If there’s anything that the 2015 Greaserama, well okay all of the years of the Greaserama have taught me it’s that change can be good. Moving the hugely successful event to a new venue a few years ago was not a 100% popular decision. If the attendance of both cars and spectators in the last two years means anything, it’s that the venue change didn’t change the core of Greaserama. The people, the cars, the art, the music, all of this comes together to create the amazing experience that we call Greaserama.
The 2015 Greaserama got going ahead of schedule this year. I showed up early (for once) and the cars were already being let in, that’s probably a good thing as they just never stopped coming in for the next few hours. There were, of course, cars that I’d seen before, but tons that seemed new to me. I saw a bunch of cars that were changed from last year as well. It’s great to see a car come together over the years of attending the same event.
As I write this, the 2015 Greaserama is winding down. I’m beat and I was only there for a few hours on Saturday. The heat was back this year, but the cars just kept coming all day long. I don’t have official numbers, but from my estimation this had to be right up there with the best Greaserama yet. The car count was big, the spectator count was big, the quality of the cars was great, by all accounts I’d say this was one you shouldn’t have missed. However, if you did, I have ya covered.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I can’t be everywhere at once. So, lucky for me (and you) John Wells went to Cheaterama while I was at the H.A.M.B. Drags and he got some photos for us to enjoy. As you enjoy these photos remember that Iron Invasion October 3 in Woodstock IL is just 70 miles south of Milwaukee. You can find more info on Iron Invasion below.
This post of the King Pin Carmageddon coverage is brought to you by The Lonely Knights. Look for more info on the 2016 King Pin Carmageddon coming soon!As the afternoon turned to evening the long day started to wear on me. Being at the 2015 King Pin Carmageddon for 12 hours at the point after a short night of sleep had my energy levels low!
We grabbed another meal inside of Southside Johnny’s and watched some of the scheduled entertainment.
First up was the first round of the pinup contest started with an incredible 15 beautiful contestants! After that, we had live music from The High Gear Daddies who ROCKED both nights playing for us.
Then it was time to announce our King Pin Award winner and get then the finalists of the pinup contest came up for a second round. After the pinup contest, Vicky Tafoya and The Big Beat slayed us! That was an amazing set and a great way to end the day!
This post of the King Pin Carmageddon coverage is brought to you by The Lonely Knights. Look for more info on the 2016 King Pin Carmageddon coming soon!
The morning of the 2015 King Pin Carmageddon turned to afternoon, I had a full belly, tons of cool cars to look at and great people to hang out with and talk to. I honestly didn’t see the hours going by, a sure sign that I was having a good time. Cars kept showing up, some left as the day went on. The quality of the cars that the Lonely Knights were able to attract to the show was great. Check out these coolers, I kinda want one now.
This post of the King Pin Carmageddon coverage is brought to you by The Lonely Knights. Look for more info on the 2016 King Pin Carmageddon coming soon!
As the cars rolled in to the 2015 King Pin Carmageddon the Lonely Knights parked them tight, even with the cozy accommodations the lot filled up quickly. In addition to the cars, there was also a vintage cooler division, more photos on that tomorrow. See the below photo of the trophies and panels that were given out as trophies, pretty cool stuff!
At some point near mid-day I went inside Southside Johnny’s and found a couple of the Knights with an empty seat next to them. I was assured that the entire menu was good stuff, I chose the Cubano sandwich and I loved it. Just a note, if you are in the area, stop in and enjoy some good eats!
This post of the King Pin Carmageddon coverage is brought to you by The Lonely Knights. Look for more info on the 2016 King Pin Carmageddon coming soon!
When Matt and I arrived at Johnny’s Navajo Hogan many of the Lonely Knights were hanging out watching Rodney James & the High Gear Daddies put on one hell of a show. It felt like a family reunion with all of the folks coming by to say hi and exchange hugs and handshakes. That’s one of the things that stands out the most about the Lonely Knights is that it’s as much a family as it is a car club, which is probably why there’s such a kinship between the LK and the Stray Kat Kustoms family.
After a long day at work and over 450 miles behind the wheel of the Galaxie I really wanted a drink but decided against it as I still had a few miles to go to get to Big Rich’s house to crash for the night. The Hogan seemed a great place for it, that bar will be on my list for places to hang out next time I’m in town.
6:25 the next morning myself and LK Jerry Hatto rolled up to the show. We were early but the last ones there, the Lonely Knights crew was there in force, hours before the scheduled start time. By 7:30 am when registration was beginning there were cars lining the street and they just kept on rolling in. The large crew made the rolling registration and parking job run smoothly.
This post of the King Pin Carmageddon coverage is brought to you by The Lonely Knights. Look for more info on the 2016 King Pin Carmageddon coming soon!
I don’t remember when I first heard that the Lonely Knights were going to be putting together the 2015 King Pin Carmageddon but I knew that if the Knights were behind it, I would be there. The show went down in the parking lot of Southside Johnny’s on the south edge of the downtown area of Colorado Springs on August 29th.
I took off from work a couple of hours early after picking up the Galaxie from getting some maintenance done and headed out for the 467 mile drive. I drove out to Goodland, KS and met up with my buddy Matt Murray from Murray’s Custom Body & Paint in Goodland and we rolled west to Colorado Springs to meet up with a bunch of the Knights at the pre-party.
For the 5th and final installment of the 2015 HAMB Drags coverage we continue with the action coverage and show some more from the pits. It was a long day and I finally had to bug out at about 5pm because I was beat. Hope you enjoyed the coverage!
The “Goatroper” GTO is always fun to watch. This year at the 2015 HAMB Drags was the 2nd time that I’ve seen the car run in a couple of months after seeing it at the Meltdown Drags. More drag racing action in today’s post, enjoy!
Still waiting for the track to be prepped for the 2015 HAMB Drags, I wandered around the preferred parking area. Normally it takes a day for the track to get cleaned up after a rain storm, the track crew had it ready to run in about 5 hours. Kudos to everyone on staff for getting things going! The photos you see here take you through the preferred parking area and right up into the action!
As you can see in the photos it was wet at MO-Kan Dragway for the 2015 HAMB Drags. That slowed the show down but didn’t stop it! By 3pm the cars were lined up and the tree was lit. I continued in the pits and car show area for awhile and finally made my way over to the sidelines to take some photos of the action.
The 2015 HAMB Drags got off to a wet start, but went pretty darn well. Again cars from around the country converged on Joplin, MO for the 1 day event put on by the folks behind the JalopyJournal.com infamous H.A.M.B. (Hokey Ass Message Board). The event is open to pre-64 vehicles and there were a bunch! The coverage starts with some night shots from the Friday night hang out in the host hotel parking lot.
Special weekend post from last week’s Jalopy Jam Up Frontier Ghost Town just outside of Durham, Ontario Canada. My good buddy Jeff Norwell is one of the folks behind the Jam Up and he sent me these photos to share with all of you.
The Jalopy Jam Up looks like a great time, it’s my kinda show, pre-64 traditionally styled cars are the feature of the show. I’ll let the photos that Jeff sent describe the show for you but if you want more information you can go to the official website here or the Facebook page here. I’m going to see if I can find a sponsor to get my butt up to Canada next year for it, I just hope that it doesn’t fall on the same weekend as the Hot Rod Hill Climb.
For the 5th and final installment of 2015 Hot Rod Hill Climb coverage we continue with the parade back down the mountain and then move on to some shots around the Georgetown, Colorado business district of the car show area. I hope you’ve enjoyed the photo coverage of the Hot Rod Hill Climb!
In Part 4 of the 2015 Hot Rod Hill Climb coverage we continue with the on mountain action. The view from my spot outside of the turn had bored me so I’d moved to the inside of the corner. Now I was able to capture the cars coming up the road at me, running by me and around the corner. To be honest I was a bit giddy with the whole thing. Here I was with an amazing view over Georgetown, a killer spot to watch the cars racing by mere feet in front of me and I was able to have some fun conversations with some of the other folks in the corner.
For part 3 of my 2015 Hot Rod Hill Climb coverage I’m still on the outside of the turn, watching one of the most amazing collections of hot rods assembled flogging themselves up the mountain! As with last year I noticed that some of the cars were using parts that basically are only found in museums, and they are on the engine and running up a mountain at 10,000 ft! How cool is that?
For part 2 of the 2015 Hot Rod Hill Climb coverage we’ll finish up a few pre Hill Climb shots then pick up the on mountain action. We caught a ride on one of the buses and got off about â…“ of the way up the course. I started shooting from outside of the corner, a pretty good spot, all of the shots today are from that vantage point. I wanted to make sure to give you a different angle from last year and I LOVE some of these shots.
In my opinion there hasn’t been a better traditional hot rod event all year than the 2015 Hot Rod Hill Climb. This was my second trip up to the Hot Rod Hill Climb in Georgetown, Colorado and it was even better than the first. Even with missing 90% of Friday it was awesome. Museum grade cars not only on display but being driven up the mountain, and some of the greatest people on the planet, I am a lucky man. All of this coverage this week is made possible by Speedway Motors, without their support of this coverage I couldn’t have made it happen. Make sure to support those that support the coverage that I’m able to give you!
2015 NSRA Louisville Nationals. Another weekend with more going on than any one man can get to. Lucky for me and you, Adam Bateman of Wizards had his phone out and snapped some photos of the 46th Annual NSRA Nationals in Louisville, KY. Thanks Adam for letting me use your photos! Everyone needs to go check out Wizards products and buy some, tell them Royboy sent ya!
Another new to me show and maybe new to the world was the 2015 Vintage Invasion show in McLouth, KS. Great little fairgrounds area for a show, just not much of a turnout. Hopefully in years to come they will have a better crowd in both cars and spectators.
I could have been all over the country at different events this weekend. From Hot August Nights in Reno to the Symco Shakedown in Wisconsin to the NSRA Nats in Louisville (more on that coming later this week), or Ink N Iron in Nashville, there were tons of options for this weekend. I decided to stay home this weekend and hit a couple of smaller shows in the area, head to my day job’s summer party and then do a photo shoot on Sunday.
Last week I took my 7 year old nephew with me to a couple of shows. This week his 5 year old brother went instead. I don’t have any of his photos available as of the time of this writing, I’m hoping to have some of his shots for the 2nd show tomorrow.
So looking for shows to hit I posted on Facebook that I need another show to go to. This one was suggested to me so I picked up Stratton and we drove to Kansas City :).
In this final installment of the 2015 WFO Guys Car Show Coverage we have some of my favorites of the show. The first shot is one of the cleanest Chevy’s of the era. While not the “of the era” build style that I so love, I can appreciate the execution and craftsmanship. Again Gannon’s photos join my own in this final post of the show.
Part 2 Â of the 2015 WFO Guys Car Show in Augusta, KS with my nephew Gannon! His pictures are darn good for the first time he’s ever done this. I may lose my gig soon!
