I met Jerry Dixey, the road tour host and coordinator and got to see this year’s 1955 Chevy Road Tour car up close. It’s a beautiful car, the first photo in my upload is that car. We decided to ride the tram to get a feel for the new layout and orient ourselves. We got off in the middle of the Roadsters display and started wandering around looking at the hundreds of gorgeous ’36 and older roadsters. We heard some very loud engines being revved up and followed the sound to the first session of the day’s Cacklefest. We watched a few cars crank up and roar, some of these cars I have seen sitting in the NHRA Museum. It was awesome to see, hear and feel the power of cars like the “Chizler” and TV Tommy Ivo’s slingshot dragstgers.
We started wandering through the Specialty Parking area which is for pre-’75 cars only and is a huge show in itself. We didn’t get too far when we decided to check out the vendor building to see if we could be tempted into carrying something home with us. This year the vendors were inside Bldg 4 at the Fairplex which is the same building used for the finalists in the Grand National Roadster Show. Everything from body panels, chassis’ and engines to smaller accessories and car oriented clothing was available to buy. We wandered around inside a bit and then got a phone call from the gent who is doing the final body prep for my friend’s ’33 Factory Five roadster. We found him camped out with the “Hot Rod Lincoln” car featured in a recent Street Rodder article. After admiring the “Hot Rod Lincoln” and discussing details of the current build we decided to grab a bite to eat at one of the many food vendors.
We wandered around outside afterwards and stumbled upon the car built by the founder of Magnuson superchargers, a Muroc bodied ’33 Ford that won multiple awards last year. It was just sitting there among all the other roadsters. I started to walk away and as I looked back something about the black roadster in front of it caused me to take a closer look. Parked in front of the ’33 Magnuson Muroc car was this years Americas Most Beautiful Roadster (AMBR) award winning car. Parked right next to it was the yellow track nosed roadster owned by Goodguys founder Gary Meadors.
Wow! What a show, everywhere we looked there were first class cars, there were two or three other AMBR award winners and finalists from earlier years in amongst the cars as well. Before we knew it the cars were exiting and it was time to hit the road. We probably missed seeing at least 1,000 more cars but our tired feet and full camera chips reminded us we had already made the most of the day. If you get a chance to make it to next years L.A. Roadster you won’t regret it. Steve Cushman
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