Grand National Roadster Show a No Go for 2021
The Grand National Roadster Show, and the Sacramento Autorama, both produced by Rod Shows, have been canceled for 2021 due to uncertainty caused by COVID-19 and the lack of clear guidelines on events from the State of California.
“While we would love nothing more than to host both events again this year, we can’t plan for something that is out of our control,” said John Buck, producer of the Grand National Roadster Show and Sacramento Autorama. “We have instead decided to focus our efforts on 2022 where we can again join in celebrating the amazing cars and car people who are the heart of our community.”
With the cancellation of the Grand National Roadster Show, much speculation has appeared on social media regarding the NHRA Winternationals, and the Finals, along with the L.A. Roadsters Show, and the Off-Road Expo, all held at the L.A. County Fairplex in Pomona.
According to nhra.com, the Gatornationals at Gainesville Raceway in Gainesville, Florida will be the start of the 2021 NHRA Camping World Drag Racing Series on March 11-14 because the traditional season-opening Winternationals in Pomona has been rescheduled to April 9-11 out of an abundance of caution due to the pandemic.
The L.A. Roadsters are still planning their traditional Fathers Day weekend event on June 18-19, 2021 at the Fairplex, and from all indications the show will go on.
Bonnier Events, promoters of the Off-Road Expo, have not confirmed a new date for their event in Pomona, having canceled the 2020 event which was scheduled to take place October 3-4. Due to concerns over the pandemic, and the county and state restrictions in place, they could not hold the Expo in Southern California and opted to move it to Westworld in Scottsdale, Arizona on October 17th. In Scottsdale, the promoters ran into the same problems, too many people in the same relatively-small area, some unmasked, and the county and state officials closed down the event at the conclusion of its first day.
Despite the lack of events this year, Rod Shows expects both events will return in 2022, and participants and vendors that had registered prior to the cancellation are being contacted. As more information becomes available, we will update our story. As it stands, the confirmed dates for the 72nd annual Grand National Roadster Show are January 28-30, 2022, with tentative dates for the 71st annual Sacramento Autorama on April 22-24, 2022.
[Images: © 2021 J. Sakurai/TTAC]
With a father who owned a dealership, I literally grew up in the business. After college, I worked for GM, Nissan and Mazda, writing articles for automotive enthusiast magazines as a side gig. I discovered you could make a living selling ad space at Four Wheeler magazine, before I moved on to selling TV for the National Hot Rod Association. After that, I started Roadhouse, a marketing, advertising and PR firm dedicated to the automotive, outdoor/apparel, and entertainment industries. Through the years, I continued writing, shooting, and editing. It keep things interesting.
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I like to visit the Covid dashboard maintained by my state's Department of Health. They report number of tests per day and percent positivity per day, for the last 6 weeks. You can see a spike the Monday after Christmas and again the Monday after New Years, but both metrics have been declining since. Yesterday, the 13th, was the lowest day in 6 weeks with 1162 positive tests and an 8% positivity rate. The highest day in that period was 1/4 with 3279 positives and a whopping 24% positivity rate. The vaccine has been rolling out steadily and they decided to open it up to the next phase of eligibility this coming Monday. Another couple weeks of declines and steady vaccination and I'm going to start feeling downright positive about things.
How long until a Grand Utility Vehicle shows up at the Grand National Roadster Show? ["Nice GUV, guv." "Oh thanks - we think it's grand." "How much were those wheels?" "About a grand."]