With multiple bands playing throughout the morning and afternoon, the gearheads were out in force for the 10th annual Rust or Shine Car Show and Music Festival on Sunday, Aug. 31, at the Veterans Memorial Museum in Chehalis.
There were a total of 418 entries into the show ranging from rust buckets to polished and restored muscle cars, and even a few motorcycles.
Veterans Memorial Museum Executive Director Chip Duncan organizes the show as a way to raise money for both the museum and Veterans Journey Forward, a local nonprofit that operates out of the museum.
Veterans Journey Forward was founded by U.S. Marine Corps veteran Jesse Lloyd with Duncan’s help, after Lloyd dealt with mental health issues himself in the service and watched a fellow Marine also struggle with mental health — which sadly ended in suicide.
Local veterans and their families can access peer-counseling services through Veterans Journey Forward along with help in getting various veterans benefits from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
“If you’re a veteran and you have struggles, there are people who care. We have mental health counselors right here at the museum that are available for you,” Duncan said Sunday. “We don’t want you to be forgotten.”
Last year, the show brought in more than $15,000 for the museum and Veterans Journey Forward. This year, they raised over $20,000.
Duncan also welds together trophies using recycled car parts for the show. Several are dedicated to fallen veterans, with relatives coming to the show to choose the trophies’ winners.
A couple of this year’s trophy winners caught the eyes of The Chronicle this year, including a 1927 Dodge Brothers Fast Four two-door coupe and a 1964 Chevrolet Suburban Carryall, both rusty.
Some of the other vehicles included a shiny 1963 Chevrolet Suburban C10 parked next to the rusty one, a 1965 Plymouth Valiant, and a 2003 Mazda MX-5 Miata and local championship-winning Quarter Midget racing kart — both owned by an aspiring amateur racer who may have even helped NASCAR Xfinity Series driver Connor Zilisch win this past weekend at the Portland International Raceway.
Chasing racing dreams
While most teenagers prefer to spend birthdays partying, Hoodsport resident and aspiring amateur racer Malikie "Mak" Kranzler decided to spend his 19th birthday on Sunday at Rust or Shine instead.
Having been racing in local karting competitions since he was 4 and a half years old in Elma, he usually spends his birthdays at the Portland International Raceway watching the NTT Indycar Series Grand Prix of Portland.
“I even worked for one of the Indycar teams being the guy to hold the flag for the car to stop in the pit lane,” Kranzler said.
But, as that race was held weeks before his birthday this year, he decided to go to the car show, bringing the 2003 Mazda MX-5 Miata he currently races in amateur events and a championship-winning Quarter Midget racing kart.
“There’s a track there for these cars. I started down in a class called junior Honda, which has little 100cc engines that have been restricted down so little kids can actually learn how to drive a car at a young age,” Kranzler said. “I love getting the actual feeling of these cars at such a young age, because it teaches us to be more responsible on the big roads as we get older.”
Kranzler worked his way up through more powerful karting classes, eventually racing in one of the top classes until he aged out in 2020.
Before that though, he won a championship in the I-5 Quarter Midget Club. Most of the kart racing he did was on dirt oval tracks, but in 2017 he got the chance to drive a flat kart on a circuit in Indiana.
“Ever since then, I was hooked, and I couldn’t get enough of turning right or left,” Kranzler added.
Following that, he got into flat kart racing, at least until the COVID-19 pandemic began. While the racing tracks may have been closed for a while, some good did come out of it, as Kranzler acquired his Miata.
“This car pretty much just fell in my lap, and I’ve never looked back. I’ve been racing this Miata ever since, and I love it,” Kranzler said.
He’s taken his Miata out for laps on some of the local racing tracks in the region, including both the Evergreen Speedway and Portland International Raceway. In fact, he’ll be back in Portland testing out a brand new set of racing tires he just got for his Miata in a couple of weeks.
While the car’s engine is mostly stock, he has tuned his transmission to make the car faster in the corners.
“Even though I lost about five miles per hour on the top end (speed), I’ve gained three seconds in the turns. In a Miata, you have to sacrifice your top speed to beat people in the turns, and that’s what I like to do,” Kranzler said. “It’s a Miata. A Milwaukee drill makes more power than it.”
Frequenting tracks such as the Portland International Raceway means he knows them pretty well, and even occasionally runs into professional drivers, like Zilisch.
The day before Kranzler’s birthday, Zilisch took the checkered flag and won the NASCAR Xfinity Series Pacific Office Automation 147 at the Portland International Raceway. And Kranzler may have helped him win.
“I taught him how to race Portland in a (Mazda MX-5) Cup Miata. I was also still learning the track, but he came up to me last year during one of the first races and asked, ‘Can I just do a lead-and-follow with you? I’m learning this cup car,’” Kranzler said. “... I showed him the proper racing line that I knew of as of right then, and some other techniques.”
Kranzler is hoping to continue his racing career on top of still competing in Sports Car Club of America Road Racing Miata Cup events. He is actively seeking new sponsors. Those interested can message Kranzler on his TikTok, @MakRacing111.
A pair of Suburbans
With one restored and one rusty, Littlerock resident Denise Lane’s 1964 Chevrolet Suburban Carryall and 1963 Chevrolet C10 Suburban made for a pretty picture parked together.
First produced by Chevrolet as metal-bodied station wagons in 1934, the Suburban is currently the longest produced car model in the world, with Chevrolet still making them today in the vehicle’s 12th generation.
The Dodge Brothers coupe
Owned by Yelm residents Jacob and Leslie Kisor, their 1927 Dodge Brothers Fast Four two-door coupe was one of the favorite rusty rides of the show.
The Fast Four was actually the Dodge Brothers Company’s final production car that came off their assembly lines prior to the company being purchased by the Chrysler Corporation in 1928. It came standard with an early four-cylinder engine and three-speed transmission, a speedometer, ammeter, a tool kit and a headlight dimmer. Things like a rear bumper and windshield wipers were optional extras.
As for the Kisor’s car, they found it about two years ago in Kingston, just across the Puget Sound from Edmonds.
“It kind of ran, but it needed some TLC,” Denise said.
The car is now one of a number of cars the couple owns.
“We also have a 51 Chevy truck, a 65 Impala, a 75 Chevy (C-10) Stepside and also some tractors,” Denise said. “We have a lot of vehicles, mostly Chevy.”
They love the Fast Four though, despite it topping out at around 43 miles per hour. Denise loves the smaller details too, like the tiny flower glass vase mounted on the car’s dashboard — which used to actually be a factory feature.
“The sunflowers are homegrown too, they’re real,” Denise added. “They’re in an antique vase that used to come in a lot of the older cars.”
Preservation over cannibalization
For muscle car enthusiasts, the Plymouth Barracuda is one of the legendary tire-shredding originals from the era, first appearing in 1964. But the car itself was actually based on an existing model Plymouth began producing back in 1960, the Plymouth Valiant.
Because of this, both Valiants and early-model Barracuda’s shared many of the same internal components, with the differences in the cars mainly being body styling and windshields.
In modern times, this leads many looking to restore Barracudas to purposely purchase old Valiants, simply to cannibalize parts from them to get the Barracudas running again.
However, parts cannibalization is not why Winlock resident George Currier purchased his 1965 Plymouth Valiant. And in fact, the person who he bought it from sold it to him for that very reason.
“He had it since he was 19 years old. He had it for 35 years. He kept it running and driving, but he never restored it,” Currier said. “It’s a survivor … The only reason why the gentleman was willing to sell it to me was because I promised not to put the parts online and sell them.”
While the car was running still, its interior was in dire need of some TLC. Currier custom made door panels and redid interior upholstery work too.
But as for the car’s exterior, albeit a bit rusty, Currier plans to leave it the way it is.
“I’m into this car at this point for less than $3000. My idea is I just want people to know you can still do this without having tens of thousands of dollars,” Currier added.
His Valiant still has its original Chrysler Slant-Six engine. The unique engine design features the cylinder block slanted at 30 degrees to give the engine a lower height, allowing it to be fit into slimmer engine compartments.
Because of the angle, Slant-Six engines feature their exhaust manifolds, which are normally on the undersides of engines, on top next to the air filter. While known for their reliability, the carburetor-based design couldn’t pass emissions regulations as they got stricter in the 1970s and 1980s, and Chrysler phased them out in favor of modern fuel-injection-based motors.
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