To start my Pistons and Paint trip I took Friday afternoon off and headed south, it was a fairly uneventful trip. I decided that I wanted to get there as fast as possible so I’d just stay on the boring interstate, a route that is usually about a half hour quicker. Thanks to a traffic jam in Oklahoma City, it was a wash except for my elevated road rage. 🙂
For the 2nd year in a row I headed down to Texas for Pistons And Paint and had a great time! The show had a great turnout this year with weather that was chilly and windy at first but turned into a beautiful day.
In 2013 I finally made the trek down to Denton, TX for the Pistons & Paint show. It’s just about time for that show again. Yeah this is a 1 month warning but you have less time than that!
Okay folks, here’s the final post of my 2014 coverage of the Lonestar Roundup! I may do some more artsy edits of some of the photos and share those with you next week but this is it for the coverage. Thanks for one of the biggest weeks that this site has ever had. If you enjoy the posts here, share them with your car fan friends, the more people that see them the more the advertisers will want to be here meaning that I can travel more to new shows farther away and maybe not go into my own pocket so much to do this :). Thanks to everyone that listened to the new Chrome Pipes & Pinstripes Podcast, more to come next week! Enjoy!
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 DVD copy of “This Is Long Beach” from Atomic Hot Rods,
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.
The show was bigger than I’d ever seen here. My feet still hurt from walking the expo grounds for 2 full days. Listen to the podcast today to hear more of the story of the weekend as well as some interviews about some upcoming shows.
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 DVD copy of “This Is Long Beach” from Atomic Hot Rods,
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 DVD copy of “This Is Long Beach” from Atomic Hot Rods,
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.
The easiest way (which costs you nothing) is to share this post! IF you like this post, share it with your car friends using the social media sharing buttons below or just by sending them the link to this page. Every set of eyeballs on the site helps!
Or if there’s something you need to buy from Amazon, click here to go there. Drag that link to your menu bar for quick and easy access. It costs you nothing extra and Royboy earns a small commission.
Don’t forget the Royboy Merch!!!! I have keychains, coozies, stickers & hats for sale. Every piece you buy gets me further down the road to bring more show coverage and podcasts to you.
All Royboy photos on this site are available as prints up to poster sizes. Buying them not only makes your walls cooler it puts gas in the tank to get me to another car show or feature shoot. Please consider buying a print, if you can’t do that, I understand. Or just hit the Store page and buy something or make a donation!
Friday at the Roundup this year was almost as big as 2013 on Saturday. We knew this was going to be a big weekend, it was. The Vendor building was full and maybe half of them were friends of mine that I’d become friends with over the years. I feel awful that I didn’t have enough cash to buy anything from all of those amazing artists and vendors. Timebomb Kustoms, Gambino Kustoms, Bernie Ramirez, Vintage Torque, Greenspan’s, Ed Tillrock, Max Grundy, Mad Fabricators, hell I’m sure that I’ve forgotten a bunch of folks. Go to their sites, buy their stuff, support kustom kulture.
The easiest way (which costs you nothing) is to share this post! IF you like this post, share it with your car friends using the social media sharing buttons below or just by sending them the link to this page. Every set of eyeballs on the site helps!
Or if there’s something you need to buy from Amazon, click here to go there. Drag that link to your menu bar for quick and easy access. It costs you nothing extra and Royboy earns a small commission.
Don’t forget the Royboy Merch!!!! I have keychains, coozies, stickers & hats for sale. Every piece you buy gets me further down the road to bring more show coverage and podcasts to you.
All Royboy photos on this site are available as prints up to poster sizes. Buying them not only makes your walls cooler it puts gas in the tank to get me to another car show or feature shoot. Please consider buying a print, if you can’t do that, I understand. Or just hit the Store page and buy something or make a donation!
The easiest way (which costs you nothing) is to share this post! IF you like this post, share it with your car friends using the social media sharing buttons below or just by sending them the link to this page. Every set of eyeballs on the site helps!
Or if there’s something you need to buy from Amazon, click here to go there. Drag that link to your menu bar for quick and easy access. It costs you nothing extra and Royboy earns a small commission.
Don’t forget the Royboy Merch!!!! I have keychains, coozies, stickers & hats for sale. Every piece you buy gets me further down the road to bring more show coverage and podcasts to you.
All Royboy photos on this site are available as prints up to poster sizes. Buying them not only makes your walls cooler it puts gas in the tank to get me to another car show or feature shoot. Please consider buying a print, if you can’t do that, I understand. Or just hit the Store page and buy something or make a donation!
The adventure this week started Wednesday afternoon as my Dad and I headed south for Texas. After stopping by a job site we finally got on the road a couple of hours behind schedule. By 10 pm we were pulling into our hotel parking lot in Sherman, TX. Meeting some friends from the Tulsa area at the hotel and some local friends the next morning we had ourselves a caravan. Picking up more people along the way the trip to Austin was a fun one even with the near constant road construction from Dallas south.
Thursday evening we hung out on Congress, enjoyed some Home Slice Pizza, drinks at the Continental Club, ice cream from Amy’s and some just general hanging out watching the cars cruising.
Friday morning it was up early and off to the show, at 9am the line was already formed to get into the show. Once my pre-reg was in hand and my car was staged to get into the show it was a waiting game for the gates to open at 10am. Here’s the first batch of photos from Friday.
The easiest way (which costs you nothing) is to share this post! IF you like this post, share it with your car friends using the social media sharing buttons below or just by sending them the link to this page. Every set of eyeballs on the site helps!
Or if there’s something you need to buy from Amazon, click here to go there. Drag that link to your menu bar for quick and easy access. It costs you nothing extra and Royboy earns a small commission.
Don’t forget the Royboy Merch!!!! I have keychains, coozies, stickers & hats for sale. Every piece you buy gets me further down the road to bring more show coverage and podcasts to you.
All Royboy photos on this site are available as prints up to poster sizes. Buying them not only makes your walls cooler it puts gas in the tank to get me to another car show or feature shoot. Please consider buying a print, if you can’t do that, I understand. Or just hit the Store page and buy something or make a donation!
Time for the final installment of the 2014 Texas Thaw coverage! Thanks again to the Torques for putting on another great event. For all of the latest info on the Texas Thaw go to the official website.
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 (shown below), 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.
Overall the Texas Thaw was a blast. I did have 1 issue though. At some point during a day long event you might get a bit thirsty or hungry, which did happen to me. So I went over to try The Bomb food wagon’s food, uh damn, long line there. So I went over and got in the longer line for the track’s concession stand. I don’t know what made me choose that longer line but something in my head though since it was the track concession stand that they’d be ready for crowd and they’d get me through the line quickly. WRONG. I was talking with folks so I didn’t realize that it had taken 45 minutes to get up to the order window. Right… well okay I’ll get a cheeseburger, some fries and 2 bottles of water, it may take 15 minutes or so to get my food so a 2nd bottle of water might come in handy. I was 75 minutes short in that estimation. That’s right boys and girls. After paying $17 for a double cheese burger (fatboy upgraded at the window), some fries, and 2 bottles of water, it took over 2 hours start to finish to actually stand in line and then get the food. That’s with 6 people giving up on waiting in front of me before I even got to order. Northstar Dragway, YOU FAIL when it comes to the concession stand. There is no excuse for a wait like that. A.) make a separate line for the folks that only want drinks and serve them out of a big beer cooler. B.) load your grill with burgers when you have a line instead of dropping them when you get the ticket up next. I saw one guy who waited 30 minutes from ordering to get 2 corndogs and 2 nachos, that’s an order that should have been up in about 90 seconds.
Okay enough of that bitching. I had to say it out loud and I had to say it where it will show up in google searches.
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 (shown below), 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.
For the last few years the Vintage Torque Fest put on by the folks of Vintage Torque DVD‘s on the first weekend of May. I give promoter John Wells a lot of hell for changing the date of the show because it now means the show conflicts with the Stray Kat 500. Since I do not own a flux capacitor equipped Delorean (which wouldn’t fit the criteria of either show) I must choose. 9 hours each way or 3.5 hours each way… Sorry John.
But just because I can’t make it doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t bust your butt to get there. Go here and find out all of the info. Here’s what I saw the first 2 years.
Thanks to John Wells and Vintage Torque for sponsoring the New Blood Award!!!!
See you at a show,
Royboy
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March Subscriber Giveaway!
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.
The day turned out quite nice weather wise. I should have spent more time shooting when I got there but there were people to see, stories to tell and memories of a fallen friend to share. The sun came out and gave me a decent little sunburn, I wandered the pits seeing old friends, meeting new ones. I have to say I dig this event. The cars are cool, the people are cool and the money goes to the USO/Unite for Troops.
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.
March 1, 2014 marks the second time that I went down to Denton, TX to the Texas Thaw put on by the Torques Car Club. The 1/8th mile Northstar Dragway was again the host for the 7th time. The car show area was overflowing just as last year and the drag pits were as well. Lots of vintage steel on hand for show and go.
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 (shown below), 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.
This will be the 4th trip down to Austin, TX for me for the Lonestar Roundup. 2011 was the first year I drove the daily driver down solo and met up with a bunch of friends at the show and had a great time. The next year I picked up my buddy Mongo for a sidekick and again we had a great time. Finally in 2013 I drove my Galaxie down to the Roundup, her first major road trip. It was a whole different experience being in the show rather than just spectating at the show.
The Lonestar Roundup (April 4-5, 2014) is a great weekend with the show and tons of un-official events all over Austin with garage krawls, parties, and live music scheduled to keep everyone entertained outside of the show. My first trip down I went to Congress Ave on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, the increased number of people at the show makes that nearly impossible now. From locals with their Camaros and other rides that they go and power park on Congress leaving no room for the show goers, to the fact that many non-car folks have become hip to how cool South Congress Ave can be makes the Friday and Saturday nights into huge traffic jams. So my advice is that if you are going, stay away from Congress. There are an amazing amount of great food and entertainment options in Austin that are not on that street, there’s no reason to go be part of the problem.
The Roundup is open to 1963 and older traditionally styled kustoms and hot rods. For the most part that’s what’s there. Last year I was really bummed to see a bunch of off topic cars and crap-tastic rat rods that got in. I don’t know for sure but judging by the mile long line of cars to get into the show I’d be the authorities pressured the show to just get people off the streets and into the show and the filtering process broke down. Parked across from me on Saturday was a mid 80’s mini-truck with badly attached 51 Ford sheet metal around the cab. It did not belong in the show, and still chaps my hide to this day along with all of it’s “look at me, look at me, look at me” brethren. It’s far easier to build a car that gets attention because it’s cool than it is to spend all that time and effort to just get attention just by shock value. This was another one of those events where folks with the rattiest rides were acting like they were all badass at the show, yet this “badass” car was so un-drivable that it was trailered to the show and back and I passed them on the highway.
If you have a kool traditionally styled 1963 or older ride, this show could be a great one for you. If you have a purposely ratty piece of junk, there are plenty of other shows out there that cater to you, go to those.
Here are some slide shows from my visits to the Lonestar Roundup.
For info on registering your ride and to see what’s acceptable and what’s not go here.
I am in no way, shape or form associated with the show and the opinions that I express here are my own and nobody else’s. I’d love to see this show have judges at the gate like the Hunnert Car Pileup did to cull the herd a bit.
See you at a show,
Royboy
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February Subscriber Giveaway!
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!
5th and final post of my 2013 Pistons and Paint coverage. I’ve saved a few images back and I’ll write up a piece to accompany them for an article for a magazine, stay tuned for that. Click on any of the photos to purchase it as a print and help put more gas in the Royboy-mobile to get me to another car show!
Part 4, only 1 left after this one! Quite a few of these cars I get to see in Austin at the Roundup but this show is about 1/3 the size. I’ll be completely honest here, I like the smaller shows. When you start to get over 1000 cars you really loose the intimacy of the show, there’s just too much to see, too little time to spend with friends because you’re always pulled to go visit other friends. This show had officially 494 cars, enough to fill out your day but not so much that it felt overwhelming. The cars, the people, the bands, all added up to a very enjoyable day.
Continuing the coverage of the 2013 Pistons and Paint. I’m going to save my brain a bit and not type too much here for story as I am trying to see if I can get an article on the show published. If you see any photo that you like, buy a print, it’ll put a little gas in my tank to get me down the road to the next show (literally) so I can bring more coverage to you!
Before any of the car stuff, the day this post goes live is Veteran’s Day 2013. Thank you to all current and former Veterans for your hard work and sacrifice. Early this year one of you that was close to me passed, on an extremely cold day in a snow packed cemetery, 2 incredible young men came out and sent him off in a way that still makes me tear up to today. He flew in WWII and was a flight instructor, in a war that was well into the history books decades before these soldiers were born but the respect and dedication that they had to see that he was honored properly was inspiring. The cold, the snow, the fact that they never met the man who’s service was over almost 70 years ago, none of these meant that they would give any less than their all. Thank you to all of you that have served and God bless you and your families.
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My first Pistons & Paint weekend is about over. 🙁 Well, as I type this it’s 11:35pm on Sunday night, so the weekend is over in just a few minutes. I hope you enjoy the Pistons and Paint coverage as much as I enjoyed the weekend! Click on any of these photos to go to the full gallery and purchase a print! Help get the Royboy cameras to another event by getting some prints for your walls!
More to come throughout the week, subscribe at the top right corner of the page to get the daily Royboy blog posts delivered to your email as soon as they hit the site!
See you at a show,
Royboy
Don’t forget to get your 2014 Calendar for Charity order in ASAP! They’re already going fast, once they’re gone they’re gone!
I’m sure glad that I came down to Denton, TX this weekend for Pistons And Paint! About 500 cars showed up and I was able to meet new people, see new cars, and spend time with close friends along the way.
Today’s post will be some cell phone photos of the event, while I do a couple of shoots here in TX before heading back home to prepare more for you tomorrow.
For years I’d had to shamefully admit that no I hadn’t been to Pistons & Paint in Denton, TX every time I’d been asked. This year I change that. So for the 46th Royboy gallery in the 2013 folder I headed down to Texas for the PnP.
Friday Nov. 8th 5:30 am Ugh, 5:30 in the AM… as in morning. Yuck. Already a half an hour behind my meaningless and self imposed schedule. But the bed was so comfy… just 10 more minutes of sleep… No. I have to get up, I have to get on the road. It’s time to kick this mule.
6:10 am I’m in the daily driver and headed south. The GPS is on, not so much because I need it but the app I use does allow other folks to warn you of potential speed traps. I might as well use it if it helps. There is just the faintest of hints of the impending sunrise on the horizon to my left as I blast south on what can be deer infested two lane country blacktops.
7:15am Okay so now I’m 15 minutes behind schedule, must have made up some time on those back roads. Now it’s time for breakfast with the Wichita guys. A group of car guys that I know gathers for breakfast at the same diner 6 days a week. It’s always a good time to join them, so I do just that. The guys liked the calendars that I showed them and they bought a bunch, even some strangers across the joint buy a couple.
8:30am Back on the road headed south to Nostalgia Sid’s in Guthrie, OK for a shop visit. Sid shows me around, I take some photos, learn more about that in an upcoming article right here.
11:40 am Nostalgia Sid’s Shop visit is over and now I’m off to Shoebox Central for a visit. More pics and a story again, coming soon!
1:00pm Heading south again this time headed for Atlas Speed & Custom in Denison, TX
4:00pm Hanging out with some old friends who have gathered at Atlas. More pics and a story from there soon as well.
We ended up gathering up a bunch of folks at a fried chicken place called Babe’s in the evening for dinner, it was pretty awesome.
More from the show tomorrow, see you at a show,
Royboy
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Last time I was down to Atlas Daddy-o was working on this amazing roadster.
Daddy-o’s Sedan has recently gotten a heart transplant with a bit more umph. Just shady pics for now, more to come after the next couple of visits to the shop.
Love the old signs that Atlas has all over the place. The “Quonset Hut of Speed” as Ryan from the H.A.M.B. called the shop.
That’s it for this visit, hope you enjoyed the 3 shop tours, I intend to do more with these 3 shops specifically but also a couple of others that I know.