Truck Show Report: By Daniel J. Linss Last month, we all went “back to the future” as the 44th annual Truckin’ For Kids (TFK) Charity Show & Drags moved back to Famoso Dragstrip in Bakersfield. Some may or may not know, but TFK was held at this location in 2004 and 2005, so 20 years later, we returned – and it was awesome! With 253 of the finest trucks on the lot, a packed Kid’s Zone with games and rides, 25 vendors, and a bunch of big rigs drag racing on Sunday, it was a great weekend. Not to mention, a bunch of money was raised for Shriners Children’s Hospital, which is what this event is all about! Over the years, TFK has been held at many different locations. For the last 18 years, it was at Irwindale Speedway in Southern California, but after that facility was shut down permanently, and I mean permanently (it was leveled), in January of 2025, we had to find a new home for the event. Thankfully, our friend and partner Tim Huddleston, who ran Irwindale Speedway and recently purchased Kern County Raceway, where our “10-4 Trucker Rodeo & Show” was held last November, took over the lease at Famoso Dragstrip, as well. Having a great relationship with Tim, we were able to secure this location in late December (2024) and make our official announcement in January 2025. But that didn’t leave a lot of time for us to plan and prepare for the event – which was being held at a new location, with a new owner, in a new region (Central California)... but we got ‘er dun! It was hard to leave the Southern California area because TFK has always been considered a SoCal show, but with no more available drag strips in the area, we had no choice. Truth be told, this new location, which is so much bigger than Irwindale Speedway, is a much better venue for this kind of event. We now have space for more RVs, more trucks, more vendors, more spectator parking, and grandstands large enough to hold three times more fans than Irwindale held. In short, we have plenty of space for not only the show, but growth, as well. Nevertheless, moving to a new location can be stressful, but everyone at the dragstrip made us all at TFK feel right at home. Something that was different this year was the ability to park trucks and let vendors get set up on Friday, the day before the show started. That has never been an option at TFK. On Friday, the gate was open from noon to 7:30 PM (it was supposed to close at 6:00 PM but trucks kept coming so we kept parking), and we parked 150 trucks that day. Most of the vendors came in and got their booths set up, too, and the vibe for most of the day was chill and relaxing. What a concept! Saturday was so much better, as well, since over half the trucks and most of the vendors were already there. We parked 100 trucks on Saturday, and the gates opened to the public at noon. The weather was awesome, with temps in the mid-70s, and a light breeze blowing most of the weekend. The foot traffic on Saturday was really busy, as spectators came to see the trucks, play in the Kid’s Zone, and buy raffle tickets for over 30 amazing items donated by our friends and 10-4 Magazine business partners. Companies like Valley Chrome, Toys 4 Trucks, Hogebuilt, West Coast Foam, RLK Services, SpareTime Fab, Pickett Custom Trucks, Lifetime, 4 State Trucks, Dane Nelson Bugshields and so many more, made sure the items in the raffle were worthy of buying tickets. This year we did the raffle/auction differently. In past years, we did a silent auction, where people wrote down their bids on an item they wanted, and then the highest bidder “won” the item after the auction closed. To mix things up a bit, we decided to do it as a raffle this year. Each item had its own box, and after people bought raffle tickets, they dropped them in the box or boxes of the items they wanted to win. Once the raffle closed, just before the awards, we drew one ticket out of each box and then announced the winners. It actually worked out pretty well, so I think we will do it like this again next year. We also did a live auction for two items – the custom wood truck and trailer that Jeff 20 10-4 Magazine / June 2025 BACK TO THE FUTURE
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