At some point, I have to stop saying that I’m new to this game. I have to become a touch cynical, a touch…I don’t know how quite to word this without coming off like an ass…above it all? Whatever the case, I can’t keep going to shows, events, races and suffer the syndrome of neck-snapping. My chiropractor won’t stand for it much longer, my wife is fearful for the bank accounts, and it’s giving me bad ideas. I’ve gotten over that little malady for drag races and road races, and even SEMA is starting to lose a little bit of that overwhelming feeling. But nothing…nothing in the world could have prepared me for Woodward.

At first sight for a first-timer, you wonder how in the hell this road even became this legendary. And I’ll be honest: I didn’t cruise the road, I didn’t do anything but hang around the parking lot that MSHS had managed to reserve for the weekend. And the truth is that even though Woodward veterans told me I needed to go further down the street towards Detroit proper, I really didn’t need to. In two days I cooked off nearly a thousand photographs of rolling iron that I’d shove my own mother in front of a bus for, and every photo was taken off of the same exact sidewalk. I saw everything from Hellcats to Model Ts and just about every possible thing and trend in-between, from the lowrider Impala with the stunning paint to the baffling Pontiac Grand Prix with a stance that was tall, but not donk’d out, either.

In one hour there was enough muscle-era iron to satisfy me for life, a cab-over truck that sent people who watched the Facebook Live video into fits, a privately-owned HMMWV, and a legitimate cop chase involving a late-model Charger and running from a police officer in an Impala. Every stoplight cycle brought another wave of cars by, so many that I had trouble picking out what I wanted a picture of. This was before the “official” start of the Cruise, early in the morning…like eight A.M.

It became automotive overload. The live videos were helpful because I simply aimed the camera and let the cars come to me. I couldn’t just snap my head around when a Superbird drove by. More cars, more trucks, until I finally had to shut down and pack everything up.

Believe the legends. Woodward packs everything anyone has told you. Burnouts, stoplight drags, and enough desirable metal that you might go insane from seeing it all. I want to come back next year…in a car worthy of cruising, packed to the brim with friends who will enjoy it. And we still won’t see enough.