I had the pleasure of flying out to Albemarle North Carolina this May to attend a show that I have followed online since before I started this magazine. Still Runs Car Truck and Bike Show happens every year around May 10th and gets bigger and better every year. In my opinion this is North Carolina’s best all around show, and I might have to say that out of all the shows I have attended or seen this is one of my favorites, maybe even my favorite.
The show is put on by the amazing gals of “Pin Ups and Pumps” (instagram @pinupsandpumps) and more specifically Sara Huneycutt and her husband Chad. Sara has built a name for herself in the pinup community as Miss Rayzen Hell (instagram @miss_rayzen_hell) and is a local car enthusiast. Sara and her husband are members of the Lowrider car club “Low Income” in Albemarle North Carolina and they have a pretty sweet collection of cars and trucks, and even a bus, you will see an upcoming feature of her rig affectionately named “Old Dirty Bastard” grace the pages of Cruise Culture Magazine in a future issue.
Sara is becoming a sought after asset in the community for her incredible talent and ability to plan and host these fantastic car show events and pin up contests. With her being invited to host shows all over the country.
This show in particular, is set in the beautiful historic downtown of Albemarle and has an incredible backdrop of buildings and streets from a bygone era with a vast amount of red brick architecture. The contrast between the beautiful old architecture and the shiny kustoms, lowriders, and even the patina’d rat rods and cool builds give a picturesque asthetic that works for many photographers to attend and photograph this beautiful event. I’m glad I was able to attend and put my own spin on the photos of the afternoon and evening.
On this page you see @crooked_tow’s (on instagram) 1971 International Loadstar with a 5.9L 24 valve Cummins. This flat deck took home a top ten award and it was well deserved, this thing is bad to the bone and gets used and driven to shows as well as to haul his other builds and toys. I was also lucky enough to snap a picture of Georjah posing in front of the rig.
The streets were packed with builds of all kinds wich is one of the coolest parts of the show in Albemarle. A lot of shows south of the border from here in Canada are specific to a type of build or or have rules as to what you can bring, like range of years, makes, or even wheel size. This show didn’t discriminate and everyone was well behaved and admired the quality of everyone's build regardless of their style. The quality of the builds was incredible too, I saw so many quality builds and was blown away by it. Here in Canada majority of our shows are “bring what you got” this creates the cool all inclusive atmosphere but we wind up with a large amount of off the lot Mustang’s and Corvette’s, nothing wrong with it because someone worked really hard to buy that car they always wanted and they should be able to show it off, but too many of these can make for a boring show.
Still Runs quickly took over the entirety of downtown Albemarle, filling the streets and intersections and needing to expand down additional streets, into lane ways and even into nearby parking lots. With a final count of well over 400 vehicles entered into the show, not including ones that snuck in from other ends or parked outside of the official show limits.
The show was raising money for the Butterfly House, which is a facility that offers children who are possible victims of abuse a safe environment to receive emotional and physical support from a team of caring and experienced professionals. The money will be put to good use helping child victims get the help, examinations, and medical assistance they need but can’t afford. The show raised a whopping $9,070 and as of writing this article was working on a second printing of show posters and stickers to sell online to bump that number up over 10k.
Huge shout out to all those who bought 50/50 tickets, bid on items in the auction, sponsored the event in any way, and registered their car to support the show and the charity.
Motorcycles of all kinds, styles, and builds where also in attendance at the show with a bike show that was hosted and sponsored by Jaybird’s Custom Cycles. We recently started featuring some motorcycles in the magazine and I was excited to check out some of the bikes and they did not dissapoint. Being a big lowrider fan I am partial to the “cholo” style builds but love me a good and low bagger bike with a big wheel like this beautifully painted turqoise bike. I also love me some patina and rat rod style and there were plenty of bikes in all of those groups to tickle my fancy.
Live music of the rock’n roll and rockabilly persuation were performed on both the big main event stage and on the flat deck of Sara’s custom rig (Old Dirty Bastard) built to double as a stage. They also hosted many contests through out the show like beard and mustache competition, tattoo competition, swing dance competition, and more.
This beautiful car was another one of my favorites from the show and I couldn’t help but snag multiple pictures of it at the show. I wasn’t able to get much information on the build but the overall quality and execution of every little detail on this kustom was incredible. The beautiful gold color made the chrome absolutely pop in the sun and stand out amongst all of its peers at the show. The modern touch of air ride with the retro look of the white walls was a kool klassic touch.
The kustoms were definitely some of my favorites at the show with some honorable mentions at the top and bottom of the page but this 1950 kustom Merc centered on the page took best of show and for good reason. The car, maned Comanchero, is a Lincoln from the firewall back and a Merc going forward although the amount of work done to this build would leave you guessing. Why so little pics of it in this issue of the magazine you might ask? Well I stumbled upon Travis Lawson the day after the show out with his car and after a quick chat, we decided to do an impromptu photo shoot of the car for the magazine since I had my equipment with me. So, you will have to stay tuned and wait for a future issue to get a better look at the car in a upcoming feature.
Still Runs 2025 dates have already been announced so you can mark it in your calendar and be there for next year, maybe I will even see you there on May 10th 2025. Be sure to watch our YouTube coverage as well to see even more of the cars and even some footage from the pre party, the after pre-party, and the after party with more footage from the day after with Georjah, Travis, and more coming soon.
Article by Brian Holzli
Photos by Brian Holzli
