Rodarama 2022

After more than 2 years of Covid restrictions, we finally managed to put on the 21st Rodarama show on the last weekend in April 2022! The Rodarama committee spent more than a year planning this event with several changes made on the fly. The first major adjustment was a change in the venue site. For the first time we moved the event to Exhibition Place at Red River Exhibition Park.

Changing the venue meant we had to map out a new layout for the cars and sponsors. Covid restrictions changed several times during the planning stages which meant increasing the width of the aisles (to allow people distancing ) and thus reducing the number of cars that would fit in the arena area. The number we hoped to get to was 95 cars!

Getting the street rods to Rodarama was a major challenge. We had 3 Colorado lows going thru southern Manitoba over the 3 previous weekends dumping tons of snow and rain in the area. Several car owners could not get their vehicles out of winter storage! In the last week before the show, we had over 15 cars dropout of the show, but we had a number of people on the waiting list and several MSRA members stepped up and brought their cars.

The rain stopped Thursday and Friday to allow us to get the cars to the arena and stopped Sunday night to allow us to get our vehicles home. It absolutely poured in the time in between! The 3 special bicycles for the kids are in the bottom of the picture!

In the end we managed to get 102 cars into the venue. In future we will probably strive for only 95 to allow better spacing between the cars and more vendor room. When the doors opened Friday evening, Saturday morning, and Sunday morning people were lined up to get in (a lot of the time in pouring rain). I think people were just tired of being cooped up for 2 years and just wanted to get out.

We ended up having the highest attendance and net profit in 21 years! MSRA will hold some of the profit to finance next years show and all the rest of the money will be donated to Children's Rehabilitation Foundation (CRF)

At the show three special bicycles (~$4000.00 each) were given to special needs children via the CRF. MSRA provided 2 of the bikes and Freedom Concepts (who makes the bikes) provided the third.

Below is a picture of me, my grandson, and my granddaughter in front of my car.

I won the plaque below for second place for Street Rods between 1935-1948.

This is the car that won first place in my category. It was a Barrett Jackson car from the US. I will never have the money or time to compete successfully against these cars!

I also won a GM350 motor in a draw!

The motor was rebuilt by Competition Engines with all new parts. I am not sure what I will do with it yet.

I am having problems setting the time on my Chevy motor, so I may swap the GM305 for the GM350!

Here is a list of the new parts installed in the motor.

Here are some pictures of my car at the show before the doors opened! I got a couple of hints on judging the cars. The hood and trunk must be open. The gas tank lid must be taped shut if it is not locking. The car must have a spare tire and jack. One thing I forgot to do was clean the brake and gas pedals!