An amazing display of 148 vehicles at the SFD Smoke Eater Car Show Saturday. Prized vehicles lined both sides of the streets surrounding the Sully square, a block west of the square down 4th Street, and 6th Avenue from First Interstate Bank south to the fire station.
Beautiful weather, a large crowd of spectators, 148 entries, and generous donations made a hugely successful Sully Fire Department Smoke Eater Car Show on Saturday, Sept. 14. Organizers were blown away by the total donations for entry fees, raffles, and freewill meal.
“I was very happy with the big community support, crowd, car count, and more, which were way above and exceeded expectations,” said Jeremy Vander Molen, car show chairman.
From 11 a.m.-1 p.m., vehicles were displayed, about 400 enjoyed a freewill-donation meal, 18 trophies were presented, four raffle winners were named, and about 50 door prizes (had to be present to win) were won by entry drivers.
Warren Vander Leest holds his plaque for winning the Kids’ Favorite award for his 2022 Corvette. He also had his 1972 Corvette in the show. The two vehicles have special significance – Vander Leest graduated high school in 1972, and he bought the 2022 Corvette to have the same car, only 50 years newer
Trophy for Crowd Favorite vote was awarded to the red 1962 Chevy Impala entered by Kyle and Ashlyn Kramer.
Six more trophies were presented to: Oldest Vehicle-Holister Koenig’s 1923 Ford T-bucket; Farthest Travelled-Deanne Jolly of Rolland and her 1968 Ford Torino; Mayor’s Pick-Mark and Sarah Scholten’s 1970 Cadillac Coupe De Ville; Law Enforcement Pick-Jon Hake’s 1971 Pontiac GT; Fire Chief Pick-Carroll Simbro’s 1972 Chevy Suburban; and EMS Pick-Doug See’s 1968 Chevy Camaro.
Judges selected the Top Ten, in no particular order: 1976 Dodge W100 Truck-Kevin Vant Sant, 1992 Ford Mustang-Douglas Byers, 1968 Mercury Cougar GTE 7.0 Litre-Dan Ziegenmeyer, 1981 Pontiac TransAm-Greg Pleima, 1970 Dodge Challenger-Eric Brand, 1961 Corvette-Dennis DeNooy, 1967 Plymouth Belvedere-Doyle Ver Ploeg, 1969 Chevy C10 Truck-Kevin Van Donselaar, 1956 DeSoto Firedom-Mark Byers, and 1970 Mustang Mach I-Dean and Betty Van Kooten.
All trophy plates were cut out by Co-Line Welding and powder coated by Red Hot Powder Coating owned by Jager Huyser.
A couple of spectators were talking about all the local classic cars that were still in their sheds on Saturday, “Just think how many more blocks of cars there could have been, but this is just awesome.”
