Over the years, the Pacific NorthWest (PNW) has produced some of the coolest rides around, and every year they gather in Brooks, Oregon, along with a bunch of neat antiques, to strut their stuff. With 100 working trucks on one side of the grassy grounds and about 175 antiques on the other, the 21st annual Brooks Truck Show, held on August 23-24 at the Pacific NW Truck Museum on the grounds of Antique Powerland in Brooks, Oregon, was another banner year. The Friday night light show saw record numbers again, and the weather on Saturday, which was overcast in the morning and sunny in the afternoon, could not have been better.
As the main sponsors and supporters of this annual event, Debbie at Esley Truck Accessories and her crew always sell raffle tickets in their booth. For every ticket bought, the person not only gets entered to win some great prizes (like lights, bumpers, exhaust, sweatshirts, and other various goodies), but they also get to vote for their favorite truck at the show – each ticket purchased gives the person one vote, so the more tickets they buy, the more votes they get. At the end of the day, they announce the top three “People’s Choice” trucks, based on those votes. This year, Brad Van Dyke and his cool two-tone teal green and white 1977 Peterbilt cabover took top honors, while Charlie Schlechter’s 1973 Kenworth COE took 2nd place and Brent Korthuis’ 2013 KW W900L took 3rd. But the real beauty of this raffle is that ALL of the money raised goes to charity – this year, $1,600 was donated to the Shriners!
Some of the more noteworthy rigs in attendance this year included Eric Griffith’s maroon T800 (Freres Lumber), which just rolled over a million miles, Gary Berrington’s cream and rust-colored 1972 Peterbilt, Rusty Bradeen’s Black and white Peterbilt, and the cream and green 1965 Kenworth 923, owned by the Shantz family out of Canada. A few other stand-out rides were Jim Oldland’s perfectly-restored 1980 Peterbilt 359 (#18), George Van Dyke’s entire lineup, and one of James Davis’ latest creations, a satin black Peterbilt with orange stripes, driven by “Chet the Jet” for FCT (First Class Transportation). There were so many cool trucks, it would be hard to mention them all!
We would like to thank everyone who helped run our booth, including Ron, Pam, Taylor, Lexi and James. Since we were at a show in Dallas that same weekend, running our booth there, we really leaned on these folks to take care of things, and they sure did. Big thanks also go out to “Firestone Freddy” Ramsey, a driver from Portland, who took most of these pictures, and to Bryan Welsh for helping out with this show report.
Next year is sure to be another great one, so don’t miss it. Whether you like the newer working trucks, show trucks or the antiques, Brooks has it all. Our hat goes off to Debbie at Esley and Frank Merrill, the event coordinator, and the entire staff, for producing another terrific show that always exemplifies the true meaning of PNW pride!