(Photos by Wes Allison) Here’s our fourth gallery of photos from the RPM Nationals, and you are going to love it. More traditional hot rods and customs at Santa Margarita Ranch. This event is something special, and I’m super bummed I wasn’t able to attend. Luckily we had Wes on hand and he got the shots. This place is cool, the cars are as well, and the whole vibe is the kind you want to be around. This is NOT a big rockabilly party, but rather a real traditional hot rod meet and we’ve got the photos to prove it.

The RPM Nationals is held in Santa Margarita California, at Santa Margarita Ranch, and is one hell of an event. With traditional hot rods everywhere, flag start drag racing happening throughout the day, along with vendors, food, music, and speed parts, what’s not to like? This is one heck of an event and we seriously dig it. Lucky for us we had Wes Allison on-site shooting photos all day long. This event is incredibly busy with so much going on, all in one day. That means you have to be on the ball if you want to catch it all, and we certainly did.

We’ve got several galleries of photos from the RPM Nationals, and the first one is below. We’ll share more throughout the week, and will have a link so you can check any of them you miss as well.

This is a traditional, period-correct type of event where everything is supposed to represent 1955 or early hot rods and racing.

CLICK HERE TO SEE OUR OTHER GALLERIES OF PHOTOS FROM THE RPM NATIONALS

Here is the complete description from the RPM Nationals website.

RPM Nationals is a race that pays homage to the early days of drag racing. When race cars and street cars competed head to head to see whose garage built hop up was the fastest. The races then started with the drop of a flag and end 1/8 of a mile down the strip.

We have 6 classes for race vehicles, 4 cylinder street, v8 street, 4 cylinder modified street, v8 modified street, 4 cylinder full race, and v8 full race. Standard street class requires cars to be licensed and be capable of being driven on public streets, modified street requires the same but allows for power adders such as blowers or overhead conversions, full race is the anything goes class, blowers, overhead conversions, and nitro.

All cars in every class are required to appear as a 1955 or older build style (but with some modern safety features) no modern electronics are allowed in any class bringing back the days of real hands on tuning, not being able to read that plug correctly could cause you the race.

All this takes place at the beautiful Santa Margarita Ranch, located between San Luis Obispo and Atascadero in central Ca. We searched for months to find a location to hold the race where the surroundings would fit right in with the early style of the cars competing. After looking at a dozen or so places that just didn’t feel right we stumbled onto the ranch, when we entered the property and crossed that wood bridge, that leads up to the old Asistancia building that was an original stop on the “mission Trail” dating back to the 1770’s, and the road then drops down to the airstrip surrounded by rolling hill we knew we found home.

Along with the racing there’s a car show down by the track, food and drinks, vendor area, and a swap meet area that some amazing vintage parts show up at every year.