The “devils” in their name, their tattoos (perhaps), and the noise of their cars made things tough for the New Jersey chapter of the Road Devils car club.
Jeff Mrozak, the club’s president, told me a couple of weeks ago that religious groups had opposed the club’s use of a parking lot in downtown South Orange, N.J., where for the last three years the group had held its annual “Peel Out,” even though the event raises money for the South Orange Rescue Squad.
And so the latest Peel Out — a gathering of retro-minded rat rodders and rockabilly music fans — moved to another square of asphalt two football fields south of the local Starbucks and South Orange’s rapidly gentrifying shopping district by the train station.
Among the 80 or so vehicles were beat-to-hell pre-WWII Fords, late-’50s Oldsmobiles, long ’60s wagons, and others. The richly tattooed arms and legs of club members (male and female) were as bright as the Mexican blankets — in rainbow hues — that covered the cars’ worn-out upholstery. Decals of demonic cigar-chomping woodpeckers decorated the windows. On the rearview mirrors were dice — not just fuzzy but flame-painted.
In the middle of the day, showers sent the crowd under a cluster of tents erected by visiting clubs and vendors of parts, T-shirts and refreshments. After the sun reemerged, an informal kickball game broke out. Women who looked like Betty Page boomed high punts to men with haircuts as hard and high as Bondo-filled fenders — not really the kind of hell that opposing religious groups had expected them to raise.
Now the Road Devils will visit the gatherings of their kindred groups later this summer
Jeff Mrozak, the club’s president, told me a couple of weeks ago that religious groups had opposed the club’s use of a parking lot in downtown South Orange, N.J., where for the last three years the group had held its annual “Peel Out,” even though the event raises money for the South Orange Rescue Squad.
And so the latest Peel Out — a gathering of retro-minded rat rodders and rockabilly music fans — moved to another square of asphalt two football fields south of the local Starbucks and South Orange’s rapidly gentrifying shopping district by the train station.
Among the 80 or so vehicles were beat-to-hell pre-WWII Fords, late-’50s Oldsmobiles, long ’60s wagons, and others. The richly tattooed arms and legs of club members (male and female) were as bright as the Mexican blankets — in rainbow hues — that covered the cars’ worn-out upholstery. Decals of demonic cigar-chomping woodpeckers decorated the windows. On the rearview mirrors were dice — not just fuzzy but flame-painted.
In the middle of the day, showers sent the crowd under a cluster of tents erected by visiting clubs and vendors of parts, T-shirts and refreshments. After the sun reemerged, an informal kickball game broke out. Women who looked like Betty Page boomed high punts to men with haircuts as hard and high as Bondo-filled fenders — not really the kind of hell that opposing religious groups had expected them to raise.
Now the Road Devils will visit the gatherings of their kindred groups later this summer
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