Bonneville Salt Flats Racer at Speed Week 2010 Bonneville Salt Flats is full of cool car guy stories.  Here's another one for you.  This one is from Ford Y Block lover, Tim McMaster (Y Block Guy) who built a land speed racing motor for this Yellow Fridge Cab pickup owned by Charlie Burns.   This Y powered pickup runs in the E/PP class, which is E motor (184-260 cu in), Production Pickup, where the record is 126.073 MPH.  On Saturday when I took these pictures, Tim ran 113 MPH while making his "Rookie Run" since he's a new driver at Speed Week. Tim McMaster tells us about his Y Block love story: "Y-Blocks, you could say, have always been a part of my life from the time I can remember riding between my dad and uncle in the 292 powered F-600 hauling a load of oranges to the Blue Goose packing house in Strathmore, CA, I know that goes a ways back and I didn't even know what an engine was back then but that truck is still working on the ranch today and I have some other stories that involve that...

Bonneville Speed Week 2010 Cruise In at the Nugget Casino The Cruise In at the Nugget Casino is a Bonneville Speed Week must-see.  Let's take a peek at some pictures of the salty hot rods that showed up this year. (Here's pictures of 2009 Nugget Car Show) Flattie powered pickup running a favorite wheel/tire combo, white walls and steelies.  Can't get enough of the salt on top of the rods. We're workin on a post that shows how it got up there! Hot Rod Bread Truck.  Perfect stance for bread delivery, how cool is that?!  I love hot roddin'. The Rolling Bones Hot Rod Shop cars and crew managed to grab the prime parking spot up front.  32's and louvers! Jim Baugh's 33 Ford Sedan drove out from Washington state.  I met him at the Salt Flats Speed Shop Open House.  More coming on this rod soon. This shot gives you a look at the amount of people crammed into the parking lot at the Nugget Casino.  This deuce roadster is beautiful with its blown flattie up front and silver paint that looks almost like metal.  One of my...

Bonneville Salt Flats Race Car Sometimes it's easy to pick a feature car. The reasons why I dig the 1964 Ford Fairlane were spelled out in the feature I did about the Ring Brothers 64 Fairlane. Beyond the family tie and the legend of the Thunderbolt, this Fairlane just looks BAD! I searched for this car at Speed Week last year, but never did find it. I wanted to get a t-shirt for pops too... For Speed Week 2010, I caught up with Brian and Celia Dean and their AA/CGC Fairlane known as "Thundersalt". The CGC stands for Classic Unblown Gas Coupe. (I guess the U is silent?) The AA in the class title for this thump'n Fairlane stands for greater than 500 cubic inches.  Thundersalt runs a 557 inch big block Ford.  (thank goodness it ain't a Chevy! It would have broken my pop's heart!) Based on a bored and stroked 429 Cobra Jet block, the CJ is then topped with Trick Flow A460 heads.  Brian estimates about 925 horsepower on racing gas flowing through the Holley 1650 Dominator carb. Brian explained, "We build shit to go fast!"...

Upcoming Pictures and Stories from Speed Week 2010 "Thundersalt" is a 215mph 1964 Ford Fairlane More about this bad Fairlane Don't wait any longer, Speed Week's here! Since last year, the MyRideisMe.com crew's caught major "Salt Fever". Starting last year, we took in, or at least tried to, the race cars, the scenery and the fantastic people of Bonneville Speed Week. Now we're hooked. From 400 mph streamliners like the Speed Demon to VW's and some kind of French owned and raced, Suzuki powered English car, there's something here for everyone. It'd be easy for me to whine about my drive to Bonneville, but these guys and my new Australian mates shipped their rides in from outa the country! Whatever this is (I'll try investigate, don't worry!) I dig it. I call this shot, "All Motor" Speed Week officially kicks off on Saturday so Friday's tech day. Don't mistakenly think the teams are relaxing with a cold one (that happens later). For the two streamliner teams I interviewed, it's serious business, checking everything and making focused plans to do one thing: Set a record (or break something trying). Anything...

Car Show Pictures: 2010 Goodguys Puyallup Northwest Nationals Our friend Jason Rushforth (Rushforth Wheels) had attended the 23rd Goodguys Northwest Nationals in Puyallup, Washington with his '64 Buick (featuring a brand-new LS2 engine swap!), and he sent along some photos that he and Adam Ramseth had taken over the weekend. As Jason tells us: In addition to getting the Rushforth Wheels company car to the show at the last second, 2500 other folks made it to the Western Washington Fairgrounds in Puyallup, Washington which is the biggest and best show in the Northwest. Weather was perfect all weekend and the big open fairgrounds were packed with all manner of hot rods up to 1972. Here's a few shots from the weekend of cars that stood out but with 2500 cars... there was certainly something for everyone! Brett Anderson scored a coveted Art Morrison Enterprises "Builder's Choice" Award with his home-built, Rushforth-designed and wheeled 72 Camaro: 2-door wagons are so cool, and this slick '57 Ford is no exception! With virtually every segment of the hobby represented, this little pickup has some serious attitude and the wide whites on wires...

Car Show Pictures from Germany: I've got the latest scoop from our German Hot Rod informant, Pascal.  The German Street Rod Association (GSRA) is the only German club for street rod owners, which is now up to 300 members and was founded in 1993.  They have a website gsra.de you can check out, but its all in German.  Now, on to the sharp photos by Pascal and the rad hot rods from Germany. It's cool how 20's and 30's traditional hot rods can transcend time in any part of the world, as we've seen from Tano's '26 T Roadster with Olds V8 power to these rods in Germany. One of the traditional type rods that can be found worldwide is the Speed Shop truck.  I wonder if hot rodders from the 40's and 50's knew that their work trucks would be turned into street rods?  It makes sense though, I mean, you can hop up the big V8's they came with, you can slam them, put some chrome reverse wheels on 'em with baby moon caps and white walls, add the name of your speed shop and logo on the door...

Cruise Night: Utah Cruisin Car Show Taking the wife and kids to a local car show is one of my highlights of the summer.  We like to check out the Burger Stop Cruise In that happens the last Wednesday of each month in the summer time.  It's a small show by most standards, probably about 50-75 cars from the local area.  It's cool because its not all Mustangs and Camaros, there is a little bit of everything.  Variety is the spice of life is it not? I've seen this orange/red Model A coupe at this show before.  It also sports tons of Bonneville Salt Flats decals, so I know it gets run hard at the Flats.  Last year he came to the show with the Salt still stuck to the car. Here's the Model A coupe next to a pickup brother, both in a more traditional flavor.  Love the white walls and steelies with the white firewall.  Good lookin'! While the kids were waiting in line for some Clown-made circus balloons, I found a light blue convertible GTO looking showroom stock with some Cragars.  Dig the chrome everywhere. I...

Hot Rods and Custom Car Show Pictures Story Contributed by MyRideisMe.com member: Nick Koljian "Hellcity316" More pictures from the NorCal Knockout Car Show I can't let my friend Nick K have all the fun taking pictures and enjoying the 2010 NorCal Knockout. We finally got to meet and I snapped a few pictures myself. I'm aspiring to take pictures as well as Nick and Swanee, so I keep practicing. Sometimes the light and shadows (and stars) align to get something decent. If I grabbed a pic of your car, please let me know, I'll email it to you. Some folks made it easy with show cards. One of those is this 1963 Galaxie race car called the "Moonshine Hauler". Currently owned by Mark Brothers out of Saratoga Springs, UT, the 1964 NHRA record holder now sports a "worked" center oiler 427 with twin 700 Holly carbs, a T-10 4 speed and a 4.11 locker. What else would it have?! The lettering on this car screamed 60's racer. There's another picture in the gallery below. Thanks to another show card from owner Goran Lassell out of Sacramento, CA. From the...

Words and Pictures by Nick K Welcome to the 2010 NorCal Knockout Korena Goldstien and Henrik Forss aka "Hollywood Hank" are no new comers to the hot and custom car scene by any stretch of the imagination. Henrik grew up in Sweden and moved to the US some 10 years ago. Since the early 90's Hank's promoted both music and car events in Sweden as well as here in the US. Hank also contributes at Gasoline Magazine out of Sweden. Here's the link (good luck reading it!) http://www.gasolinemagazine.se/ (looks very well done though, excellent photography!) Hank does a little of everything... here's Hank's Homepage Korena, a local Vallejoan is the founder of MissyLu handbags and accessories and has promoted music events and clubs around the Bay Area in the past. But with that said, Nor Cal Knock Out is Hollywoods & Korena's 1st major Northern California show. The title Nor Cal Knock Out could not have been any more fitting. The show was at the Solano County Fairgrounds. I know, I know, when you hear "fairgrounds" you think the smell of livestock lingering in a dust bowl. This was...

They say distance makes the heart grow fonder. Since Stude's spent the past 3 months suntanning her metal in the Mojave sun outside Gene Winfield's shop...I've grown fonder then ever. The great news is (drum-roll please,) she's back on the road!!! Not only is she back, she's running better than ever! Replacing the transmission was the biggest job that needed to be done. Saving money and finding the right transmission is what took the bulk of the time. Luckily I had good friends and lots of help through the process...thanks to all who were involved! I ended up having a great guy, Rick Annis in Phoenix, AZ, rebuild a 700R4 for me. Then my car club pal, Lori, and I took the 700R4 up to Mojave to meet Stude. Up at Gene's we got a lot of help from Bart putting it in. With Bart having a lot of experience in engine tuning he wouldn't let my car out of his sight with just a new transmission - so we worked on getting Stude's little 383 small block up to par also. The first weekend we did a lot...

The Hot Rod Industry BMX Challenge (HRIC) is just a few weeks away! Tim and Carrie Strange from  Strange Motion Rod & Custom sent over this info about the 2nd Annual BMX Challenge held at the massive Street Rod Nationals in Louisville, KY, August 5-8th. (More info about the Street Rod Nationals) Here's the BMX Challenge Info: We are really excited about the BMX Challenge this year - we have changed the rules just a little - for the HRIC you must be a participant or vendor at the Street Rod Nationals - the BMX race is once again FREE of charge for you to participate in BUT to mix it up a little and to help give you guys and the spectators a better show we challenge you to "get sponsored". We will be running a Pro/Am mixed in with the Hot Rod Challenge and in order to bring in the "big guns" we have to show them the money! So we challenge you to get a sponsor for your race.  Along with your name being announced during the race your sponsor will get some plugs as well! ...

I've known for awhile that I needed to change the spark plugs in my Studebaker. But I'd heard things. Things like you could break the plug inside your motor if you did it wrong and to be sure to tighten the plugs to the correct tension. So although I knew they should be changed, I was scared to do it on my own, and my spark plugs in there were working...right??? As I'm learning, I'm seeing that spark plugs (although they don't cost much and are small little things) are a major, MAJOR component of your engine. Without 'em, your engine wouldn't run. Without 'em working at their best, your engine won't run at its best. So as part of last weekend's wrenching adventure up at Gene Winfield's in Mojave, I changed my spark plugs...for the very first time! Gasp! The fellow at the local parts store recommended Autolite over ACDelco plugs which I had been running (What do you think? Leave a comment below!) I was surprised, and a little confused, when he informed me the gap for my application was .052. What?!? While perhaps some people just throw...