Thousands attend Airway Heights fest
Thousands converged on Airway Heights last weekend for the city’s annual Hot Cars and Cool Guitars car show and music fest.
Nightly music by regional acts such as Hot Rod Deluxe and Too Slim and the Taildraggers provided a soundtrack for the 26th annual Inland Northwest Fords Unlimited car show.
Overcast skies held their rain and brought out the colors of more than 350 classic cars parked on the grass of Sunset Park on Saturday.
Lisa Pederson, director of the Airway Heights Festival Association, said she’s thrilled at how much the event has grown since she and a core group of volunteers, including her husband, Mayor Matthew Pederson, took over planning in 2002.
She said the celebration was previously a “hit or miss” carnival and parade, which wasn’t a good fit for the city.
“Parades are hard for such a small community,” said Pederson. “We just don’t have the funds.”
Despite starting the festival association with few resources and little vendor interest, Pederson said organizers were dedicated to keeping the event alive as a way to rally community spirit while earning money for Parks and Recreation program scholarships.
Turnout has jumped from 1,000 people in 2002 to a high of 10,000 in 2007. Questionable weather kept this year’s attendance expectations at 6,000. Pederson credits a partnership with the Inland Northwest Fords Unlimited car club of Spokane for the attendance boost.
“When we took over planning, the Ford club wasn’t able to hold their annual show in Spokane anymore and were looking for a new venue.” she said. “We decided to bring the two events together because we were still fairly new and wanted to bring more people in.”
Pederson said the joint venture has worked out well and provides a great backdrop for the blues and ’50s bands.
Jack Bean, longtime INFU member and a judge at Saturday’s event, said there might be some good-natured ribbing among car owners, but there is no Fords-only snobbishness.
The event welcomes all makes and models; more than 129 trophies were presented in all sorts of categories – even “Best non-Ford in show.”
Bean, who got his first car when he was 10 and has owned nearly 80 in his lifetime, seems to know what to look for in a winner.
“I’m pretty picky about judging,” he said. A few blades of grass in the tire tread or a handprint-smudged window could be the deciding detail. “Someone who keeps things clean just has more pride in their car,” he said.
That pride of ownership was plain in Daryl Judd, a collector from Spokane who displayed his ’55 Ford. Judd said the best part of a show isn’t the promise of winning a prize but the work it takes to get a car in presentation form.
“Restoring cars is a way of life,” he said. “It’s fun, it’s recycling and, best of all, you don’t have to pass emissions testing.”
Spokane resident Patti Brantl brought her hot pink ’59 Nash Metropolitan, a compact economy car that went on the market in a “bigger is better” auto industry.
Brantl said she was helping her husband work on his collector car about 13 years ago when she decided to get a classic ride of her own.
“I saw it in a magazine and thought, ‘It’s so ugly it’s cute,’ ” she said. She’s been showing the car, dubbed “Lil’ Kid,” ever since.
Pederson said seeing her neighbors and friends interact while having fun are the main reasons she devotes time to the festival.
“In a larger city like Spokane you just don’t get this close community spirit,” she said. “Out here you know everybody; you know what’s going on. I love seeing everybody looking forward to this and then coming out together.”