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If you like beautiful ladies and beautiful rides then Spring Fling is the show for you. Each year Vital Signs Street Designs host their annual Spring Fling as close as possible to the center of the Panama City Beach's World Famous "SPRING BREAK". This year was no exception. This year schools such as Kentucky and Louisiana State were there for Spring Break 2002. I Left Atlanta on a 6-hour journey that was long and boring since I was riding by myself. As soon as I got near the strip that all changed. It wasn't long till I started seeing custom rides at every hotel. I knew I was here. I saw a long time friend's body dropped Isuzu and was immediately making a U-turn. Sure enough there stood 5 good friends from the Florida chapter of Explicit Concepts. It wasn't long till me and Stevie were watching the sun come up talking about everything from Drew's freshly body dropped s10 on 20's or Jonathan's bad to the bone body dropped Ranger with a fresh 302. I realized I was going to have a full day ahead Saturday so I headed to long time friend Dennis' "better known as OLB (one legged bastards)" crib to catch some shut eye. Saturday morning after getting woke by Dennis' bird that would not shut up, I met up with Doug and the guys that work so hard to host Spring Fling. This year was no different, Spring Fling was in a totally new location and if you've never been before the old location had no blacktop it was all dirt. Well this year the new park was all blacktop, which was definitely a well-excepted change by everyone. Before I knew it all my friends from my hometown and some new friends that I had made while in Tampa were all together and making plans for what was going to happen Saturday night. My boy Scott had brought their 40ft motor home, which was parked in the parking lot of the show and it truly showed that for 15 years now I've been going to shows the WRONG way. Nothing like A/C, food and beer at your disposal when ever you need it. As I made my way around the show grounds I almost forgot what I was there to do so I quickly went to the car and got the old camera out and set out to capture some pics of some bad ass rides. It didn't take long at all till I was talking to so many friends I have made over the years and some new ones I had made while chatting in the SSM chat room. I was amazed at tags from as far away as Jersey and even some from Oklahoma. Clubs such as Acrophobia, NC, ST, RA and Explicit Concepts had brought out there some sweet ass rides to this years show.
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As dark began to fall I knew I was in for a world of hurt because back at the motor home there was more beer then the beach police would even care to allow. It didn't take long for 7 cases of beer and 4 bottles of liquor to disappear and Club LaVela was calling our names. We didn't waste anytime getting to LaVela (the worlds largest nightclub). At about 5am I began to hear food calling my name, so Calli from Mini Madness and myself set out on a greasy spoon adventure that landed us in a booth at the Waffle House. Sunday was a gorgeous day and the show grounds were beginning to get full and fast as I arrived at noon. At the trusty motor home my boys were already starting to BBQ and drink a beer. I quickly said no thanks to the beer but grabbed a burger and was off to shoot a few more rides that had arrived Sunday. This year brought out some serious competition for the air bag hop contest with 5 bad rides with a lot of compressed air doing their stuff for the crowd. Soon the lovely ladies of the bikini contest were onstage to compete for over $500.00 in cash and prizes. This year Vital Signs went all out on some of the sweetest trophies I have ever laid my eyes on. The Best of Show trophies were made of 1" glass and were truly a work of art. It wasn't long till the thought of the 6-hour driving back to Atlanta was pressing on my brain along with a hang over, so I said good bye and thanked the crew for hosting a show that was one of my favorite shows I've ever been too. Special thanks goes out to the entire crew of Vital Signs for all their hard work. If you've never been to Fling your missing one helluva party.Ben Husser "You want some Mardi Gras beads""You know what yeah gotta do"
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