Cars invade the All-Truck Nationals Welcome Cruise

The Midwest All-Truck Nationals took place on Saturday and Sunday at the E.H. Young Riverfront Park in Riverside, Mo., but the festivities actually started Friday night with a kickoff cruise for both cars and trucks.  This was a nice little gathering, with live music, a laid-back atmosphere, and a handful of interesting cars and trucks.  Sure, it was a little warm.  But that never stops the car kooks from getting together.

From brawn to beauty, the Midwest All-Truck Nationals hauls into Riverside

As the owner of an old truck, I always look forward to the Midwest All-Truck Nationals, which made its annual stop at the E.H. Young Riverfront Park in Riverside, Mo., over the weekend.  This event is hosted by the Genuine Chevy/GMC Truck Club of Kansas City.  How seriously do I take this show?  Well, I usually take my truck to a real car wash and blast it with a high-pressure wand instead of just hosing it off in the driveway, and I climb into the bed and sweep it out with a broom.  So yeah, it’s a pretty big deal.

Mid West Camarofest celebrates its 25th anniversary in Riverside

If you have an event that hangs on for 25 years, you know you’re on to something.  Last Saturday, the Camaro Club of Kansas City not only celebrated the 25th anniversary of their Mid West Camarofest show, but they had a record number of entries.  The E.H. Young Riverfront Park in Riverside, Mo., was full of Chevy’s high-performance four-seaters.  Let’s take a look at a few of the standouts from this hot but happy show.

2012 Midwest All-Truck Nationals is the place where truck owners come together

If you own a Camaro, Corvette, Mustang, Thunderbird, or Chevelle, there is a big, model-specific car show in Kansas City just for you. Now, I don’t own a Camaro, Corvette, Mustang, Thunderbird, or Chevelle. I have an old truck. Not even a pretty old truck. So the chances of me hitting a show that I would fit in at are few-and-far between.

Good things come to the small crowd at the Riverside Red X Cruise

The Riverside Red X monthly cruise has the potential to be a pretty nice gathering.  Too bad more people don't attend it.

It seems like the eclectic shopping center has been trying to have a successful cruise for years.  Sometimes they get a few cars, but for the most part, attendance has been fairly spotty.  So instead of scheduling it in the evening like a normal cruise, this year they decided to try and have them on Saturday afternoons at 2:00.  The idea was to keep it from conflicting with other cruises in the area.

Sparkling street rods at the ASRA Cruisin' KC Car Show in Riverside

BHo played a basketball game in Riverside Saturday morning, so we decided to try and catch the American Street Rod Association (ASRA) Cruisin’ KC Car Show, which was held right next door to the basketball complex at the E.H. Young Riverfront Park.

When we drove to the entrance of the park, a nice gentleman walked up to my window and asked for $7.00 per person to go check out the show. I glanced over at my wife, who had absolutely no interest in being there, and decided to take her home instead of paying the extra seven bones. I’m not saying that I’m cheap, but, well, I’m cheap. It takes like a month for these line ads to add up to $7.00 on this blog. I’m not wasting the money on someone who doesn’t want to do it.

Beetles and Busses. The story behind Volkswagen's air-cooled icons

The unmistakable smells of ether and gasoline fill the air. A turn of the key. A crank of a wrench. Another turn of the key; then a sputter. Followed by silence. Once more—a plume of smoke, and that distinct, air-cooled rasp wheezes to life. And if the driver is lucky enough to get out of his parking space without the engine dying again, the reward is a white-knuckled drive at a maximum speed of 42-mph.

Such is the life of a vintage VW owner. And you know what? They love every bit of it.

Riverside Red-X Cruise benefits from exceptional staff. Too bad this is the last one of the season

Friday night, we went someplace that we hadn't been all year. The Riverside Red X Cruise is held every second Friday night throughout the summer, but for one reason or another, I always manage to find something else to do.

I kind of feel bad about that now, because the people that are responsible for putting this together really work hard at it. They have a D.J., loads of great door prizes, and dash magnets. We were met by someone as soon as we drove up who handed us prize drawing tickets, and within 30 minutes, three of them were called as winners. When everything was over, they gave me an event T-shirt. They had coal fires set up to roast free hot dogs and s'mores. It was one of the most congenial car cruise staffs I've ever seen.

ASRA Midwest Vintage Weekend brought a nice collection of pre-1949 street rods to Riverside

The Midwest Vintage Weekend had a lot of promise. It was sanctioned by the American Street Rod Association, a nationally-recognized organization dedicated to cars 1948 and older. It had its own website and was promoted heavily on the Internet. There were professionally made signs and banners all over the show grounds. And a large staff of guys in matching T-shirts were on hand to take your money and tell you where to park.

But the other thing they had to deal with was an unprecedented Missouri River flood. So while this was supposed to take place in the picturesque E.H. Young Riverfront Park in Riverside, it was moved to the decidedly less picturesque Park Hill High School parking lot.

11th Annual Midwest All Truck Nationals is one of the best truck shows in the country. Learn about it and see the pictures here

Sunscreen. Just one simple word, yet it can make such a big difference. Or maybe it's two words. I'm not sure, because I never was close enough to any on Saturday to read the tube before I spent the whole day in the sun.

I never knew what hit me, though, because I was completely distracted by the fantabulous weather and more than 200 awesome trucks at the 11th-Annual Midwest All Truck Nationals at the E.H. Young Riverfront Park in Riverside, Mo.

For one thing, they had an exact replica of Snowman's rig from Smokey and the Bandit. At least they said it was a replica. I've seen that movie no less than ten-million times, and this baby looked just like it. It even had the Coors beer in the back. Anyone that would paint their truck like that would go to a minister's funeral dressed in feathers. And I, for one, loved it.

Then, they had Bigfoot. Not the a new Bigfoot with ugly sponsorship graphics and a boring current-model F-Series truck. This one looked just like the late-'70s version, kind of like the one the bad guys smashed up the dealership with in Roadhouse.

Surprise coverage of the Second-Annual Posse Car Club Car Show in Riverside

I spent most of Saturday out at the Midwest All Truck Nationals at the E.H. Young Park. While I was out there, my wife called me on her cell phone. She and my six-year-old son BHo had just arrived to see me.

"We're outside the park waiting to get in, but there's a train parked across the tracks," she said. "Oh, and we also stopped and took some pictures of--"

"Don't tell him!," I heard from the backseat.

Riverside Red X cruise night combines neat cars with a bizarre, but fun, shopping experience

The Red X store in Riverside, Mo., held a car cruise on Friday night, and they couldn't have had a better night for it. With temperatures hovering in the '70s, a beautiful sunset, and a lot full of car nuts, you couldn't have asked for a better place to start the long Labor Day weekend.

The Riverside Red X is kind of a fascinating place to go regardless. It's hard to really describe the store in two words, like "department store," or "liquor store," or "grocery store." It's a little bit of all of them. Really, the place is kind of strange, but in a good way. You just have to go there to understand what I mean.