Annual Lone Star Nationals - Deep In The Heart Of Texas

Texas in the summer can be a very unforgiving place to those not acclimated to the searing heat and brutal gulf coast humidity, but when i saw that the Lone star nationals weren't until the beginning of october, i breathed a sigh of relief. to make the trip even better, Rick Love and the crew at Vintage air opened their doors to me and extended an invitation to fly in to san antonio and hit the road in one of their staff cars. there was only one catch, Rick warned me, "you're driving the only car in the company fleet that doesn't have a/c!" i shrugged it off and assured him that driving to an event in any form of vintage tin would be a welcome change of pace to the cookiecutter rental cars i've gotten stuck with throughout the year. Plus a chance to drive across texas with the Vintage air crew sounded great, so i changed my travel plans to accommodate the couple of extra driving days.

As they say, the trip is sometimes more important than the destination, but in this case we were heading to the goodguys 15th annual Lone star nationals. a few hours up the freeway in Fort Worth, texas, is the texas Motor speedway, a 1 1/2-mile paved oval super speedway, and our destination for the weekend. We arrived Thursday afternoon after a few texas stop signs (dairy Queens) to a throng of hot rods at the host hotel and where our registration papers lay, the doral tesoro hotel. After receiving our goody bags, it was off to have dinner and get some much-needed rest.

Friday kicked off nice and early with a handful of guys already tearing up the street challenge autocross course, one of the newest and fastest-growing features of many of the goodguys shows this year. If that weren't exciting enough, for a hundred bucks, team texas would take you on a 140-mph Rocketship Ride around the big, paved oval. all these high-octane activities were of course eclipsed by the 3,000-plus cars that cruised in to the speedway from all the southern united states and Mexico.

Saturday included many of the same attractions, including the specialty parking areas-homebuilt heaven, deuces are Wild, Fins are Fifty, ya gotta drive 'em, and the goodguys' Pro's Pick area. in addition to the specialty parking areas and more than 80 awards given out by the goodguys staff, stReet RoddeR was on hand to conclude our top 100 event sponsored by turtle Wax. it hasn't been easy picking 100 of our favorite cars, trucks, hot rods, and customs, but the field has definitely come to represent some of the best vehicles out there, regardless of budget, style, make, model, or year. check out www.streetrodderweb.com for the results of this year's top 100 program and to see who closed out the field as the 2007 street Rod of the year.

Luckily, the texas weather was moderate and quite comfortable for our traveling crew, and we all made it back to Vintage air headquarters in san antonio after ogling over all the winners on sunday morning. a big thanks goes out to Rick Love and the crew at Vintage air for getting me to Fort Worth in style and treating me to the only way to attend a goodguys show-behind the wheel of a hot rod!