(Words and Photos by Tommy Lee Byrd) – During Tommy Lee Byrd’s Bowling Green experience, the destination for Friday night was the Holiday Inn, which is the host hotel for the National Hot Rod Reunion. There is a massive cruise night at the hotel, with hundreds of cars and trucks in attendance, and thousands of spectators to scope out all of the cool gassers, hot rods and race cars on the grounds.
One of the coolest aspects of the host hotel after party is the mini Cackle Fest, which is held at the convention center awning at dusk. Nitro burning nostalgia drag cars are a good way to get car guys fired up, and a massive burnout party broke out after dark. Last year, there were some sketchy moments when folks got a little too close for comfort, but this year was downright scary. Thousands of people lined the street outside the hotel, while countless cars blazed the tires mere feet away from the spectators.
Luckily, there were no mishaps during the craziness, but it was beyond wild during the height of the burnouts. Even though Bowling Green police passed through the area
several times throughout the evening, they didn’t put a stop to the madness until around 11pm. We can’t imagine they will let it get that wild again, so enjoy TLB’s gallery of
photos as he had one of the best seats in the house for the crazy burnout action.
CLICK THE BUTTON BELOW TO SEE ALL OF THE WILD BURNOUT AND CRUISE AFTER PARTY PHOTOS!
button” text=”2014 Holley Hot Rod Reunion After Party Burnout Bonanza”]
Hot Rod is hating on this gallery and they didn’t bother including a link.
http://blogs.hotrod.com/would-you-like-hot-rod-to-post-pictures-of-you-doing-burnouts-on-public-streets-123073.html
Thom is right. Promoting this kind of crap is irresponsible. The last thing this sport needs is for some burnout-crazed street squirrel to plow into a crowd of spectators.
Burnouts belong on closed courses, period. Not around unprotected crowds.
And DF & FINN ought to calm down with all the juvenile lawbreaking on their quaint little “selfie” webcast.
After reading Thom’s blog post, I’m surprised and disappointed. If he wants to be the fun police he should own it. Calling out BangShift for showing pictures with peoples faces or license plates? In 2014, the age of YouTube, selfies and ubiquitous media exposure, that is naive and narrow minded given Car Craft’s burnout pages, the relentlessly juvenile RoadKill and all the other fun the remaining print books feature.
Kudos to BangShift for keeping it real and both telling the truth and showing it.
Speedy: really?
Thom is a wiener. There is maybe one license plate legible there during a burnout.
I couldn’t read a single one.
I’m going to pretend that he was trying to remind drivers that illegal burnouts and cameras are dangerous instead of being a dink.
But that may be because he drove that vintage indy car at indy.
Never mind,
Thom is being a dick.
And getting called out on the HR forums for it.
I figured he’s an intern and doesn’t know any better.
Wow, nothing like that at DragWeek… perhaps because of the giant Fuzz Convention going on at the same time.
This was standard operating proceedure at the Mopar Nat’s on Bryce Road for years. The cops would let you do three burnouts (each car) after the thrid burnout, they’d tell you to go park it and watch for the rest of the night. Hopefully, BG will be as open in the future.
Maybe Hot Rod would like to believe that nobody who owns “hot rods” ever has it in their mind to break a traffic law?
Maybe Hot Rod would like to return to the great tradition of Pete Petersen and Wally Parks by promoting responsible behavior with hot rods instead of encouraging wanton lawlessness that’s styled after some awful 1950s B-grade “Hot Rod/teensploitation” movie . . . ..
Maybe they should change their name to “Popular Prius”
Not one of these guys did a burnout because they didn’t want anyone to notice their car. Not one didn’t want their car photographed or video taped otherwise they would not have done it in front of dozens of people while hanging out of the window screaming “Whooooooo!!” I bet some of these guys are showing off Youtube videos to all their friends. Posting them on their facebook page.
Damn that looked like fun!
What about the burn outs they do on Roadkill?
Smoke them if you got em, balls that is!
I am a fan of this part of the HRR (obviously, I am the one in the BAD JUJU ’55). What I did see was some kid in an import doing a burnout in the parking lot while there was a little girl in a wheelchair passing in front of him. I’m not saying that all import owners do all the dumb shit, but all the dumb shit I see done is in imports. I think that maybe next year the cross streets need to be closed down and designated areas for spectators. I don’t want to see anyone get hurt either but all the people name calling and getting on their high horses need to go tend to their vaginas and worry about something else than some people having loads of fun after waiting all year for this show. I guess Big Willie and the street racers were squirrels too huh? Don’t be hatin’ because your street rod won’t bark a tire and you got booed!!
did any of you read what Thom wrote? it wasnt a finger-wagging dont do burnouts lecture, to me he had a valid point- why broadcast some not quite legal fun all over the internet for all to see? it just brings the event into a negative light
I can see both points of view – and Australia where I am is a pretty good example of where this can lead… yes, there is a perception that we’re all burnout crazy and yeh, our comps are full on but every bogan (sort of an Aussie redneck) thinks yeh, I can do that…but they do it on the street, very dangerously in some cases (like in the middle of a freeway at midnight, 100’s of cars recently) – our cops don’t say oh, 3 burnouts then sit the rest out, they try and defect off the road everything within 5 miles that even vaguely looks like a modified car, so we all suffer big time. the defect system here is a cynical exercise too, they will defect your car for oil leaks or door handles or whatever, but if it needs to go over the pits for inspection it costs $400 and there is an unwritten policy that they will find 30 other defects – in short, after a few $400 visits, you give up and wreck the car……so yeh, careful what you wish for, I suppose…