It seems my whole life has been intertwined with cars since the mid 50’s! My dad bought Chevy’s, not the sexy Impala’s but the everyday, four-door Biscayne’s and eventually the Chevy Bel Air of the day. I remember that in 1958 he was going to trade a 2-year-old, four-door Biscayne for a newer one. 

Back in those days the dealerships sold cars much differently, and they gave him a 1958 Chevy Impala convertible to drive around for a couple days. I was thrilled of course because by this time most young boys were still buying comic books, where as I had run across car magazines, so this ‘58 Impala for me was to die for. It had the new 348-cubic-inch debut year motor which marked Chevy’s entry into it’s first big block engine. That engine had three different horsepower ratings of 250, 280 and the high performance 315. I’m sad to say he did not buy that car, but boy I do wish he had!

During junior high and high school (the years of ‘59-’64)I spent a lot of time hanging around the various speed shops that seemed to spring up overnight in most larger cities. I also started going to the drag strip more and more, and this was my introduction to my eventual career of getting to be an NHRA Drag Racing photographer and writer.

Not only did I shoot cars at the drags but I also would attend any cars shows I had the time to attend. I was eventually introduced by a mutual friend how to shoot full on car features for the car magazines and write about the cars I had shot! Car shows are a great place to see all sorts of cars. Usually these shows have a little bit of everything to look at as far as cars. 

There was a time when if I wasn’t at a drag race someplace around the country, I could be found shooting a car show, or drag boat races. Heck I even did truck and tractor pulls for a time. For me no matter what type of vehicles I was shooting, I loved the sounds, the paint schemes, even the smells and certainly the performances I witnessed over the 60-plus years I spent shooting NHRA Drag Racing.

Do I have a favorite car show? You bet. Every year in Vegas if you are a car guy and want to see one of the biggest cars shows every year, you should attend the Specialty Equipment Market Association Show (SEMA), which is a car show and parts show all rolled into one! This show is so big that it has overgrown the main Vegas Convention Center buildings and has taken over another whole casino area just to set up the rest of the overflow part of the show.

This car show is so big that it takes several days to see it and even then you might not see it all. I have been there and seen three out of the 47 Tuckers that remain from the original 51 that were built. Quite the car, big, very big and ahead of its time. Another plus going to the SEMA Show is that just about every year there will be a car there that has been totally hand designed and built, which makes it a one-off car. But the real plus is if you’re working on a project car, and you want a hard-to-find part, you can usually get it there and talk to the company people that make it and sell it!

Living here in Powell, I try and cover each year the car show at the university and I have also done the Cody Country show a time or two, and the big show up in Red Lodge is a fun one. Powell’s newest car show is the American Legion Show out at the fairgrounds which I feel will grow in size because of all the room they have out there. It was just a couple weeks ago that another new show took place called Cars and Coffee. If that isn’t enough there is always the annual Wings N’ Wheels Car and Air Show held at the airport. I also hear about several small car events held in or around the downtown main street in Powell from time to time, so if you are a car guy or gal there are plenty of car shows to see or be in with your car! A few years ago I finally got to the Barrett Jackson Show/Auction in Arizona and going to one of the many they hold throughout the year is quite the automobile spectacle no car guy should miss.