Street Machine and Musclecar Nationals
Story/Photos/Video: T-Bone
This story is more than a simple report about an awesome event. There was quite a bit going on, so let’s take it to the beginning.
I haven’t heard much about this new event coming to town. The O’Reilly Autoparts Street Machine and Musclecar Nationals presented by Lucas Oil at the Fairplex in Pomona, CA. From the looks of it, I thought it would be a musclecar heavy show. Which is cool in it’s own right, but with all the events happening in Southern California, I tend to go to the classic or custom car cruises. Then I read deeper in the literature and there is a lot going on in this “little” show. The event will feature an Autocross, Burnout Contest, Pinup Girl Contest, Dyno Run, Pro Builders Pavillion and cruise lane (unheard of at the LA Fairplex). Then I received an invitation from Colby Martin at SEMA to take part in their SEMA Action Network Corral. What better way to spend my birthday weekend I thought.
Thursday before the show I made it a point to go through the car. I plan to run the car on the autocross and cruise lane, so I jacked the ‘56 up and did a little maintenance, then brought it back down to the ground and went over it with a CSI polishing kit. Damn, that black sure was deep when I was done. You see the weekend after this the Fairlane will be at the Benedict Castle Concours so I wanted to get the year of microscratches and dinge off the panels. Friday I did a final buff and wax. Ready to roll, I head out in the morning to the show.
Saturday I spent mostly walking around the show, sitting at my car and enjoying the slow-pace. I met Javier from ACME Photography who brought over Bettie P’asian to model with my car. I had another great view all day as I was parked across from Max Grundy’s ’59 Pontiac wagon he just completed. What a nice ride. William and Davis from Primer Podcast stopped by to say hi and so did Jeff from JunkyardFind.com. While walking the show, I ran into friends Luke with his 55 Gasser displayed in building 6, and Borje who’s yellow Caddy mesmerized all who came near the stage. The SEMA SAN Corral was next to the stage and the Autocross course. I heard the bands play as the rubber squealed. In the afternoon I cruised over to the Autocross course to register and get a tech inspection. The folks at Total Cost Involved who are sponsoring the Autocross said it was full for the day and invited me to run tomorrow, my birthday. Cool. I met up with famed photographer Randy Lorentzen and his son Shawn who was interested in mic’ing and filming my car on the course. We made the final arrangements and agreed to meet in the late morning. At the end of the event on Saturday, SEMA held a reception for Alex Xydias for his birthday and present a donation from the event for his foundation; The Alex Xydias Center for Automotive Arts. I hung out with Dana Manier from The 401k Club Hot Rod Shop, Veronica “Miss Painless Performance” Jensen, and Steve who built the ’55 Gasser Asphalt Animal and was part of the Galpin Auto Sports team.
On Sunday Billy and I decided to miss the swap meet and head out to the show. It was a pleasure to see Jonathan Mill and his wife Kristian at the show with their 800HP Panel for All American Wheel Co. We uncovered the Fairlane and checked out the show before we headed to the Autocross course. They lured me into the burnout contest where the beast just had a bitch of a time getting smoke off the watered down steel plate. I also didn’t punch it too hard, trying to save it for the autocross. Then it was a lunch break when the Lorentzen crew set up the cameras and mics and Ben from TCI brought in the MAV/TV girls to ride along with me on the first couple of runs. They were good luck, as I got my best numbers from those first two runs. A respectable 41.695. The fastest car, a truck actually ran a 34. I had one more run to go, so I went solo. Shawn said they needed to get a couple more stills of the run and asked if I would go again. Uh, you don’t need to ask me twice. I grabbed my buddy Craig and we went for a ride around the track. The timing light was tripped by a worker, so I had to run it again. Oh, darn! What a blast. You can see the grin from ear to ear up in the stands! We basically hung out for the rest of the day. Devin drew a super cool picture of my car while we watched the Mitzi and Company Pinup Contest and the Awards program. Proud to say our friends at The 401k Club won awards for each of the three cars they entered. Congratulations to Fred, Tan and the late Dave Martino for their trophies.
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