Since 2013 I’ve been making an additional trek south across the Red River to North Texas for Pistons & Paint. This year for the 15th Annual show held at the North Texas Fairgrounds in Denton, TX I was able to take my Galaxie for the 2nd time. The journey started Friday evening with a drive after work. By midnight I’d reached a hotel in southern OK, a few hours sleep then it was time to head on down to Denton. In the last couple of years the show had dealt with a little cold, a little rain, nearby rain, but this year it was dang near perfect.
More of the story tomorrow.
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In this episode Royboy talks with multiple time past guest John Wells of the Retro Rewind, Vintage Torque Fest and Iron Invasion. We had plans to do a SEMA recap, and at some point the word SEMA is mentioned. Enjoy our rambling.
Last week I ended up going through some old photos and seeing some photos from the 2011 Hot Rod Revolution in Austin, TX. The Hot Rod Revolution had been held in California and then moved to Austin in 2010. The 2010 version of the show was the first that I attended. I left home at 6:15pm and laid my head down in my hotel room in Austin at 3:45am. A few hours later I was at one of the coolest shows that I’ve ever attended. The location was the Seaholm Power Plant in downtown, I think you’ll see from the photos that it was pretty cool.
So Saturday was a busy day, it started at Ryno Built Rod & Custom with a shoot of a Metro Van that he has been working on. The photo above is of the gauge cluster in the Metro. The cluster is from Haneline Rod & Custom Products in Fort Scott, KS. So after shooting the van Ryno and I headed north on the way to Pleasant Hill, MO to attend the Gears and Gals Open House and we made some stops along the way. One of those stops was to the home of Haneline.
I still haven’t made it to SEMA yet. For those that don’t know, SEMA is the Specialty Equipment Market Association and once a year they have a huge industry only event in Vegas. This isn’t a car show, this isn’t for the general public, it’s a huge event where most of the industry shows off their equipment, their skills and they do a lot of networking and being Vegas probably a lot of drinking too. John Wells of Retro Rewind Dubuque was kind enough to share some images with me to share with you. This is a huge event and nearly impossible for anyone to cover completely, these photos represent a nice cross section of the event.
Around noon the Texas-Oklahoma Nitrofest started up. It was cackle time. The crowd moved from car to car and the engines spit and popped like only cars on Nitro can do. It was a glorious thing.
Each year the Hot Rod Garage Open House starts filling up early. There’s no car show but it’s suggested that people bring their cool cars and the street in front of the shop fills up quickly. By 8am there were more cars than there normally were by 10 am so I knew two things, they were going to run out of room and next year I’ll have to show up earlier. More to come tomorrow.
Over the years of attending the Hot Rod Garage Open House and stopping by the shop when I was in the area I’ve seen a bunch of different styles of builds. A mid 70’s Lamborghini, vintage Packards, modern Jeeps, mid 50’s Chevys, period perfect hot rods, they keep me guessing every time I walk through the doors. More to come tomorrow.
For a few years now I’ve been heading down to Sand Springs, OK to Hot Rod Garage, Inc’s annual open house and drag racer reunion. HRG has been building amazing cars for a long time and they work hard to bring a bunch of great front end dragsters to the open house to do a cackle fest. Over the years at this event they’ve also had recent a Ridler winning car and this year Goodguys Hot Rod Of The Year was there. It’s a great crowd of cars. More to come tomorrow.
This week’s guest is Tim Matthews of Speedway Motors Museum of American Speed in Lincoln, NE. Tim has recently been named the curator of the museum and we talk about his personal hot rod projects, some of the items at the museum, tether cars, tether planes and more on episode 129.
While I was busy working the 2016 BluesMasters At The Crossroads in Salina, KS this weekend, John Wells of Retro Rewind Dubuque, Vintage Torque Fest and Iron Invasion was out in California at the California Hot Rod Reunion. He was kind enough to share these photos so that you all could check out the event. Enjoy.
This week Royboy talks with Bubba Turner from the Chupacabras, the club that puts on Pistons & Paint in Denton, TX each November. We talk about the show, where it came from, where it might go, some of the cars he’s had and go through what all is going down in Denton Nov. 11-13, 2016 for the 15th Annual Pistons & Paint show.
During the past couple of years, here in Omaha, we’ve gathered a group of cars that we call “Hot Rods of Omaha”. It is really just a group of like-minded friends with traditionally styled hot rods. Quite often we get asked if it’s a car club and the answer will always be ‘no’. We all enjoy the ease and informality of the group.
We also enjoy getting the cars out and driving them quite often. With that in mind, I set up the first annual Hot Rods of Omaha Reliability Run. We only had a couple weeks to get the word out and it was open to all pre-’72 vehicles. With the help of social media and word of mouth, we had approximately 80 cars, pickups, and motorcycles on the run. The overcast weather cleared up and we ended up with a great day for a cruise. We met in northeast Omaha and the route took us through the Loess Hills of Iowa, back into Nebraska, a stop on an original brick portion of the Lincoln Highway in west Omaha, and ended in the Benson area of town. Much of the route was actually old Lincoln Highway and added up to 85 miles.
Big thanks to all that joined us. I hope you enjoyed the day as much as I did! We will definitely do it again next year.
This week Royboy takes your questions, gathered from social media and asks Mike Keller of Big Creek Restoration in Ellis, KS to answer them for you from the perspective of a shop owner. It’s like a 70 minute long shop owners 101 class.
Finally around 9am I got back in line to get into the show. The line was long and I was stoked for a great day at the Bayou Round Up. So many great rides in the Blackham Coliseum! So many great vendors out side! Great bands on the stage! Plus a ton of awesome rides out side. Throw in a taco truck in an Airstream trailer with AMAZING brisket burritos, what’s not to like?
Around 2:30 I finally realized that I needed to hit the road if I was going to make any good time getting home. So, since I was done shooting about 300 photos I decided to make tracks north. A couple more hours back up I-49 with all of those dang trees and then I found myself at Texarkana, heading west into Texas. Ah Texas… how I love thee. 2 lane highway with wide shoulders and 70mph speed limits. THAT is how you do it Arkansas! None of that 55mph crap on a big wide road!
600 miles later I was at my hotel in Bartlesville, OK around 11:30pm. It had been a long day and I was ready for another full night of sleep. Sunday I made my way back north, again avoiding some thunderstorms and finally was home Sunday evening after a quick run in with a police officer that did not like my speed… oops, the new rear gear makes the speedometer a bit off.
All in all it was a 72 hour trip driving 1,729 miles and I had 1 hell of a good time. Thanks for all of the birthday wishes, I do appreciate it.
Fuel your passion for performance at Speedway Motors! The best selection of quality parts – in stock and ready to ship TODAY. SpeedwayMotors.com
I arrived to the 2016 Bayou Round Up about two hours before the gates were advertised to be open. I was about fourth in line to get my Galaxie in to the show. Then I realized that the car was trashed on the outside still. A quick trip was made down the street in search of a car wash. The apps on my phone that I usually use to find stuff in other cities lead me either to full service car washes or finally a gas station which had an automatic system, although it was certainly out of service. Lucky for me a local was able to send me in the right direction for a place where I could wash a few layers of grime from my ride.
Fuel your passion for performance at Speedway Motors! The best selection of quality parts – in stock and ready to ship TODAY. SpeedwayMotors.com
Continuing the 2016 Bayou Round Up from yesterday, I was finally on the south side of Shreveport, I’m within a couple of hours of Lafayette. By this point I’m feeling awful, I’m still not sure what caused it. Headache, a bit light headed, maybe a little nausea, oh what fun I was having! But I was more than 7 hours into what was supposed to be a 9+ hour drive and I was not going to stop. Did I mention the trees? Holy crap, I get it, you like trees. 3 hours of just trees had me feeling almost claustrophobic! I won’t complain about western KS ever again, you may not be able to see much, but you can see the horizon!
I finally reached my hotel around 7:30pm, and instead of going and hanging out with folks in the square and listening to music, seeing cars and people I went to bed. At 7:30. I know how to party! 11 hours later I woke up feeling like a million bucks. That was worth it!
Fuel your passion for performance at Speedway Motors! The best selection of quality parts – in stock and ready to ship TODAY. SpeedwayMotors.com
Continuing the 2016 Bayou Round Up from yesterday, I saw no alligators this trip. As I headed south from Joplin on Friday morning the scenery was great. I’d never been to Arkansas before (to my knowledge), and I was enjoying the drive for awhile. Interstate driving is never my favorite except for when I need to make time. I was making time right up until the I-49 ended. Then I was frustrated by a 55mph speed limit on a road that anywhere else would be a 65mph and people in front of me intent on keeping the speed limit. Again, some scenery, some fun driving… well for 55mph. It was painstakingly slow.
After a few years of driving that road I finally got to the next section, an interstate. Fine, whatever… just let me roll! Before long I was cruising into northwestern Louisiana along I-49 again it doesn’t exist in the interim stretch from Fort Smith to Texarkana, but again I was at speed, even if it was on an interstate. The odd thing was that from Texarkana down to Shreveport it was almost deserted. It ends abruptly a few miles from joining the interstates that loop around Shrevesport, sending you down Highway 71, then through some horribly rough under construction roads.
More of the story tomorrow…
Fuel your passion for performance at Speedway Motors! The best selection of quality parts – in stock and ready to ship TODAY. SpeedwayMotors.com
The 2016 Bayou Roundup was my first trip to Louisiana since I was a small child and rode with my grandparents on a trip to deliver a giant tire to a farm. The tire was one like a monster truck uses, we delivered it to some farm land that was made from a drained swamp. All I really remembered about Louisiana from that trip was driving on an interstate and looking out into the swamps below, knowing that they had alligators in them. I’m not sure if I was excited or terrified back then but that’s what I had in my mind when I decided to return to Louisiana for the 2nd Annual Bayou Round Up. I didn’t see any real swamps or alligators this trip. Booooooo.
The story for this trip starts on Thursday afternoon, I planned on leaving right after work so I drove the Galaxie to the office. It turned into an exciting afternoon, read the captions below to get more of the details.
More of the story tomorrow.
Fuel your passion for performance at Speedway Motors! The best selection of quality parts – in stock and ready to ship TODAY. SpeedwayMotors.com
It’s that time of year again! Time to decide what goes in next year’s calendars. As last year I’m going to let all of you help decide. There are over 70 photos to choose from in the Truck edition. I weeded out a few thousand to get down to that. So here’s how it will work, the calendars will be available for pre-order in a week or so but before that we have to get down to 26 photos to use in the calendar.
So I need you to comment at the bottom of this blog post and tell me the number that is BELOW your favorite images, one image per person. Yes you must be logged in to Facebook to comment, sorry, but them’s the rules. I will pick one comment to win a free copy of the Royboy 2017 Truck Calendar!
It’s that time of year again! Time to decide what goes in next year’s calendars. As last year I’m going to let all of you help decide. There are 88 photos to choose from in the Drag edition. I weeded out a few thousand to get down to that. So here’s how it will work, the calendars will be available for pre-order in a week or so but before that we have to get down to 26 photos to use in the calendar.
So I need you to comment at the bottom of this blog post and tell me the number that is BELOW your favorite images, one image per person. Yes you must be logged in to Facebook to comment, sorry, but them’s the rules. I will pick one comment to win a free copy of the Royboy 2017 Drag Calendar!
It’s that time of year again! Time to decide what goes in next year’s calendars. As last year I’m going to let all of you help decide. There are 109 photos to choose from in the Kustom edition. I weeded out a few thousand to get down to that. So here’s how it will work, the calendars will be available for pre-order in a week or so but before that we have to get down to 26 photos to use in the calendar.
So I need you to comment at the bottom of this blog post and tell me the number that is BELOW your favorite images, one image per person. Yes you must be logged in to Facebook to comment, sorry, but them’s the rules. I will pick one comment to win a free copy of the Royboy 2017 Kustoms Calendar!
