SAACked! Article Feedback

In response to our article, “SAACked!”, about the Shelby American Automotive Club, Don Freeman writes:

I wanted to take a moment to respond to the article featured on your site titled “SAACKED! Is it only for deep-walleted elitist Shelby Owners?”Although I am fairly pleased with your eventual opinion, I still feel that we were painted with fairly broad strokes and made to look less than inclusive to the general enthusiast. I am the president of the River City Region (Sacramento) region of the Shelby Club www.rivercity-saac.com . Our club includes members that range from successful businessmen to busboys at local restaurants. All are welcome to join.
A passion for high performance Fords is truly the only prerequisite for membership. The Shelby Club focus is truly the enjoyment of DRIVING the great cars produced by Ford as they were intended. That is not limited to Shelby’s or even mustangs. We have not even had a president in the last 10 years that has owned a real Shelby. Even the members who do have original, high dollar cars drive the cars hard. I crew chief for a vintage race team and one of these cars is a USRRC small block race Cobra valued at about 2 million dollars. It is regularly raced and in fact I drove it at over 160 mph at California speedway just a few months ago. We are not a group focused on endless polishing as with some clubs but would rather be under the cars working on making them the best cars they can be. We had over 20 club members of our 90+ driving in the Mini-Nats including myself, and many more that attended to hang out and go for rides. Five of the cars pictured in the article belong to our club including the Comet and Tbird that you praised. I feel that these cars are actually more representative of the focus of our club than an exclusive, Shelby only group you eluded to.

As for the national SAAC club, the thing that should be understood is that the mission of the parent organization is the preservation of the real cars. Their mission statement is mainly concerned with maintaining the legitimacy of the real cars, maintaining a database and protecting the values and owners from fraud, which is a real problem with the real cars. Because a majority of them do believe in driving the cars the way as they were intend there is a brotherhood with the enthusiast that wishes to either make his version of an original or simply participate in events in which they run. I think that is where the dilemma lies. As the club gets segmented down to the regional and local level the definition of the club becomes much more broad. In our area there is little in the way of clubs for those lovers of any early Ford car that wants to race. That is where our club comes in and facilitates that.

I realize that this may come off as a bit nit-picky but it is an image that we fight regularly. Please understand that I am just trying to set the record straight a bit and would welcome you or your staff to attend another open track event next year. I would be happy to arrange rides in any of our clubs cars at race speeds if you wished. We truly are trying to make friends with our fellow enthusiasts and introduce them to our passion of open track events.

Just for snicks I included a couple shots of my car so that you can see what I mean. A blown and injected, highly modified coupe. My car is far from a Shelby and I have never experienced any kind of discrimination from them. In fact most love my car and appreciate the numerous changes that I have made.

Thank you for your time,
Don Freeman
President,
River City Shelby Club