Show Low Car Show & Wildfire Wrapup

July 20th, 2002

(Trip Report by deano)

It seemed like I had just signed on as Stampede Committee Chairman for 2002 when fire danger, forest closures, and the Arizona wildfires became an issue. We watched the situation hopefully at first, because The Cinders recreation area is usually spared from closure. This year the huge drain on fire fighting resources caused the entire state to be closed however, and the Stampede had to be cancelled. One of my duties as Stampede Committee Chairman was to deal with the money we had received in registration fees for the now-cancelled event.

We decided to offer each registered Stampeder three options:

A. have the money refunded,

B. donate it to a relief fund to support the fire victims and firefighters in Arizona, or

C. stay registered for the Stampede event we will put on in the spring.

The registration fees that were donated made a total of $485.00. We had chosen the Salvation Army's "Arizona's Family Wildfire Relief Fund" beforehand because it specifically targeted exactly the kind of local, wildfire-related relief we wanted to give. We have since learned that the same thing could have been done through other means, such as the Red Cross. Our check was presented at the Salvation Army's Southwest Division headquarters in Phoenix. The efforts it will fund have now shifted from front line support in the face of the fires to longer-term support, including food, clothing, and other assistance for those who've lost their homes or livelihoods, etc.

We contacted as many people as we could via phone or email to find out their preference and also to make sure they knew the event was cancelled. In doing so I spoke to ACB club member Buck Taylor who lives in Show Low, Arizona. You may remember that Show Low came very close to being lost to the fires. The town underwent a forced evacuation and the inferno was eventually fought to a standstill on the edge of town after days of intense battle.

One of the sites where fire jumped over Highway 260 between Heber-Overgaard and Show Low.

I was glad to see that Buck was in good spirits when I called. We discussed upcoming club events and I told him we were attending a local car show at a Phoenix Hooters restaurant on July 20th. He said that the Show Low Summer Classic Car and Truck Show was the same day and would feature much cooler weather. It sounded nice but I didn't give it too much thought at the time.

As July 20th drew closer, I started to think more and more about taking a trip to Show Low. I hadn't been there in about 25 years and I wondered how it had fared after the fires. It would certainly do me some good to miss a couple days of Phoenix's heat as well. Finally, I called Buck back and told him I was taking that Friday off work and would be meandering my way up there.

I took a leisurely drive in the Bronco up Highway 87 and even stopped to walk through the huge "All Bikes" motorcycle junkyard at Rye. I'd seen this in passing before and always wanted to have a closer look. It is an amazing, if disturbing, sight. Hundreds of mangled motorcycles lie piled against each other in long rows. They wait to be pilfered for parts, or maybe they hope to be rescued and restored to the road. The mundane, the exotic, and the downright weird all intermingle in a two-wheeled riot of carnage and rust.

Passing through Heber on Highway 260 the town seemed mostly intact from the road, although I saw burned cars and buildings and wide swatches of burned timber that seemed to cut in all directions. Going toward Show Low the fires had crossed the road in several places, leaving corridors of flash-burned trees with burned trunks and their tops intact.



In Show Low I met Buck and his wife Jackie and got to see their Bronco for the first time. The machine is beautiful and technically impressive, with custom suspension touches and bumpers of his own design that make it worthy of a magazine feature.

Thom Cheney's Interpretation of Buck's Bronco

Their home is right on the edge of the forest, separated only by a chain link fence. The forest did not claim their home, but it didn't leave them untouched either. Before they were evacuated a bear came over that fence and swatted their Labrador Retriever, breaking its hind leg. Surprisingly, the dog is walking again with a pin in its hip and half its rear end shaved!

Buck's neighbor, Sam, also drives an Early Bronco. His sports a spotted paint scheme and dual horns up front.

We soon took our Broncos down to a "Burger Burn" and registration for the car show. This turned into a car show of it's own as many great rigs turned up.

There was even a third Early Bronco there which did not show up for the car show proper on Saturday. I never found out who owned the handsome, uncut machine.

The site of this car show is next to a church which stands where a famous ranch house hosted the card game which gave "Show Low" its name in 1876. A statue right behind where the car show's registration tables were placed immortalizes that event. It seems that the ranch which became the town was won in a hand of cards when the winner had to 'show low' to win and did so by drawing the deuce of clubs. The town was named for this event and the main drag through town is named "Deuce of Clubs".



Local firefighters were raffling off a new pickup at the show to raise money to rebuild their Fire Station.

I registered my 1973 Bronco in modified truck class.

Buck decided to leave his Bronco home Saturday and registered his sharp 1971 340 'Cuda instead. This meant a long nights work getting it ready for the show, since he had just received some of the parts to finish it, including the huge flat black decals for the sides, which would elevate it to the next level of classic Mopar muscle-car coolness. They needed to be very carefully installed, which we finished around midnight. Then, of course, we watched Bronco videos until I lost consciousness.

Saturday was another great day in spite of me getting a mild sunburn and not winning any thing at the car show (I never expected a trophy, but winning the 50/50 raffle would have been okay). Buck didn't do any better, but if they had a best Mopar class he would have taken it easy.

During the car show we found out that the local dirt track, "Thunder Raceway" was having a free night of quarter mile round track racing that evening. We went and it was a blast. It was sponsored by the track and local businesses who wanted to show appreciation to all the firefighters, volunteers, government agencies, surrounding towns and local businesses who pitched in against the fires and help evacuate the town and protect their lives and property. After an opening ceremony and the presentation of many plaques, the racers took over. There were about five different classes from Dwarf's to Sprint Cars and they all provided a great show even though there wasn't any prize money on this special night. The competition was still fierce and many a car was knocked out before the night was over.

It was a great trip that I will remember for a long time. Thanks to Buck and Jackie Taylor for their hospitality and for showing me that even the Arizona Classic Bronco members we don't often see at club events are great folks and a big part of what makes this a terrific club.

-deano