We love traveling up to the Pacific Northwest (PNW) whenever possible. For the past several years, the PNW has set the standard for “cool” and been home to many tall rides, and if the annual show held in Brooks, Oregon was any indication about what is happening up there now, nothing has changed.
Celebrating its 20th anniversary, this annual event, held on August 24-25 at the Pacific NW Truck Museum on the grounds of Antique Powerland in Brooks, Oregon (just north of Salem), featured 315 of the PNW’s finest rigs. With a mix of old and new custom and fleet trucks, in two separate areas, and more log trucks than you could shake a stick at, there was something there for everyone to love.
Trucks began to fill the grassy lot on Friday afternoon, and then the show got officially started that evening with a barbecue for all in attendance and then a first-ever light show. Friday night proved to be a great time, as party-goers hung around after the light show ended to relax and unwind with like-minded friends.
Saturday morning came fast, and before we knew it, it was time to get our booth stocked and ready for the day. Luckily, we had some help, and thanks to Lexi, Taylor and Pam taking over, we were able to walk around, take pictures, and talk with friends. In fact, they ran our booth the entire day! Handing out hundreds of free magazines and posters, we went through a lot of paper that day.
Over in the “working truck” area, where our booth was set up, was a host of awesome trucks, including tall rides owned by James Davis, Alan Tuttle, Bruce Gieg, Tyler Picknell, Wes Prater (our cover truck this month), Ned Vander Ploeg (the amazing Nedsled), and more. Brent McGrath of Brent’s Custom Trucks had his latest creation on display – Leroy Bracelin’s red 1968 Peterbilt 358, which was surrounded by a crowd all day. Jade Transport, all the way from Canada, even had two trucks at the show. And who could forget George Van Dyke’s fleet of cool trucks – they had an entire area all to themselves, and they filled it up with all types of sweet GVD rigs.
Across the way, over in the trees, the antique trucks were on display. Wow, what a great collection of old iron! The one that stood out for us was Mike Brown’s old 1952 Peterbilt log truck (our April 2008 cover feature). Now owned by Don Taylor, this truck was recently repowered and repainted – and it looked better than ever. Jim Oldland had a bunch of neat old trucks there, too, including a unique 1971 White Freightliner cabover log truck painted yellow and blue.
Although this is a non-judged event, Esley Truck Accessories runs a “People’s Choice” contest for charity. For $1, folks can buy a raffle ticket and not only enter to win some great prizes, but also get to vote one time for their favorite truck. The more tickets they buy, the more votes they can cast. At the end of the day, they raised $2,400 for the Shriners Hospitals for Children. 1st place went to Rodney Folkerts of Lund Trucking; 2nd place went to Alan Tuttle of Graham Transportation; and 3rd went to Gary Bean of The Marshall Co.
We would like to say thanks to all of our friends for their help and support, including James Davis, Trucker Ron, and Bryan Welsh (and Jami, too). It was also great to get to hang out with Bobby at Pacific Truck & Trailer, Ryan Van Dyke, Jeff Barnes, Hank Suderman, Bruce Gieg, Greg Ragan, Jason Setterberg, and Debbie from Esley Truck Accessories.
We had a great time in Brooks, and look forward to our next adventure to the PNW. And with creative people like Brent McGrath, Bill Abernethy, Rod Pickett, James Davis, George Van Dyke and others, the PNW will undoubtedly continue to crank out some of the best trend-setting rigs in the country and set the bar for others to follow.