Weekend Rewind! Goodguys 28th Griot’s Garage Colorado Nationals
What a weekend at The Ranch! The Goodguys 28th Griot’s Garage Colorado Nationals took over the newly renovated Ranch Complex in Loveland, Colorado, over the weekend bringing the best hot rodded cars and trucks from the Rocky Mountain region together for a weekend of Cool Cars, Cool People and Good Times to the Front Range area.
The Ranch events center has always been a nice facility with grass parking and trees so we were a little apprehensive when we heard they were filling in the grassy bowl area and making other changes. To everyone’s surprise, the facility grew even better with twice as much parking areas along with even more cruising paths to enjoy – with space to grow more!
After hosting a fantastic TGIF party on Friday evening Ron Jones of Ron Jones Garage was tasked with picking his favorite rides to round out his Builder’s Choice Top 10 on Saturday. There was a lot of hot rods, customs, and bitchin’ trucks to choose from, making it tough to narrow it down to just 10, and each one received one of the coolest trophies we’ve seen in a while.
The Goodguys team was also scouring the grounds searching specialty picks and finalists for their regional Top 12 Of The Year awards presented by Surventis. This included Wayne Crimmins’ ’70 Chevelle as the Griot’s Garage Muscle Machine of the Year finalist, Jim Romag’s COPO 1969 Camaro as the Snap-on Muscle Car of the Year finalist, and Mike De Vriendt’s ’32 Ford Roadster Pickup as the LMC Truck of the Year Early finalist. The Goodguys media team selected Wendy Maffie’s ’69 Bronco as the Goodguys Feature Pick.
On the mountain range side of the fairgrounds, there was the buzz of redline rpm and tires squealing from the Goodguys AutoCross course where racers were honing their skills and vehicle setup to qualify for the Western States Shootout. Josh Leisinger raced to a class and shootout win in the Speedtech Performance PRO-X class; Mark Golovin also doubled up in the Summit Racing PRO class; Keith Corringham got the class win in the Forgeline Street Machine class while Johnny Tindle took home the shootout win; Dan Yarbrough doubled up in the No Limit Engineering Truck class; Andrew Chenoweth doubled in the Corvette class; George Gonzalez in the Challenger class; Darrin Swails took both titles in the Challenger class and on Sunday, Rayburn Steele took the class win while Ed Darchuk raced to the shootout victory in the All American Sunday class.
Any Goodguys event focuses on the vintage cars and aclassic trucks, but it’s really about spending time with family and friends! There’s always great family friendly things to check out including the Goodgals Gallery, the Auto World family fun zone and Make and Take, a huge swap meet, live music and of course, the roar of the Summit Racing Nitro Thunderfest exhibition dragsters.
Alas, all good things must come to an end at some point and on Sunday afternoon at 2:22, all of the award winners and specialty picked hot rods lined up for a parade of winners in front of enthusiasts cheering them on. The line up of classic cars and trucks is always impressive with vibrant colors, the rumble of hot rod engines, and most importantly, loads of smiles and thumbs up from everyone! Special thanks to everyone that came out and to the staff at The Ranch Complex for a beautiful place to gather! Can’t wait till next year!
Photos by Damon Lee, Todd Ryden
