*Photos & Text by Bryan Goffe
“Want to go to the Grand National Roadster Show?” texted my friend Steve Huff on a winter Tuesday.
“Since I was a kid.”
“Cool, we leave on Wednesday. I have to setup my bike on Thursday.”
“Uh, what just happened?!” I mumbled to myself as I wrapped my brain around what it takes to get ready quickly to be gone for a few days. When you know Steve that kind of short notice for cool stuff happens.. (this was to be our first of many road-trip adventures).
After a marathon drive from Seattle to Pomona in a borrowed van with his record breaking Buell in the back; we actually arrived early enough for breakfast, a nap and waited to get set up in the 2017 themed building for land speed racing that year.
While shooting what I could for Steve Huff Motorsports promotion purposes I also wandered throughout the rest of the show and shot cars to promote through Garage Asylum – an example of what Larry Chen calls, “Double-dipping the trip” (lining up more than one photo-shooting objective for a trip). Others might call it, ‘Burning the candle at both ends,’
At the time I didn’t know that returning to GNRS would become annual trip for me, just as I didn’t know a pandemic would later interfere. Now that I’m back for my fifth show as always memories and reflection are part of the experience(s).
Is this a return to a previous annual trek?
Or will this life’s road be interrupted again.
Regardless…I’m planning to attend all of the days it’s open for most of the hours plus the few extra that come with a Media Pass and likely attend a related evening gathering – burning the candle at both ends.
*Some photos are posted on the Garage Asylum Facebook page in Grand National Roadster Show albums.
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The Grand National Roadster Show never disappoints. Hundreds of cars drive in on Saturday to even out the pull of hundreds of cars inside the complex buildings giving something for every one of the thousands of people who make this show ‘the seasonal kickoff.’ It is always a great gathering to meet up with old friends and make new ones while celebrating the California hot rod scene with old and new builds.
Garage Asylum 