Hot rods and customs and classics oh my!!

Melissa Oyer

Valley Press

The 10th annual Show and Shine Car Show was a huge success again this year. The 2009 show had 122 vehicles registered including cars, trucks, motorcycles and even a few odds and ends like a tractor and Mack truck.

Dan Whittenburg, treasurer of Rods and Classics, said this was one of the better shows they have had.

“The weather is great,” Whittenburg said, “and the crowd is one of the biggest ones we have seen over the years.

There are more cars and more people coming out to see those cars.”

Daryl Strang and his daughter Shania did some father-daughter bonding while perusing the array of vintage classics and modern customs.

The duo comes every year, as they only have to take a short walk from their driveway across to Ainsworth Field.

“This year there’s seems to be a different variety as there has been in the past,” Strang said.

Shania hadn’t made up her mind on what her favorite car was and said she still had to look around some.

Prizes are awarded for Best in Show, People’s Choice and Club Choice. Overall a total of 13 awards are given.

The Best in Show is chosen by the registered participants in the car show. Ballots are given to each entrant and they choose their top five vehicles.

From there, the top vote getter is named the winner and the subsequent 10 highest vote getters are also awarded trophies.

The People’s Choice is voted on by the crowd who visits the show.

They submitted their vote in a box at the registration table.

There is also a prize given for the best motorcycle entry.

The Club Choice award is picked by the members of Rods and Classics, who walk around during the show and make their choice, then submit it to the officials before the awards were announced at 4 p.m.

Bill Strid, of Thompson Falls, was stopped in his tracks by a bright yellow truck, fittingly called “Ol Yeller”.

Even his Blue-Nosed Pitbull Sky found the car worth stopping for, especially because the shadow from the truck provided a shady spot out of the sun for her to rest.

“This show is great this year,” Strid said. “So many cars to look, it was nice to see them all.”

The goal of the car show is not to make money, but to allow people an opportunity to see specialty cars and reminisce about the yesteryears by seeing cars they probably saw a lot of while growing up.

The money made from the car show is used towards purchasing prizes and awards for the participants, advertising and covering the actual production costs.

All remaining money is donated to local charities. In the past funds have been given to the food bank, Sanders County Cancer Network, Sanders County Relay for Life and a 50/50 raffle for the MT Hope Project.

The winers of the car show awards were as follows:

Best of Show- Rob Ellenwood (Polson) for his 1932 Plymouth Coupe; People’s Choice- Eric Dufresne (Stevensville) for his 1961 F100Pickup; Club Choice was a tie between Eric Dufresne for his 1961 F100 Pickup and to Lori Sharp(Thompson Falls) for her 1973 Camaro;

Best motorcycle wnet to Mark offman (Thompson Falls) for his 2000 Harley Davidson.

The winner of the Rally Run was Tom Eggensperger, Thompson Falls.

The Poker Walk winners were Marge Kroeger, of Libby taking first and second place went to Angie Pankey also of Libby.

Mike O’Farrell won the 50/50 raffle.

According to car show officials, the car entrant that traveled the furthest to the show was Frank Ennaro from Redmond, WA.

Two other vehicles were registered from Arlington, WA but they had hard-luck with breakdowns and were unable to make it to the show.