Carnage on Larimer - 2015

Carnage on Larimer is put on every year by Evil Souls Car Club of Colorado.  The art portion, Graffiti on Larimer, is put on by Raul DeLaTorre, owner of Raquelitas Tortillas, Colorado's premier manufacturer of tortilla chips.  Every day they produce over 25,000 POUNDS of tortillas!  And as of fairly recently, their 24,000-square foot plant became 100% wind-powered!  Raul has been very generous with me over the years, and I truly appreciate his kindness and excitement.  His wife Mari shows tremendous patience as she cooks an enormous amount of food, provided absolutely free, for the show participants.  And it's really tremendous food too.  I'm surprised Raul doesn't weigh 500 pounds having such a wonderful cook around the house.  She deserves much of the credit for the success of the show in general, and doesn't get enough recognition.

I've mentioned in a previous post why you should be going to this show, and this year's event was the perfect example.  There is quite simply no other show where you'd be able to see a Chevy pickup with tractor seats welded to the bumper, sitting right next to a Ferrari 250 GTO.  Bear witness, ye heathens, and rejoice:

That GTO's no trailer queen, either,  It had a transponder on the windshield for E-470, our local toll road/speedway, and there were obvious signs it had been driven quite a bit. Hey, are there any fun people who go to this show?  Why yes.  Yes, there are:

As is always the case here, there are all kinds of people.  All races, nationalities, cultures and ages appear alongside each other, just to have fun and be a big family.  I suppose it seems odd that I picked the white people as an example of that, but I took their picture because they were quirky and obviously having fun.

But wait, you say, were there any Rat Rods?  Um, yes.  A ton.  Here are a few:

  

 

Rat rods are reflections of the habits and predilections of their owners, most often with a wry sense of humor.  That humor is evident here in the fan shroud made of license plates, as well as the grille made to look like teeth.  That grille is what all owners of cars and trucks with that style of grille think of anyway, so why not just go for the gusto and make it obvious?

And there were Model A's, 30's, 40's and 50's classics as well.  Like these:

 

This is really just another view of two of the rat rods, since I feel like they belong in both categories.

Mercs are a mainstay of every type of car show, sometimes mild, often wild, and always with a healthy dose of style.

How about 70's and 80's rides?  Any of those?  Well, yes.

 

You don't see too many early-70's Mustang convertibles anymore, much less with a flame job that obviously took a great deal of time to complete.

Even a kit car!

But with all that, surely there couldn't have been bikes too, could there?

Yes, there could.

And this is only about a third of the bikes that showed up.  Here's a view of one portion of one block of the show as a whole:

 

So where was I in this show?  I was in the Art section.  Here's my booth:

I met a lot of new friends, and I can't wait to shoot their cars and bikes.

And here are a couple of booths of friends of mine, like Old School Alex:

Alex uses woodcutting as a base for his portraits, allowing him to make multiple identical copies of a completely analog process.  he even uses the subtractive technique to allow for color printing from one block.

Also showing was Steve Haugen from Victory Illustration:

I've known Steve for several years, and he's the go-to guy for poster art for almost every event in Colorado.  While his talent is well-known, it's worth noting that he's very unassuming, and is not impressed with himself, as so many artists are.  A wonderful guy to hang around.

I'm very pleased to report that this was my most successful show EVER, and that includes art shows and every car show I've ever done.  What a tremendous thrill, and a huge THANK YOU to Raul for inviting me back this year.

I hope to see YOU there in 2016!