Cache Valley Cruise-In invites family tradition (with audio)

LOGAN — Kathy Constantineau and her husband, Dave, visit the <a href=”http://www.cachevalleycruisein.net/index.php?cID=1″>Cache Valley Cruise-In</a> every year. Sponsored by the Cache Valley Cruising Association, the car show celebrated its 35<sup>th</sup> anniversary in 2017, welcoming more than 1,000 specialty vehicles and 30,000-plus people to the Cache County Fairgrounds to enjoy the annual three-day event.

Constantineau calls herself a “purple addict” and hoped to win a <a href=”http://www.cachevalleycruisein.net/index.php/giveaway-car/”>1937 Ford Pickup</a> being given away on July 1.

“I want to win the purple truck!” she said before the Saturday evening drawing. “I’ve gotta have it. I bought eight raffle tickets. I should have bought two more, and I’ll probably go back and do that, but I want this truck so badly! I’m just so excited!”

While she didn’t win the truck, Constantineau still enjoyed the car show.

“I love it,” she said. “It is so much of a piece of Americana. It is just wonderful!”

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Along with the one-of-a-kind street rods, restored vehicles, motorcycles and trucks, guests of the show also enjoyed food vendors, automotive displays and merchandise and a “Women’s World” featuring products unrelated to cars.

Roger Shields and his wife, Elona, live in Ogden and brought their 1932 Ford Pickup to the show.

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“We’ve been coming here since 1985,” Shields said. “We started coming here when our kids were small and now we’ve got great -grandchildren here. It’s kind of become a family tradition to come up here and meet with the fellow car enthusiasts and talk to people that like our truck.”

Shields said the truck took him about five years to restore.

“It was something I bought that I shouldn’t have bought,” he said.  “It was really way rougher than what I thought, and I built the frame, built the bed, patch-paneled the cab and did the bodywork on it, built the engine.”

He said he and Elona enjoyed taking the truck on the Poker Run on June 29, driving to Richmond and throughout Cache Valley to places they’d never seen before.

“We had a good time doing that,” he said. “This is our tradition.”

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Attending the Cruise-In is also a tradition for Alisa Hill. Raised in Cache Valley, Hill now lives in Bountiful but comes “back home” every year, this time introducing Brett Pace, a friend from West Jordan, to the show.

“I grew up here, so I’ve gone every year since I was tiny,” Hill said.

Hill’s father, Grant Swensen, owns Grant’s Hometown Repair in Nibley and often displays cars in the show. This year, Hill said he had the “little tiny cars that are decorated like the Lego Batman characters and the little green military vehicle that was made out of a Honda CRX.”

Pace said experiencing the Cruise-In with Hill for the first time was “really cool” despite the heat of the day.

“I like it,” he said, “and I’m glad there’s lots of trees! There’s a 64 Chevy truck over there that’s all rusty looking, but it’s a sleeper. It’s got like a 700-horsepower motor and drivetrain that looks like this little rusty truck on the outside, but on the inside it’s an animal, so that’s my favorite so far.”

“I really like the trucks,” Hill said. “I think I like the pink Camaro. I have a hard time choosing!”

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Lining Logan’s Main Street Saturday evening, spectators of the Cruise-In parade tried to pick their own favorites as they enjoyed front yard barbecues, parking lot picnics and the company of family and friends. Chantel Nielson and Donald Page enjoyed the parade with their children, Garrett, Conner and Bella, and Nielson’s father, Clay Ricks.

“My dad usually puts his car in the show,” Nielson said. “He doesn’t have it in here this year, but we’ll usually go for a ride with him, and we just have lots of fun. The kids think the cars are cool. We like the Camaros and the Corvettes.”

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Karen Higley said her family liked the wide assortment of vehicles in the parade. Previously longtime Wellsville residents, Higley, her husband, Jeremy and their children now live in North Logan as they build a home in Preston.

“Of all the years we’ve lived in Cache Valley, this is only our second time ever coming to the car show,” she said.  “It’s just fun to see all the people who come into town to show off their cars and the variety that’s here is awesome. We had fun trying to get the cars to honk their horns, burn out their tires. We just wanted to come and get together with the family.”

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From newcomers to patrons who don’t miss a show, the 2017 Cache Valley Cruise-In seemed to provide a memorable experience for everyone.

“We’ve enjoyed coming to Cache Valley for years,” said Shields, “and it’s just part of our family.”

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