Well, thanks to Joe and "Sandwich", Kirkham representatives at the 2007 BASH, I no longer need hang my head in shame at Cobra gatherings.
If I may, I'd like to relate the story of my redemption.
About 7:30 pm Thursday, I pulled into a spot on the 5th floor of the Nugget parking structure in Reno. This after just barely getting my car back from major engine work and a tranny rebuild (thanks Tom Lucas, FE Specialties, David Kee, too!). Anyway, as some of you may know, I half jokingly made an attempt to get Tom Kirkham to arrange a repair while at the BASH. But since it was such a last-minute effort, we were never able to set anything up.
Anyway, within 10 minutes of arriving, "Sandwich" walks over from setting up the Kirkham Booth. As he nears the car, I see him looking down at my shame. Before I can even launch into my routine explanation, he introduces himself, and says "we can fix that." At that point I try to tell him that I'd hoped to set something up, but before I could get it out of my mouth, he was on his cell phone to the mothership in Provo, requesting his tools be overnighted to Reno.
I gladly offered to pay them for their efforts, but both he and Joe refused any payment, including an offer to buy lunch. Mind you, I didn't buy the car directly from Kirkham, which I pointed out early on, but that didn't seem to matter in the least.
Anyway, both "Sandwich" and Joe launched into dent repair mode early on Saturday morning, giving me a call before I'd gotten breakfast, and saying that they'd pushed my car across the garage to their booth, and were in the process of taking care of the dent. By the time my dad and I got there, Joe and "Sandwich" had the dent gone, and were tag-teaming the dirty finish sanding. After observing their handywork for a couple of minutes, I told them to relax, and that I'd take care of the sanding myself later. No sooner had they stood up, than "Sandwich" noticed another small dent on the top of my driver's side front fender. While it really didn't bother me, he asked if he could fix that one too....what could I say?
In the end, so miraculous was the repair, that friends who attended the car show Saturday night lamented that while they saw a number of fabulous cars (including the polished one owned by "Sandwich"), they couldn't find mine among the Kirkhams...as none of the cars had the expected dent, even the one that looked just like mine.
Pictured above is "Sandwich" with me replacing the wheel. Joe, I'm very sorry, but I seem to have deleted your picture while trying to transfer images around. He's the one in the red shirt behind "Sandwich." If anyone has a picture of Joe, please post it below. He needs to be recognized for his efforts, too.