Event Coverage Your Most Memorable Hot Rod Event

My first legal drag race at the old Spruce creek airport-I guess it was 1965?.Tasca Ford was there,EJ Potter and the" bloody Mary" doing exhibition runs, a lot to take in for a 15 year old kid.

 

'71 nationals in Memphis.

 

I actually should have listed my first visit to the Portland Roadster Show in 1969 as a 15 year old as my most memorable event, I guess my memory is getting fuzzy.

 

MSRA's Back to the 50's weekend St. Paul Mn

 

Hunnert Car Pileup, went twice when it was still in Morris both times. Was well run, laid back with driven cars mostly by the guys that built them. First one seen the Lunar Lander in primer form and met alot hambers I could put a face to the handle. Been to alot of shows and that show had the best vibe so far not replicated.

 

Frank,you and I Have been hot rodding a long time,I was blown away with Gatlinburg. HRP

 

Kind of spoiled with the MSRA Btt50's event being within a hour of me and haven't missed one since about 1978 or 79. But that show just for sheer magnitude is awesome even if not all on topic traditional cars. If you can't find something you like something is wrong with you. Great venue too.

 

The first time I took my Stude to W.M.S.R.R.U in Cumberland, MD About ten of us hoodlums and our wives and kids went together. We all had a blast with each other. I've said "we didn't know it at the time, but we were having the time of our lives" . Next would be Louisville 92 and the flood. Bill

 

Beyond a doubt.... My first trip to Speed Week and joining up with the "Bonneville Boys" race team. Nothing even comes close to that experience. Imagine pointing to a loss wire on the engine and one of the team members looks at you and hands you a wrench and says " fix it". I was on the pit crew from that point on. It's all about the iron and speed. Been going when ever I get the chance since then. Plan to go this year, God willing and the creek don't rise.

 

I second nationals at peoria

 

Sprintcars at the ND Fairgrounds in Minot when I was 4 or 5? Dad crewed for Hank Albers. national Nomad Meet in Rapid City in 79ish. 1985 Counts Run, Art herder let us jump in with my first car a 71 Cutlass......made dad drive so i could spectate. and the 1986 NSRA Midwest nats in Sioux Falls. Then, the KCSPMeet, the first HAMB Drags and Bonneville 2003.................yes, I have many

 

Best one I ever went to was the annual "Spring Fling" Mopar show with my Dad and his Muscle Car back in the 90s. Pops won first place for his car that show, and we had an absolute blast that day.


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I guess the first ones you go to always stay in your mind. For me it would be the '71 Street Rod Nats, the first with a car ('55 Chevy) first Street Machine Nats ('72), the first Rock City Rod Roundup ('73), my first trip to Gatlinburg ('73), my first Frog Follies ('82), the first Hot Rod Reunion at Bowling Green and the flood at the '92 Nats. In the early '70s there weren't that many events to go to and most streetrods were hotrods.

 

My most memorable event was the first time ever driving our 36 Ford Gasser drag car we built as teenagers down the track at the NY Westhampton Drag Strip in the early sixties. What a rush that was after countless hours and nights of work building that car in my Grandpa's garage. The car was originally flathead powered and later swapped to a 327 SBC. Never forget Grandpa saying "You kids are crazy. You spend hundreds of dollars to win a 59 cent trophy". This is a picture that appeared in the local newspaper. I'm the skinny kid in the middle. I'll tell you one thing, its a lot more fun doing then watching others have fun going down the 1320'. It wasn't pretty but it was pretty quick for what it was.. We thought we were real Hot Rodders.

Gary

 

Back in the 1970s going to the Annual HotRod show at the Royal Exhibition Building in Melbourne. Awesome venue, Allways plan my vacations to include this. Few pics from Carps at Ozrodders.com

 

This is an amazing story. What a way to honor your father.

My most memorable would be any Wheels of Time Macungie event between 1992 and 1996. We all packed up in my dad's '38 sedan and headed out there for the weekend. They were great family trips and times I'll never forget with my family and friends.

The second would be the first Old Time Drags I went to at Island Dragway. I was 17 and got my first chance to run a car down the drag strip. I ran that damn car all day long, even mushroomed a pushrod, but was able to borrow one from another racer. Also left the car in reverse on the starting line, but that's a story for another time!

 

Back in 1959 at the ripe old age of 14 one of my buddies older brother was putting his Roadster in a local show so we decided we should go. The show consisted of about 25 or 30 cars. As we walked in the door the first car on the left was Norm Wallace's Roadster and I was hooked. Now at the age of 71 I have 4 finished cars and have 3 under construction. I also still have my ticket from that 1959 show. As you can see they never tore off the stub. And they say it's a disease...

 

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Insanely awesome venue 34 GAZ. Holy shit !

 

Well,the Louisville flood does stand out but not as a highlight in my mind. HRP

 

The tops on my list would be the 2007 Rod and Custom Americruse. I was lucky enough to be found by Rod and Custom Magazine, that resulted in a photo shoot and a great spread but the real shocker was my car on the cover.

 

First Nats in St. Paul in 82.

92 Nats in Louisville, car was caught in the flood because of the locking column.

 

I miss the early rod runs, small, personal, driving events, after hours keggers in the motel parking lots. Standouts to me would be my first out of town show, a small run in Durango, Co with a cruise to Silverton in the early 70's and then for several years after that the run in Longmont, Co with the parade to Estes Park was an annual run I looked forward to all year. Later the bigger shows like NSRA and Goodguys got pretty boring to me, wasn't into just parking at a fair grounds, by the mid 90's I pretty much stopped going to rod runs.
Bakersfield's March meet is always fun for me.
Not a rod run but the first time I showed at the Grand National Roadster Show when it was still in Oakland (96) was a personal highlight.

 

I agree, not a highlight , but highlighted.
On the way down, we stopped at Cincinnati for gas and some chow. We all pull into this gas station ( about eight of us ),as I'm putting gas in I hear my buddy backing in just behind me. I hear him pumping gas , I wasn't giving him any thought when he gives me a whispering holler, hey. I say what's up? Real excitedly he says I just put diesel in my car. I said how much? A gallon and a half. How big is your tank? He says sixteen gallon. Hmmm! I doubt that would be a problem if you fill the it the rest of the way up with high test. So that's what he does . I pull out and head on down the street towards a Cracker Barrel and pull in and we're all standing around waiting on everyone to show up , when I hear this terrible noise and turn to look and it's my buddy's 32 looking like a white tornado making a terrible knocking noise. Oh oh. As it turned out he had a fuel cell and it didn't allow the gas and diesel to slosh around and mix. In other words he was running on straight diesel. Luckily there was some construction going on nearby and we went over there and drained out the tank ,then refilled it with gas which gave it way better manners. So by the time we finish with chow ,It's five o'clock ,rush hour. I-71 is bumper to bumper and everyone is wanting to get home after work. You were lucky to get one car into traffic let alone eight. So we each wait our turn to try to merge into traffic. I happen to be the last car. Once I got onto traffic ,you couldn't speed up , slow down or change lanes. I mean it was bumper to bumper. Finally after a few miles the traffic started to thin and I start trying to catch up with the rest of the guys. This is back before cell phones, although I did have a cb, it only worked when I was beside or on somebody's back bumper. Now I'm trying to look for any street rods in the distance and you could see for about a mile or so. When I would spot some rods in the distance I would speed up to catch them only to find out it wasn't anybody I knew. After about an hour of this I told my wife we are ahead of them. Well , we'll just drive into headquarters and register. The problem is I don't know what motel we were staying at that night. We were staying at a different motel Wednesday eve and I didn't know exactly where it was. I thought it was a Howard Johnsons, so I get the phone book and start going through the motel listings and there aren't any Howard Johnsons. Someone said that it was about twenty minutes from the fairgrounds . I started calling motels that fit that bill and after about the third call the gal answers the phone and I ask her if my buddies were registered there and fortunately she said yes and for me to stay where I was because they were on their way. I just went out and sprawled out in the grass at headquarters and took a rest. So this trip had several memorable events for me. There's more ,but I'm tired of pecking at this keyboard. Bill

 

Any of those early Nats in St. Paul are high on my list too. And I remember the white '34 coupe - "Kool Aid Kid" - got a photo of it here!

 

We went to the ColoRODans run a couple times in about 1980 as well. The drives out were always memorable with the big "crew" we went with. One of the times we rented a cabin in Estes Park and had elk walking through the backyard.

 

Yes Danny we have been hot rodding a long time!. More memories from 1970 Gatlinburg. My '33 Essex Terraplane (avatar) had been finished for a year, Cadillac powered with Lasalle trans, when about a month before the show I swapped in a 4.71 supercharged 368 c.i. Chevy with a 4-speed trans. After checking it out a few times locally this was my first trip and I didn't have a road gear. Had to stop every 75-100 miles to gas up. While driving through downtown Asheville's 4 lane a guy pulled up beside me and looked at the engine....and looked at the engine until running in the back of the car in front of him. There weren't many supercharged street rods back then.

 

Seeing a Hot Rod magazine in an older guy's (6th grader when I was in the 5th) on the Bookmobile. Start of my downfall ten and there.
Attending the opening weekend of Pacific Raceways with my dad in 1960. They ran a number of events that weekend including drags for a couple of hours, road bike races, road car races including most every thing they planned the track for to show what could be done there.
The first rod run I ever attended was in Waco Tx in the early 70's Probably 1971 as my son John was walking. I was just a spectator but there were something like 22 hot rods there from around the state of Texas and they had a Street Kahna at a parking lot on Sunday morning after the show in a park on Saturday. That hooked us on wanting to participate.

First rod run with our own vehicle entered, the street rod Nationals in Tulsa in 1973. I drove the 48 with less than a week old paint and a two day old Bobby Russel upholstery job The truck that had been totally reliable in the 4 months I had owned it and had redone it from a 75.00 brush painted beater to a painted and upholstered cruiser had a batch of issues including gold paint in the carb from not having the cap on the gas filler when it got painted, to a burned out coil crossing the Red River into Oklahoma from Texas to a burned up tailshaft on the trans a few miles further. Made it to Tulsa and had a blast. Stood in line for the "barbecue dinner" with Tex Smith and his buds and got to listen to his stories for an hour or so.

The road trip to Bonneville in 1988 with my dad stands high in the memory bank too. We left Zillah Wa in my 51 Merc towing a home made trailer with my wife's (separated at the time ) furniture on/in it and my two younger kids in the back seat headed to McGregor, Tx. I filed the points on a Dodge pickup for a kid an his wife who were stalled beside the road in one of those Wyoming rest areas about 15 miles west of Little America and got him going and went in the exit of rest area in Colorado because my son decided he needed to go when we had passed the entrance. Got to McGregor unhooked the trailer at the wife's house and went to the inlaws. Went and visited friends while dad recovered under my inlaw's ac and left for Bonneville on Thursday morning heading throught west Texas and New Mexico then up though the corner of Colorado and Utah. Probably drove 300 or more miles out of my way on that trip. We stopped somewhere in Texas peanut country and borrowed a timing light to set the timing on the 350R Olds in the Merc as I finally figured out it wasn't timed right. Rolled into Bonneville on Friday about noon and went straight out to watch the racing. Made it into town to find a motel room an got on the wait list at Motel 6 and luckily for those of us on the wait list several rooms opened up at the be there or else time and we got a room and a much needed shower and nights sleep.
Went the cruise in event out on the salt on Saturday morning and joined about 200 cars in a group photo but got trimmed out of the photo in the magazine coverage. Met a gent with another Black Merc that had stopped at the same Cafe in Rock Springs Wyoming an hour or so after I had when I was headed to Texas earlier in the week and had a visit with him. I was visiting with Bruce Crower while he explained his Nash straight 8 powered roadster when a Chrysler K car came sliding up an out jumps Don Garlits an his wife. Dad got Don's autograph on his pit pass on his straw hat on Saturday and that was one of his highlights of the trip as he left the pit pass on the hat

 

Been to many national events like hot rod nationals and few times at good guys Indy. But hands down was the Hunnert car pile up and Symco at Symco.

 

1. Watching the Speed Sport Roadster and Bean Bandits race at Paradise Mesa with my dad in 1956.
2. Meeting George Barris and Ed Roth at an indoor show in Balboa Park in 1958.
3. Attending the first SEMA show in Dodger Stadium 50 years ago

 

2002 York Nationals, my coupe was picked and shot by Rod & Custom mag. 2003 York Nationals, talked to Barry Maguire, Bo Hopkins, and Candy Clark. Anytime I race is a favorite, as long as I keep my junk in one piece. LOL.