(Words and photos by Doug Gregory) – The 2019 Rod Run did not have a burnout contest.  The problem?  A proper place to conduct the event safely.  More and more people are attending render the makeshift arrangements sketchy at best.  With this being one of the biggest features I am sure they’ll figure something out in the future.

Over 2,000 vehicles parked along the streets, alleys, parking lots, and anywhere a space could be found.  Best estimates have the crowd over 16,000 people strong.  That’s a lot of folks drawn into this relatively small community for a ‘car’ event.  Impressive effort by any standard and even more so considering the ‘staff’ is all volunteer.

It appears the Pendleton County EMS is well-prepared for the apocalypse with these three H1s in their stable.  I am not sure why I like old Chrysler convertibles, but here are a pair I caught at the end of the street.  My favorite of these is the one slathered in desert rose paint sporting the cross-ram setup.

This event can draw out some of the more-rarely-seen rides these days.  How many tubbed, step-side converted Chevy Luvs have you seen lately.?  Exactly.  Around here seeing a DeLorean is not that uncommon (for some reason), but parked next to a pristine GMC Typhoon might be a bit out of the ordinary.

Plenty of Tri-5s in both car and truck form were present with many seeming to congregate on the North end of things.  I spy a 5.0 in a square-body S10.  I almost didn’t catch it as I was strolling past the crusty creation, but something was different so I spun around to see this rather unique swap.  Hey, at least they can get to the distributor pretty easily.

There’s more coverage from the rod run coming up so check back.