. "Big Daddy" Roth and another guy were taking turns cooking the burgers and putting them together to set on a table and hand out to folks. When it was Ed's turn to cook burgers, he jumped right in and started cranking them out in a hurry...
maybe too much of a hurry. In his zealousness, Ed flipped a burger from the grill to the bun, but he missed it and it landed on the ground. Without skipping a beat, "Big Daddy" looked around with a giant smile, scooped the burger up, and plopped it onto the bun.
In defiance of Lichter's law of containment, the 2006 edition of the Mooneyes X-Mas Party was held for the first time at the Irwindale Speedway in Irwindale, California. The Rat Fink Reunion has evolved into a really great event of major proportions. Probably the key to this success is the folks at Mooneyes didn't get greedy and charge a bunch of money to get in. For only $5, you could park your ride and walk in, or for $20, you could enter your vehicle in the show. In addition to a large vendor's row area, the indulgence we were most impressed with was that it cost only $20 to drag race on Irwindale's eighth-mile strip. For information about attending next year's Mooneyes X-Mas Party, log onto www.mooneyes.com or Google "my truck ain't never gettin' out of primer."