You’ve got personality!

On the road with a cast of thousands

Photos by Joel Stunkard

The summer months are busy ones on the Mopar show schedule. After all, the projects that were rebuilt during the winter months are unveiled, and the show season starts in April in Vegas and LA (Spring Fling) and now runs on almost every weekend through September, with final hits in Chicago for MCACN, the Wellborn Museum in Alabama, and Garlits Museum event. We would hazard a guess that the number of Mopars that get displayed, cruised, and raced in places including Canada now count in the literal tens of thousands. So, in reality, seeing it all is just not possible. Instead, we find things to highlight and gravitate toward. One of them is the people who attend the events.

Biggest star of the events would have been Richard Petty, seen here with our own Steve ‘Magneto’ Magnante before sitting down to sign about 10,000 autographs...

What is especially nice about the larger shows is that often people who made history in both racing and research show up. There was a lot to see in Carlisle this year, with 2200+ cars on hand, special displays and events, and more. The following weekend, Darwin Doll and his crew hosted the 11th annual York US30 Reunion and Nostalgia Nationals on the nearby York Fairgrounds (which, incidentally, are the oldest in America, dating to the 1700s. So, following a brief respite after my trip to Maple Grove last month, on July 5th I was back on the road again for the dual events and thought that we’d take a little closer look at the stars instead of the cars this year.

The Carlisle event is one of the stellar events on the yearly Mopar schedule, second perhaps only to the Mopar Nationals. This year, the two-hour appearance of Richard Petty resulted in a large Sunday crowd waiting for autographs and a few moments with the ‘King’ on stage.  Another highlight was the MCG Mopar Hall of Fame, which was organized and inaugurated with a Friday evening banquet MC’d by Herb McCandless.

York is more oriented toward racers and history, and also saw many stars of the strip on hand for its two-day running at the York Fairgrounds on Friday and Saturday as well as at the action-packed Nostalgia Nationals on Sunday at Beaver Springs Dragway. So check it out, and there is even a spot of video here…