The
Blue Ridge Institute and Museum at Ferrum College will host a Racer’s
Reunion September 25 from 2:00pm-5:00pm in conjunction with their new
exhibit, Car Crazy: Racing and Rodding in Southwest Virginia.
Oval Track, Drag Race and Moonshine Runners will be on hand for an open
reception and exchange of stories.
For over 60 years Southwest Virginia has had
a love affair with fast custom automobiles, and the region has fostered
a host of oval race tracks, drag strips, and car builders.
Car Crazy: Racing and Rodding in Southwest Virginia, a
new exhibit at Ferrum College’s Blue Ridge Institute & Museum, showcases
the regional speed scene from the early moonshine “liquor cars” through
the “muscle cars” of the 1960s. Car Crazy
opens May 1, 2004, in honor of the 100th anniversary of auto racing
in the Commonwealth.
Featuring premier examples of vintage hot rods,
drag cars, and oval track cars, Car Crazy: Racing and Rodding
in Southwest Virginia combines historical photographs,
track memorabilia, club memorabilia, car-building equipment, and the
work of living car builders to tell the story of the “motorheads” of
the Virginia highlands. Nationally young men were enchanted with the
automobile’s potential for speed and design, and by the 1940s Southwest
Virginia mechanics, body-and-fender craftsmen, and drivers had begun
transforming automobiles into souped-up, chopped-down, tricked-out vehicles.
The region has been home to a host of community race tracks and drag
strips, and in the 1950s and ‘60s, Southwest Virginia had over 30 hot
rod clubs. A network of remarkable artisans—upholsterers, pinstripers,
motor builders, metal workers—grew, and many of these craftsmen continue
to work in the custom car scene.
“In the 1950s the car scene in Southwest Virginia
really took off, and the young men in it were remarkably focused and
innovative. Unless you are a male over fifty, you probably do not realize
how popular souped-up hot rods and similar cars were,” said Roddy Moore,
Director of the Blue Ridge Institute & Museum. “Car
Crazy is the first exhibit to explore the history of Virginia’
car subculture.”
This year’s Blue Ridge Folklife Festival on
Saturday, October 23 will include a special stage of racing storytellers
featuring runners, racers, mechanics and more.
Supported with funding from the Virginia Foundation
for the Humanities and Public Policy and the Virginia Commission for
the Arts, Car Crazy: Racing and Rodding in Southwest Virginia
runs through March of 2005. Located on the campus of Ferrum College,
the Blue Ridge Institute & Museum is open Mondays through Saturdays,
10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., year-round; and Sundays, 1 to 4:30 p.m., mid-May
through mid-August. For more information call 540-365-4416 or visit
www.blueridgeinstitute.org.
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