BECKLEY, WV (WOAY) – The 17th annual Friends of Charity Auto Fair kicked off at the Raleigh County Memorial Airport.
Classic cars and muscle cars, hotrods, and motorcycles of every make, model, and style rolled into the airport Friday morning. Hundreds plan to show off their rides all weekend long, some of the rides having been entirely transformed.
“I had nothing but two frame rifts when I started, built it from scratch but I had a dream,” says the owner of the Mack truck, Tom Pugh.
Pugh took a bare frame, a sleeper, a cab, among other various parts from different trucks, completely reconstructing the 1950 Mack truck from the ground up. He tries to attend as many car shows with it as he can.
Another vehicle owner at the fair, Gerald Doss, had his fully rebuilt 1965 Chevy Chevelle out on display. It’s his seventh year attending the auto fair. While he’s happy to show off his ride, he’s even happier to be helping out a good cause.
“Most importantly it’s good to do this charity, Hospice and Brian’s Safehouse are very, very good organizations, they’re really great people and we do this for them, and I would just do that if I didn’t get a trophy,” says Doss.
Last year, over 500 vehicles participated in the event. Director of Public Relations for Hospice of Southern WV, Hope Duncan anticipates this year to be just as successful.
“We are always hoping for more people to come out, more people to be aware of it,” says Duncan. “Last year we had 512 vehicles, so this year we’re hoping to have more than that this year, and of course with the Rodney Atkins concert, that’s a big draw.”
Saturday is the big day, with a full line-up of competitions, demos, a poker run parade, a concert, and fireworks.
The Rodney Atkins concert will start tomorrow evening, Saturday 23 at 7:30 p.m. The fireworks display will close out this year’s auto fair Saturday night starting at 10:30 p.m.
