Due to the huge success of its Grand National Roadster Show, following last year's move to Pomona, Dan Cyr Enterprises, Inc. (DCE) today announced that it will continue to expand in 2005 with the addition of a Custom Motorcycle Show. The granddaddy of all hot rod shows will fill two additional buildings at Pomona's Fairplex with radical rides, including a "Hot Rods & Hollywood" display of celebrity and movie cars.
The theme of the January 21-23, 2005 weekend event is "Hot Rods & Hollywood - Where the Stars are the Cars" and will feature a display including past and present celebrity and movie vehicles. Additionally, for the first time in its 56-year history, the Grand National Roadster Show will host a competition open to U.S.-made and manufactured motorcycles. Like the show's longstanding "America's Most Beautiful Roadster" trophy, awarded each year to a spectacular hot rod, there will now be one for "America's Most Beautiful Motorcycle."
"With the resurgent mainstream popularity of custom motorcycles, we felt the time was right to honor the creative geniuses who work in the two-wheeled world," says Dan Cyr, president of DCE. "Their work is absolutely breathtaking and takes the art of motorcycle design to levels we couldn't even dream of just a decade ago. We expect top builders from across the country to enter the competition for this prestigious award." The "America's Most Beautiful Motorcycle" award carries a total of $5,000 in prize money and the winner will receive his or her name on a perpetual trophy, along with a mantle trophy and a check for $3,000. The first runner-up receives $1,000 and five additional runners-up will each receive $200. The 2005 event will also honor the renowned So-Cal Speed Shop as its "Builder of the Year." Founded by Alex Xydias in 1946, So-Cal Speed Shop built its reputation by racing - and winning - at the Bonneville Salt Flats with such legendary vehicles as its Belly Tank Lakester, which qualified for a Class A Lakester record with a two-way averaged run of 152.43 mph in 1952. After nearly fifty years in a barn in Long Beach, the original Belly Tank Lakester was restored by today's So-Cal Speed Shop team for current owner Bruce Meyer.
A number of So-Cal Speed Shop special vehicles, covering nearly 60 years of custom racers, will be featured in a special display area at this year's event.
The Grand National Roadster Show is a hot rodding extravaganza that features hundreds of the country's most spectacular, innovative and radical street rods, classic customs, monster motorcycles, as well as parts and accessories. Keeping with tradition, the Grand National Roadster Show again will celebrate and recognize "America's Most Beautiful Roadster," won last year by the 1932 Ford Roadster owned by Charlie Lambetecchio of Fresno, Calif. Each year the winning car owner has his name placed on a colossal nine- foot trophy built in 1949 by the founder of the Grand National Roadster Show.
During the January 21-23 weekend, the Grand National Roadster Show is expected to draw thousands of enthusiasts to the L.A. County Fairplex. Exhibits will occupy five buildings and the surrounding concourse, and showcase hundreds of America's finest rods, customs, classics and motorcycles. More than 100 commercial exhibitors will display customized street rods covered with candy-colored surfaces, wild stripes, flames, dazzling wheels, and mountains of horsepower.
Show hours are Friday, Jan. 21 from Noon - 10 p.m., Saturday, Jan. 22 from 10 a.m. - 10 p.m. and Sunday, Jan. 23 from 10 a.m. - 10 p.m. General admission is $15 for adults, $12 for seniors and $8 for children ages 6 - 12. Children under 6 are free. Tickets are available at the door.
Hotrodshows.com, a production of DCE, produces four premier indoor rod and custom events on the West Coast, including the 56th Grand National Roadster Show, the 55th Sacramento Autorama (February 4-6), the 7th Portland Rod & Custom Show (February 18-20), and the 6th Seattle Roadster Show (March 4-6). It also produces six events for the Import Tuners, called "Import Motion" and three of these are held at the Sacramento, Portland and Seattle venues mentioned above.