Event Coverage Pigeon Forge rod run in jeopardy?

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wa...g-around-to-cancel-pigeon-forge-rod-runs/amp/

 

https://www.change.org/p/sevier-cou...-sevier-county/w?source_location=petition_nav

 

Pigeon Forge welcomed the hot rodders with open arms after the locals reeked havoc resulting in what was called a riot where the fire department hosed the crowds down.

I would think now that the hot rodders have pumped millions of dollars into the coffers and the town has grown over the last 30 years the motels could care less, the sleepy small town has grown into a huge recreational destination.

I went for many years but stop going about 4 years ago, HRP

 

Hotrodders show up 4 weekends a year? And the whiners gripe about that when they have the town the other 48. I believe that nothing will come of it, especially when you think about all the money that hotrod groups feed into the local economy during those weekends. The wives that shop , the families that enjoy the tourist traps, the dining, motel rooms, etc. As the constipated man once said “ this too shall pass!”

 

via the video: Another "Woke" individual fer sure!!

 

Shades of the Past is supposed to be my travel show this year. Rooms booked already. We shall see. Gonna be following this. Snowman

 

It only takes one screaming, coffee can exhaust equipped car or getting "coaled" by some sky-high lifted pick-up to piss enough people off and start a petition to end all shows. There's always an ass-hole in the bunch that ruins it for everyone else. And don't get me started on uncontrolled burnouts when dozens of spectators are lining the street. One death and the car scene is over.

 

X2. Very true. Snowman

 

“The show itself isn’t the biggest issue. The event at the LeConte Events Center here causes us very little problems. It’s the followers that don’t attend the show. The people that come here to drink and party,”

Mayor Wear agreed the city needs to talk about what they can or can’t do. He said the biggest issue, on the same note with Chief Catlett, is that the actual car enthusiasts aren’t the problem.

Wear said he wanted to make sure there was that clear distinction.

Start writing tickets for open containers and public drunk. Curb the rowdiness and make money for the city. Win/Win.

 

^^^^
That right there.

 

Unfortunately , teaching some to show respect to others is nearly impossible ( cat calls , etc.)

 

Didn't watch the video, but my first thought is that if people are upset over PF now, they'd have slit their wrists if they'd been in Gatlinburg in the 70s.
Danny's right, there's enough other stuff there now. Rod runs wouldn't be missed if they were banished. Besides these are evil internal combustion engines, so they must go.
BITD, in Gatlinburg, it WAS the local/ Sevier county/ Knoxville assholes who caused the most trouble. Most of us watched the chaos, but didn't participate.
Still, G-burg in the 70s was epic.

 

get off my lawn

 

This is really it, and it made me sad to read that newspaper article. It's the drunks and the disrespectful douchebags that ruin it for everyone. It would be a real shame to let those people win. The coal rollers and the cat callers and the daytime drinkers are NOT who I want to represent the hobby, not even to be a part of it.

Maybe a bigger police presence, and make a few examples, dragging a couple of screaming dipshits away in cuffs might help curb the bad behavior.

 

Hey Clem, The Rod Run is this week.

 

We had the same situation at N.S.R.A. York several years ago. As others have pointed out it's not the hot rodder's. The local business community loves us, as we bring in lot's of dollars. After dark the local yokels come out and do all sorts of stupid stuff and the community lumps them in with us. They equate a pick up truck filled with a dozen beer drinking idiots with us and say we're the problem.

 

I talked to some of the guys that put on the Shades Run last weekend, and they are going ahead with the run and said that this petition will go away. Too much income.

I’ve been going to the Shades run since the 70’s and the “Townies” caused a lot of the trouble back then, as well as now. That’s why/how it got moved from G’burg, to the farm, and then to Splash Country.
But there is no way to stop people from driving on a state highway, so the crowds will be there.

The Parkway is totally insane with fart canners and coal burners as well as civilian lookie-lou’s just
content to sit in traffic. I refuse to do that, and go in and out to Splash Country the back way.
Sitting for an hour while going only one mile, even on a non-car event weekend, is crazy.

Bad behavior by stupid and/or drunk people needs to be controlled by those with the authority to handle it.
I don’t think that the city fathers are interested in seeing any of the event promoters moving to another location.
But on the other hand, has this location reached a physical saturation point, even without the car events? Could be.
I hate going there ANYTIME, and live close by.

 

We have the same problem at "OC Cruisin'". 95 percent of the tickets go to cars not registered in the show. Lots of jacked up 4x4 pickups filled with underage drunks. Every tuner and 5.0 Mustang from a 200 mile radius doing massive burnouts. Still, I haven't missed it in 20+ years, and am not going to miss it this year...

 

...........As a kid living in East Tennessee in the late 50's in the nearby hamlet of Chestnut Hill (Bush Bros. Cannery location), Pigeon Forge was little more than a couple of go-cart tracks and a few tourist traps selling genuine Cherokee moccasins made in Japan....Now it runs pretty much from Gatlinburg to Sevierville. You have a good point @hotrodA , the whole area may have reached saturation point...........Don.

 

Haven't been to PG in about 30 years, and it was a gaudy, sign and neon covered tourist trap then. Hate to think about what it is now.
It's sad that a few rowdy idiots can ruin a good thing.

 

We have been gong to Pigeon Forge for many years and before that to Gatlinburg, I stopped going when a gentleman tht was parked next to us at splash Mountain suffered a heart attack and I ran down to where the hosting club had their booth and ask if I could go get the mans car and drive it in to pick him up, they told me to call a ambulance, no late model cars are allow in the park, I went back and my wife and his wife loaded him in my sedan and I drove them their car in the parking lot, it seemed to me money was more important than people, it just left a bad taste in my mouth.

We are going to travel to Cherokee this year, I hear it's a good show, I don't plan on spending my hard earned money in Pigeon Forge in the future. HRP

 

Reminds me of when we went to the NSRA Nationals in Oklahoma City in '91? I think? We stayed at a hotel off Meridian and the locals were doing burnouts all night up and down the street. Cops finally blocked off the street and let them have at it. It was wild, and probably the first time I saw real live boobies, as I was only 13.

There was an NSRA Rep hanging around and he was ripping widow stickers out of any street rods participating in the "festivities".

 

So I was excited to go and take my kids but let’s just say I wouldn’t let my kids especially my daughters go without me and certainly wouldn’t let them drive up and down the strip. But here is the deal.... it wasn’t the hotrodders that were the problem from what witnessed. It was the non old car ghetto fabulous raised front tail dragging trucks with the loud rap music, maradi graw beads ready to be deployed, doing burnouts in traffic all while drinking that kinda said this might not be a family event. Im a big boy so I don’t get to bothered by what the world does but I keep a close watch on my stuff and an even closer watch over my family and this wasn’t the Pigeon Forge we had been to in the past. Plus there was A lot more trash on the street than I remember too. I hope it doesn’t get canceled but local business has a lot to say about well local business. Not to mention it only takes one event where a drunk young man in a big half lowered monster truck with drunk people hanging off the tail gate doing burn out with a hard launch slams into a restored car to really get things shut down.


Sent from my iPhone using H.A.M.B.

 

I have been going to Cruisn’ the Coast along the Mississippi Coast since it started and this year will be the 25th Anniversary. It has grown a lot over the years with almost 8500 cars registered last October and I suspect half again as many that just show up. There are six venues (cities along the coast) and several planned events. I really don’t recall a lot of problems over the years but it has changed. Used to be people parked at the venues during the day and traveled between the venue cities (venues close at 5:00pm) then cruised well into the late evening along the beach.

Now there is still a lot of activity during the day with hot rods, street rods, muscle cars, customs, etc. every where. The cruising at night has changed a lot. I personally have my car parked by 7:00pm. The cruising at night has been taken over by lifted coal roller trucks, late model Mustangs, Camaro’s, Dodges, rice burners and any car capable of doing a burnout one legged or not and motorcycles. A lot of drinking, burnouts, an occasional wheel stand and other activities I’d rather not be in the middle of with one of my cars. Cruisn’ is a week long event but by Friday night there is a police car parked in the middle of every block with blue lights flashing to cutdown on the craziness. I suppose it’s only a matter of time before a big incident and the police and locals will call for it to be stopped. The event brings in a lot of money with the casinos and other attractions however the locals hate Cruisn’ because it disrupts normal life with traffic.

Its still fun and I will continue to go. The organizers do a great job but can’t control some of the unruly behavior. The problem doesn’t come from the registered participants but mostly from the rowdy people that just show up to party. I suspect this happens to all events as they go from small to huge. Man this makes me sound old.

 

The good ol’ days. Pigeon Forge in the 70’s, before the onslaught of “progress”.
We would stay there in one of the few $19.95 Mom & Pop motels or motor courts instead of high priced Gatlinburg.
For those familiar with it now, that’s the Olde Mill behind those buildings on the left for reference. CRAZY!

 

Yeah, hotrodA, those days were so different. I lived in G-burg in the summer of '70, '71, '73. Loved it ! All except driving to Knoxville, usually sometime between 2 and 4 AM, and having to drive through PF. That straight stretch in PF is the slowest, cruelest road I've ever tried to drive without getting put in jail. Sevier county in the 60s and 70s was a lot like the county that made Buford Pusser famous, except more corrupt..I had good friends who were lucky to get out of there alive. I could tell unbelievable stories, none of them HAMB stuff.
I love Sevier county, and especially Gatlinburg. Wish I'd bought property 30-40 years ago up there.
Only problem is that I hate people, so Sevier county might be a problem

 

I remember that as a youngster. Never cared for the place. Mom wanted to shop in all the souvenir places. Sane Chinese Native American artifacts and dishes.

 

Those of you into Street Machines may remember DuQuoin 1986-1998. The Street Machine Nationals met there for 13 years until finally the town had had enough. I lived in Western Kentucky during that time and had friends who were into those kinds of cars and went to DuQuoin every year. The event just got too big and too rowdy! And yes, a segment of the local folks were tired of it.
https://www.hotrod.com/articles/history-of-the-street-machine-nationals/
And I get it. I wouldn’t want to live next the fairgrounds the weekend of the tractor pulls or demo derby.

 

Drove through Gatlinburg 25 years ago on a cross country vacation. G-Burg was a disappointment to put it mildly. Nothing but cheap T shirt shops and clitzy tourist traps. The only thing I remember about Pigeon Forge was all the places selling Christmas display fixtures. Not the highlight of the trip to say the least. The drive though the Smokeys made up for it though.