Weekend Rewind! Goodguys 22nd Colorado Nationals
The high altitude and beautiful scenery are two things that can take your breath away along the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado. For the past three days, we’ve added to that list at the 22nd Colorado Nationals with an amazing array of breathtaking rods, customs, and classics filling up the Ranch Events Complex in Loveland. We’re entering the fall finale stretch of events on the Goodguys calendar, but the cruisin’ fun hasn’t slowed down just because the calendar flipped past Labor Day. The three days here at the foot of the Rockies have been filled with comfortable temperatures, colorful cars, and the fun times only Goodguys can bring!
After a fantastic first show day on Friday, we celebrated the end of the week with a TGIF party at Pinkee’s Rod Shop and Mash Lab Brewing next door. Eric Peratt and his team really know how to throw a fun bash, with live music, great food trucks and, of course, plenty of cool projects to show off inside the shop.
Eric was back on the show grounds right away on Saturday morning, checking out the gathered rides and narrowing down his selections for the Builder’s Choice Top 10 awards. As always, his choices were spot-on and represented a wide range of styles, all with outstanding build quality and clean, tasteful appearances.
The Goodguys team stayed busy all weekend making picks and selecting award winners, too. It was no easy feat with so many great rides in the complex. Some of the highlights were finalists for some of our Of the Year awards: Mike Dennison’s ’51 Hudson as a finalist for Vintage Air Custom Rod of the Year; Doug LaRue’s ’56 F100 as a Scott’s Hot Rods Truck of the Year Early finalist; and Austin Hosterman’s ’70 Javelin as the Muscle Car of the Year finalist. The media team chose Terry and Dick Shelton’s home-built, LS-powered ’59 Austin-Healy for the Fuel Curve Pick, while PPG selected Jim and Mary Ann Stewart’s ruby red ’58 Corvette as the weekend’s Dream Car.
The AutoCross track was as twisty as a mountain road and had scores of racers pushing their limits to master it in the shortest amount of time and earn a spot in the Western States Shootout presented by Pennzoil. There were familiar faces topping the rankings, with Josh Leisinger taking the PRO-X class win and his brother Jared grabbing the win in the PRO-X/PRO portion of the shootout. Andrew Chenoweth topped the Pro class standings. Bill Graves Sr. wheeled his Corvette to win both the Street Machine class and the Street Machine, Truck, and Hot Rod shootout. Don Yarbrough took the Truck class win and BJ and Lisa Penrod grabbed the Hot Rod class victory again, with Greg Paine finishing off the weekend with wins in both the All American Sunday class and shootout.
There were enough other activities happening throughout the weekend to keep anyone breathing heavy. An expansive swap meet and Specialty Auto Auction provided opportunities for those looking to buy or sell, and the Nitro Thunderfest and Burnout Competitions let us blow off some steam. Add in live music, kids activities, and plenty of vendors, and we barely caught our breath until the Sunday afternoon awards ceremony. You owe it to yourself to come experience some of this rare air in Colorado next year. Until then, check out the photos from the last few days.
Photography by John Jackson and Todd Ryden
