The 2017 Lonestar Round Up

When it comes to cars and car shows, I’m a cold and bitter bastard of a man. I often hear people say things like, “It’s really more about the people than the cars…” and I smirk impulsively. To me, it’s not about the people at all. It’s entirely about the cars. In fact, as a life long car stricken fiend, I find that people are often the tallest hurdle to jump over to actually get to the damned cars. And for that, I find that when at a car show I become a spiritless son of a bitch of epic proportions.

I just hate people. That’s all.

As I get older, however, this aversion is starting to taper off. An example is the best way to elaborate I suppose… This weekend at the Round Up I was trapped by Martin and Gareth (two friends I made years ago in Australia) and while they both yammered on, I tried in vain to look at a little homebuilt ’29 roadster parked behind them. At first, I did what I usually do and stayed tuned into the conversation just deeply enough to come across as attentive, but not so deep as to lose my train of thought towards the roadster.

And then, for reasons I won’t even attempt to explain, I lost track of the roadster and instead started tracking the words coming out of the crazy god dammed Australian mouths in the foreground. In turn, I began to think about how I know these two… I started to think about the time my attorney and I made the trip to Australia and memories of trouble and heathenism swept over my mind. And… well… this is gonna sound really sappy, but I began to think about how much I really like these two. And how crazy it is that that trip turned into life long friendships with not only Martin and Gareth but their other countrymen as well.

And shit. I guess all of those people weren’t all that wrong about car shows or, at least, The Lonestar Round Up. In a lot of ways, that show sort of is about the people. I’m not saying the cars play second fiddle to me or anything of the sort really, but I am saying that I’m starting to get the social aspect of it all – if only just a little bit.

The thing about the Round Up is that it’s a big car show. Huge. The event really is diametrically opposed to just about everything I like in a car show. It’s not small. It’s not intimate. It’s not focused. It’s not even all that unique if you put aside the music and the town. Hell, it’s at an Expo Center for god’s sake… But all those shitty characteristics somehow build up to create something more. If I’m honest with myself, the Round Up is probably the best pure car show in history. Seriously.

Every year I sit down on the Sunday after the Round Up and try to write about just how the show does what it does. I think I’m done doing that. If you want to see what the Round Up is really about, you just have to go and get involved. I don’t think Fitzgerald could paint the thing with words, so why should I even attempt it?

I didn’t have much time to get out and take a lot of photos, but I did take a few. Enjoy:

***

Oh. But what about The Jalopy Journal pick? Take a gander at Johnny Snyder’s ’32 5-window. It’s a perfect mid to late 1950’s hot rod and just my kind of car.