10-4 Magazine June 2024

24 10-4 Magazine / June 2024 passed away, his son and two grandkids did a “slow roll” down the drag strip in Ray’s gray and maroon Peterbilt 389. After that, one of the jet dragsters from Tony Franco of Muy Caliente Racing did a blistering run down the track to get things kicked off. With a few special cars making exhibition runs for the crowd, which practically filled the grandstands, we’d like to thank Kelly Anderson of Mavix Community Outreach for bringing out her orange Camaro, and John Minor of R.D. Reed Heavy Transpor t for bringing out their blue “Twisted One” hot rod coupe and making a few fast passes, as well. For the next four hours, pickup trucks and semis, divided into five different classes, raced against each other and the clock. The classes included pickup trucks, diesel-powered pickup trucks, street legal (stock) big rigs, super street (modified) big rigs, and super drag trucks (which are full-on race rigs). There was also a burnout contest, judged by the crowd response, as each competitor performed their pre-race burnout. In the vendor area next to the track we had the Hot 4 Teacher nitro funny car team, with hopes that they would run the car down the track, but mechanical issues did not allow them to do it. They did, however, fire the car up a few times and “cackle” it a bit for the crowd. Thanks to our friend Ron Ver Steeg (who drives the hauler) for making that happen. Hopefully next year driver and owner Alex Miladinovich will be able to rocket that bad boy down the track! The racing ended at 4:00 PM after local favorite Oscar Velasquez beat Mario Monette in an exciting final race. After that, everything began to wind down quickly. The winners for the coloring contest were announced, the silent auction ended, and the live auction began. This was the first time we ever did a live auction, and it was pretty exciting. Dan Dotson of American Auctioneers and “Storage Wars” fame was our celebrity auctioneer. After the auction ended, it was time to hand out awards. These awesome trophies were once again made by our friends at Dickerson Custom Trucks (DCT), with help from Rockwood Products, and delivered to the show by our past cover trucker and friend Ron Beer. Thanks to the many fine people and companies that sponsored each trophy, helping us to raise even more money for the cause. And speaking of the cause, we are proud to be affiliated with Shriners Children’s, and to donate all the proceeds from our event to this amazing organization that provides specialty pediatric care to kids at absolutely no charge to the family. Shriners just celebrated their 100th anniversary, and they have several hospitals throughout the country, so they are not some small group – they are one of the biggest and best in the country! Thank you to Tommy Ray Smith and the entire team from Shriners for coming out to the show, along with the young patients that came out to help pick the Charity’s Choice winner. We are proud to announce that we will be donating $80,000 to the Shriners Children’s Hospital in Pasadena, CA this year! After the awards were handed out, the show came to an end at 6:00 PM. We would like to thank each and every one of you that came out to the show, either as a par ticipant, a vendor, a spectator and/or a sponsor, and helped make TFK 2024 another great success. We would also like to thank all our volunteers and helpers, all the companies that donated products for our auction, and our presenting sponsors, NTA and 10-4 Magazine. Lastly, we’d like to thank the Maggini family, especially Roger and Annette, for taking good care of our TFK trailer and getting it to all the shows safely (and looking good). Building on tradition will ensure this event gets better each year. As we (Dan, Tim, Shannon, April, and Jean) learn from our own experiences, as well as the 40 years of past shows that were produced before us, we can only hope that our solid foundation will allow us to build and grow a stronger event for many years to come. I hope you stay with us on this journey, as we continue to give back to those in need. Because Truckin’ For Kids is, and always has been, “A Good Time For a GREAT Cause!” We will announce the dates for TFK 2025 once they are confirmed, so stay tuned to the magazine and our socials. n EDITOR’S NOTE: Special thanks to Jacob Gunderson and Tim Sieben for providing some of the photographs for this show repor t.