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.
I’d been hearing for a couple of year about the DuckusCrapus Drags at Tulsa Raceway Park. DuckusCrapus.com is a website that has amongst other things an active forum. The drags are a way for the members of the site to come together and have some fun at the strip. Lots of great cars were there and I got some fun photos. If you see a photo that you’d like to have as a print, click on it to go to the gallery page where the photos live and you’ll see a “Buy Photos” button that allows you to pick any size you want.
In the Summer of 1959 at the Kansas City Drag Strip, a young eight year old boy eyes a bright red 1939 Chevy staging against its competitor.The snarling beast inches forward trying to unleash its wrath as the driver Bob Worley fights her back. The signal is given, the clutch releases and the red monster roars, breaking free from its confine! The slicks dig into the track! The front tires are sent into the air and are gaining altitude as the young boy intently stares on. With no desire of letting up, the red Chevy keeps digging in until she’s resting on her back bumper and light is shining under her rear slicks!
If you want to this blog in your email inbox each time the blog goes live, go on up to the top right hand corner of the website and enter your email address. The last day of each month I randomly pick 1 subscriber to win a prize package. This month’s prize is a kustom art piece from Chaotic Customs, a Royboy Knit Winter Hat & a shirt from Stray Kat Kustoms!
Thank you to the first 2 sponsors of my site, quite frankly the only 2 that I’ve asked to sponsor the site so far. If you’d like to help sponsor Royboy Productions and provide the koolest car show coverage to folks worldwide, click here to ask me about it.
If you want to this blog in your email inbox each time the blog goes live, go on up to the top right hand corner of the website and enter your email address. The last day of each month I randomly pick 1 subscriber to win a prize package. This month’s prize is a kustom art piece from Chaotic Customs, a Royboy Knit Winter Hat & a shirt from Stray Kat Kustoms!
Thank you to the first 2 sponsors of my site, quite frankly the only 2 that I’ve asked to sponsor the site so far. If you’d like to help sponsor Royboy Productions and provide the koolest car show coverage to folks worldwide, click here to ask me about it.
It was an ambitious goal. 3 events in 2 states in 1 day. To be fair it was 3 events in 2 cities that were a state apart in 24 hours, enough with semantics, lets start with the photos. The first stop of the trip was the Chill in Park City, KS. The show consists of 3 giant buildings, 1 that’s vendors, bikes and this year Semis, yes big rigs. The other 2 buildings were full of cars, trucks, drag vehicles etc.
We’ll start out with the bikes. There weren’t very many of the flavor that I enjoy, but those are mixed in to these photos.
If you want to this blog in your email inbox each time the blog goes live, go on up to the top right hand corner of the website and enter your email address. The last day of each month I randomly pick 1 subscriber to win a prize package. This month’s prize is a kustom art piece from Chaotic Customs, a Royboy Knit Winter Hat & a shirt from Stray Kat Kustoms!
Thank you to the first 2 sponsors of my site, quite frankly the only 2 that I’ve asked to sponsor the site so far. If you’d like to help sponsor Royboy Productions and provide the koolest car show coverage to folks worldwide, click here to ask me about it.
If you want to this blog in your email inbox each time the blog goes live, go on up to the top right hand corner of the website and enter your email address. The last day of each month I randomly pick 1 subscriber to win a prize package. This month’s prize is a pinstriped piece from Pinstriping By Lizzie, a Royboy Knit Winter Hat & a shirt from Hot Rod Hill Climb!
2013 was the first time that I headed down to Denton, TX’s Northstar Dragway for the Texas Thaw. The combination vintage drag races and car show was 6 years old in 2013 and had one of it’s biggest turnouts to date. The 2014 Texas Thaw goes down on March 1, again at the NorthStar Dragway right along I-35 outside of Denton, TX. For all of the info on the show go to the official website here or here on facebook.
Final installment of photos from the Hot Rod Garage Open House. You can find their facebook page here. I made a few passes through the event as there were a bunch of folks coming and going so there are some photos here that are repeats of vehicles from slightly different perspectives. Click on any photo to go to the entire photo gallery. When you see one you’d like to have as a print, just click the photo, then in the gallery click “add to cart.”
The cacklefest was a nice addition to an Open House, I was inside using the facilities when one of the cars fired up a wall away from me, it was impressive how much of the stuff in the room was rattling from that car sitting 8ft away. The shop has a bunch of high end projects on hand, it was really impressive to see them both the finished rides and the under construction ones.
An 88 year old racer drives this Vette, and judging from the look on his face when he was loading it on the trailer and decided to burp it for the crowd, he enjoys it.
Event Coverage: 2013 Hot Rod Garage Open House Part 3
The day went by quickly, as soon as I arrived I ran into Aaron from Fast AL’s Upholstery and as the morning went on more and more friends showed up. It’s always good to hang with your friends and ogle beautiful rides.
A couple of weeks ago I was in Wichita on a Saturday afternoon and I decided to finally head over to kustom/hot rod/general car guy legend Dave Stuckey’s. Some may know Stuckey’s name, he was the man originally responsible for the amazingly kool kustom “Lil Coffin” (read more about that here). Dave has been working for awhile on a couple of really cool projects, one of them being a somewhat drag version of Lil Coffin, not that it set out that way but there are some similarities in the overall design of the body. His attention to detail on this project is phenomenal. Lots of kustom touches on items that will never be seen by most people let alone noticed, some subtle, some not so subtle. I won’t show you too much of the car, it needs to be a surprise. Here are some shots of it.
Another project in the works is this coupe, he has a beautiful flathead built for it and is just waiting to finish the big project to get back on it.
Here’s a shot of my favorite version of the Lil Coffin on an old Starliner poster. (More info on the upcoming Starliner show)I’m hoping to be able to stop in more often and sit with Stuckey and a video camera so that he can tell you some of his stories in his voice. It’s part of project that I hope to spend more time on in the future, more on that later.
Some of my Mulvane Marauder friends were in attendance
Of course the Lil Honker, always a favorite.
My buddy John’s barn find gasser
The man, the myth, the traveling legend Bob K!
Butch M’s 56 Chevy Gasser got some new touches
Perfection.
Simple, cool, I want one.
Some of the best curves in the automotive world.
Bill Moore’s “High School Dropout” Merc
This is one of the slickest flatties I’ve ever seen.
Don’s 53 is always looking good.
Another view of Rick’s new shoebox.
Krobe’s fastback fleetline Chevy
There are a couple of shoebox utes in the area, this one has a ton of work in it.
Mike’s bad blue Chevy Truck
Kerry’s rail, I hear tell that about the time I headed for the hotel he pulled a 165 mph run, congrats man!
John and Butch warming up the hides.
That’s it for this HAMB Drags post, 1 more tomorrow and then maybe some special edits on Friday.
Thanks for following along on all of my adventures, remember if there are any photos you’d like to own a copy of for your wall, click on the photo here, and the site will take you to the appropriate page to buy prints. Every print you buy helps put gas in the tank to get me and my cameras to another show to bring you more show coverage.
As usual for this event I decided to leave my ride at home and catch a ride with my folks down to Joplin. With all of the travel that I do, it’s good to spend a couple of those weekends a year with them on the road. As I loaded my bags into the back of the truck the rain was pouring down in our little town. We headed south as quick as we could to try to outrun the storm. The route between Gypsum, KS and Joplin, MO has a few turns so every time we out ran the storm we made a turn and drove right back into it for the first 2 hours or so of the trip. 15 or 20 miles in a massive hail storm and torrential downpours were lowlights of Thursday evening’s drive.
Friday morning we assembled some of our friends and headed for Springfield, MO for the swap meet. The Ozarks Antique Auto Club Swap Meet is massive. There is no other way to describe it really. The car corral is usually loaded with good buys and some that are a bit over priced. There are top notch vendors from across the country and a truly staggering amount of individual sellers covering the fairgrounds. I didn’t find anything that I couldn’t live without, actually I had my heart set on an Offenhauser 4bbl intake for my flathead and some matching heads, but some new Royboy computer upgrades had that cash spoken for. Ahhhh, maybe next year.
Then it was back to the host hotel area for the Friday Night pre-party! Tons of folks drove their rides from all over the country to attend the drags and the pre-party. Music was provided by my friends Pushrod and they rocked the party like non-other.
Feast your eyes. If you want one as a print or a download, just click on it and you will be taken to the gallery they are housed in and you can order it!
So a couple of years ago I hear of a new indoor show in the Wichita area. Coming just a month after the Starbird show, I wondered how it would work. Then I hear that it’s also a major bike show. How is this going to work?
Pretty damn well.
So it works, I’ll be. When I walked in the door of the Kansas Pavillions in Park City, KS I was greeted with some motorcycle vendors, I’m not typically much of a bike guy but I can appreciate a well built bike just like a well built car. As I walked around the first room of The Chill I saw every manner of bike on the planet. It was impressive. In building 2 that first year were some vendors, some cars and a stage area. Building 3 was chock full of cars, it was a pretty good turnout.
2011 Chill
So a year later I’m headed back to the show. I know now that it works, and I hear some changes are in store. Sure enough, the car area was expanded, the bike area was rearranged to allow the stage for some live music. The same high quality selection of bikes, hot rods, kustoms, trucks, drag cars, tuners, street machines, etc.
2012 Chill
So in a nut shell, I’m heading back. It’s been a good quality show, of course lots of my friends will be there, many who did not participate in the Starbird-Devlin show of a few weeks back. If you can make it next weekend I highly recommend coming to see The Chill (click here for more info on the show). The show will feature a Hooters Swimsuit competition, and a live performance by Warrant (the hair band fan in me just smiled). Should be a good time for everyone!
So at 9:30am on January 17, 2013 I did something I’d never done before. I drove my Galaxie into it’s first ever indoor car show. The Starbird-Devlin Car Show at Century II in Wichita, KS, “The Wichita Tradition.” This is the 56th annual show, previously known as the Starbird Rod & Custom Show, it’s been a tradition in Wichita for a long long time.
I was lucky enough to be a part of the Kustom City display this year. Thanks to the new paint work done on my Galaxie by Jeff Myers, my car has been transformed to 60’s Boulevard cruiser. Doug Reed put together the Kustom City display of street kustoms from the area and my Galaxie was lucky enough to make the group.
So we rolled in, positioned ourselves and started cleaning the cars. It wasn’t long before it was time to head back to the day job, but I managed to grab a couple of quick snapshots while I was there.
I’ll head back to the show tomorrow after work and I’ll have more shots for you throughout the weekend. I hope to do a post of cell phone photos on Sunday and start the coverage of the show on Monday.
From time to time this blog will be used to share some info on a site, custom/hotrod shop, or organization that are friends of mine.
This first we’ll feature the American Hot Rod Foundation. I first learned of the AHRF through their page on facebook, a friendship that I’m glad I’ve found. Their feed on facebook is full of fantastic historic shots of historic hot rods and kustoms.
Head over to their site ahrf.com for more than your fair share of historic photos, stories and videos. Just a click on their Legends page on their site will have your mind reeling with all of the info that scrolls down onto your screen.
The Video page has trailer from there fantastic DVD “Deuce” I’ve seen it and I loved it.
This is just a scratch in the surface of this informative and fun website. I’m all about traditional hotrods and kustoms and the AHRF is dedicated to preserving the history of the American Hot Rod.
Give them a visit, spread the word and buy a shirt or DVD!