The weekend of April 6, 2013, marked the Goodguys 13th Meguiar's Del Mar Nationals, which featured three full days of sunshine, nice temperatures and fantastic rides. As a perk, the fans were treated to the 6th annual Goodguys Editor's Shootout Autocross. Some of the nation's best autocrossers duked it out on the course throughout the weekend. "Fast" Mary Pozzi drove her '72 Chevy Camaro to the weekend's fastest AutoCross lap (53.243) earning her a coveted spot in the upcoming Goodguys Autocross Finals Shootout in November presented by BFGoodrich.

We spent this past weekend traveling to the Dallas area where we witnessed a ton of great muscle car action at the Goodguys 3rd Spring Lonestar Nationals. It's without a doubt one of our favorite shows at one of our favorite venues! We were there specifically to capture all the action on the Street Machine Autocross, which takes place on the infield of the Texas Motor Speedway near turn 4. There's plenty of asphalt for the toughest muscle machines in Texas to duke it out for the title of fastest Pro Touring car in Texas, and the Lonestar crowd did not disappoint! The weather was picture perfect (except for the high wind!) and the cars clawed for every ounce of traction their 200 treadwear tires could get. We'll be bringing you all the details in the August issue of Popular Hot Rodding, but for now you can check out the six-minute highlight video by clicking here! Our next stop on the Goodguys tour will be the Meguiar's 13th Del Mar Nationals in Del Mar, California on April 5-7. We hope to see you there!

We’ve noticed that hot rodders love to divide themselves into camps of brands and engine families—sometimes even specific years. We have to admit, a little friendly rivalry is fun, but for some guys, brand loyalty verges on religious fervor. When given the chance to break free of the bad news on TV, the infighting at work, the rush hour traffic, arguing with the kids, the apathy of customer service—you’d think people would want to chill out when it’s hot roddin’ time. Nope. For some guys, it’s time to pop the knuckles, log on to the Interweb, and start clacking on the keyboard about what sucks about this guy’s car or that guy’s motor. Caps lock on.

The heat topped 100 degrees well before noon on Saturday, July 7—just ask anybody there and they’ll tell you it was definitely not a “dry” heat. To those local car nuts who missed being at the Ohio Expo Center & State Fairgrounds for the Goodguys 15th PPG Nationals, the elevated mercury was a convenient excuse to stay at home. Too bad for them; the resulting low attendance made for a wide-open venue that rewarded those who did brave the tarmac. The Pro Touring proponents who lined up to challenge the short yet tricky autocross circuit quickly found out that the record-breaking heat was more of an inconvenience than a hindrance to performance. No heat-related mechanical failures were seen on the Street Machine autocross, and the elevated temperature only seemed to accelerate the deposit of grippy rubber over the course.

Go to most cars shows and you’ll hear annoying overloud ’50s music pumping through a cheesy PA system, punctuated by the occasional rump of a “fairgrounds” motor that’s never seen the burnout box of a dragstrip. And while a Goodguys show certainly has its share of lounge chairs, colorful brag plaques, and Cabbage Patch dolls Velcro’d to the front of chrome grilles, you’ll find something not found at any other car show: the sound of tortured tires and engines at redline.

Southern California has a growing problem: its racetracks are closing down one by one. In just the last two months, Irwindale, Fontana, Orange Show, and Perris have all closed to their respective forms of racing. Prior to that, we lost LACR, Pomona, and the planned track at Banning called Drag City. We’re seeing a lot more race cars for sale at swap meets, and street racing is again on the rise, as was most recently seen on the National Geographic Channel’s LA Street Racers special. The track situation in SoCal is so bad, we’re even questioning the wisdom of equipping Project Nova with an eight-point rollbar—after all, what’s the point? If there are no places to race, why pour on the costly safety gear? Yet we remain optimistic. We’ve been in these dire straits before, and things always got better.

We stepped up last year to sponsor five select Goodguys Street Machine Autocross events, and we had a great time. The readers did too, so for 2012 we hooked back up with the Goodguys Rod & Custom Association to ink the deal for five more action-packed tarmac scorchers. In 2011, we gave out five custom-embroidered Street Machine Autocross jackets to our five winners, and we’re going to do it again this year, starting with the Fort Worth, Texas, event, which went down this past March 16-17 at the Texas Motor Speedway.

Just when you think classic cars are “old,” something changes your perspective. After all, the ’32 Ford—that stalwart staple of hot rodding—is something like 79 years ancient. Similarly, the ’55 Chevy has 56 trips around the sun under its belt, and the ’69 Camaro has a relatively scant 42 years on the clock. By some yardstick, you can make the argument that our favorite cars are genuinely old, but you’d be hard-pressed to say they’re over the hill. Please take that into consideration while you ponder that when the Indianapolis Motor Speedway opened in 1909, the ’32 Ford was 23 distant years in the future, and Oklahoma had only been a state for two years.

Have you ever seen a beautifully built or restored classic for sale with scant few miles on the clock and wondered to yourself: “How could anyone put so much time and effort into a car and never drive it?” We know where it comes from; blood, sweat, tears, time, and money are all shed in varying doses on every project, and when it’s finally the car you’ve always wanted it’s hard to subject it to the abuses and wear and tear of the open road. But we’re here to tell ya, you’re missing out.

Single-brand events are nothing new in the world of hot rodding entertainment; Chevy-, Ford-, Mopar-, and even Buick-only gatherings are commonplace in today’s ever splintering Internet-driven hobby. There seems to be no end to the niches and subniches that are supported by message boards and cottage single-mark industries. Looking for a “Nationals” event dedicated solely to purple Yugos? We’re sure there’s one somewhere. The Holley LS Fest, however, moves into even rarer territory because it presupposes an alternate universe in which all cars and all brands are motivated by just one kind of powerplant: the General Motors corporate LS V-8 engine.

In the January 2012 issues we brought the story of the biggest shake-down road trip Project X has ever undertaken, but there were so many photos that we just didn't have space to print! One of our favorite stops, and the destination for the Popular Hot Rodding/Real Deal Steel Tri-Five Cruise sponsored by Woody's Hot Rodz was the Shades Of The Past car show in Pigeon Forge, TN. Thanks to the show's patriarch Bobby Alloway, X had a space of honor near the corral for the winners- and this gallery shows the judges picks for 2011.

The Goodguys Rod & Custom Association knows how to throw a hot rod party, and the Goodguys Nationals in Columbus is the granddaddy of them all. We can’t say for sure what makes the Ohio Expo Center an epicenter for all things high octane; maybe it’s the physical proximity to the greatest selection of muscle cars on the planet (that being the heart of the Midwest), or maybe it’s just the sheer size of the place, but hot rodders and spectators come from all over the country just to make the scene.

Automotive museums are repositories of history and caretakers of dream cars. They’re places every hot rodder and gearhead should visit occasionally to remind themselves of how far the hobby has come in such a short time, and how all the different genres of the hobby are really just bits of fabric in the same cloth. Plus, they’re just plain fun to wander through.

The Motor State Challenge is ostensibly about a regional parts distributor stepping up to play on the larger Pro Touring stage. By holding a three-day event comprising an autocross, a 40-mile cruise, a shop tour, and a road course excursion at nearby Gingerman Raceway, Motor State Distributing is putting itself in the national spotlight in a way that surprisingly few “serious” companies have the guts for.

You can’t help but have fun at a big summer party. What makes a killer party, though? Lots of friends? Gotta have ’em. Loads of bitchin cars to jaw about? Now we’re getting warm. A killer spot to hop in your ride and do the autocross-cone dance with your buddies egging you on? We’re on fire now. So who better to throw the rip-roarin-est, root-tootin-est, boot-scootin-est party in the land than Goodguys? And what better spot to throw down than the rock ’n’ roll home of the git-tar, Nashville baby!

For decades, autocrossing was the domain of geeky car nerds with underpowered imports. Real men drag raced, or sometimes road raced—if they had that kind of money. Then something funny happened: as production car handling got better, a gap emerged between muscle cars of yore and even the most pedestrian of commuters. Inevitably, that gap became so enormous it begged the question: Are muscle cars damned to the same fate as prewar restorations, coming out into the light of day only for the occasional Shriner’s parade?

The Phoenix suburb of Scottsdale plays host to the Goodguys Rod & Custom Association twice each year for a reason: It’s one of the hottest hubs in the hot rodding scene. The combination of great weather all year round, and its proximity to Southern California and Las Vegas also make it a great crossroads, but there is something unique about the Phoenix area itself that produces some of the coolest muscle cars to ever hit the asphalt. It is a city on the move, and its occupants have a great love of the American automobile that we seldom see elsewhere. From a car-building perspective, Phoenix is close enough to other major influential markets that it can partake in prevailing design and building trends, yet it’s isolated enough to have a distinct set of styles all its own—and that’s one of the reasons that keeps Popular Hot Rodding coming back for more every year.