Tom's Fun Run 2003

Billed as Southern California's oldest driving event, the 26th Annual Tom's Fun Run sponsored by Custom Rodder, Street Rodder, Classic Trucks, and Rod & Custom magazines went off far better than expected, even with the somewhat incorrect weather forecast by Southern California's fictitiously named professionals. I firmly believe Southern Californians are far more accurate at weather prediction than the fellas that get paid for it.

This year's event brought over 300 pre-1972 classic cars ranging from street rods, customs, trucks, and even a nice lot of vintage musclecars. Although this was my first experience with being involved in Tom's Fun Run, I was truly amazed at the hardcore following the legendary cruise and poker run attracts. I've only heard stories from my veteran co-workers here at Primedia about how huge the annual weekend cruise really is.

My day started out about 6:30 AM in front of the Primedia offices on Katella Ave. in Anaheim. Moments after arrival I was greeted by a short rain shower and began to wonder if I made the right decision to volunteer my valuable weekend time for the world of hot rodding. After about an hour and a half of parking cars and getting a few photos, I tossed my luke-warm, watered-down coffee and we headed out. Our first stop was a short ride to La Mirada Regional Park where we stopped briefly only to get our second card. The next stop was SO-CAL Speed Shop in Pomona. Talk about some really cool stuff. If you ever make it to the SoCal area, you definitely need to add this to your list of "to do's." After a brief leg stretching, we headed out to our third stop, which happened to be about a 35-mile ride back to Orange County. We pulled into Lot C at Cal State Fullerton for a brief pit stop and were quickly on our way.

Keep in mind the weather was becoming more and more rodder friendly as the day progressed, (freaking SoCal Weather necks!). Anyway, as we headed east on the 91 Freeway, John Force's Race Station/shop/museum/corporate office in Yorba Linda was our final stop.

By this time I was starving for some serious grub, so me and my fearsome band of co-workers headed to the In-n-Out trailer for some complementary burgers and chips (no hand-cut fries from the mobile-burger joint!). For you folks in the Midwest and East Coast, these just happen to be the best burgers in the west. We then ventured into the museum and soaked up some John Force drag racing history. A neat way to spend some time for the NHRA fans in the family. Whether you like Force or any other drag racers, there is plenty of drag racing memorabilia in the newly refurbished John Force Race Station collectibles store. Also on hand at the Force compound was a silent auction which featured numerous drag racing and related items with proceeds benefiting the Orange County Chapter of the Make A Wish Foundation.

Now it's about 1:00 in the afternoon and for some reason there looks to be about a hundred more cars here than at our original starting point. I guess the weather must have changed some rodder's minds on staying home on such a gorgeous day.

After shooting about 200 images with my new company issued Cannon digital camera, it was time to call it a day.

My first Toms Fun Run will most definitely be a memorable experience as I begin to edit the photos and then realize I took far too many photos. Well, I guess you can never have too many images from a fun Sunday cruise like this.