Lots of cars in the car show, drag racing and rally racing very well populated too. The swap meet is a lot bigger than the last 2 years. Don’t miss it!
Thanks, it's only a two hour drive from here and plan to lv early, plus I gain an hour on their time zone. Is the traffic bad in and out with the road closure?
I got there pretty early since I have a show car, traffic was not bad getting in but that was maybe 7:30. I left shortly after 5 and very little traffic getting out.
I'll be going to this show for the first time, so I've got questions:
What is the best route from the St louis area? ( By "best" I don't mean fastest - maybe just the least confusing ? )
How close or far is the spectator parking from the swap meet area ?
Do they charge extra for parking ?
Are you allowed to drive in to pick up parts in the swap meet area ?
Interstate 64 East to Evansville then south is the route we take. This is the route that we have taken the last 2 years. A buddy that was going to the Hot Rod Reunion there suggested that route.
Great event, well organized. Has the feel of the MoPar Nats from the early to mid-80s. Hopefully it continues to grow, weather is usually nice in KY this time of year too.
Most of the workers at the Moparty are actually Holley employees & retirees - something I think is cool. They were all very gracious, and kept thanking us for bringing our cars out to race and show off. Very cool to be treated that way by the event staff. They gave me some healthy ribbing about having Fitech efi on my Cuda - but we were all laughing about it. The True street Class only had about 11 cars, and out of that 11, there were only 3 "old" cars - My Cuda, a really nice brown Dart, and a cool 80's/90's Red Dakota. The rest of the cars were newer Challengers and a 300C. I had fun racing everyone - and it was pretty laid back. My Cuda won the 12.0 mini bracket within the True street class, with an average ET of 12.1. My best ET during the weekend was 11.99. I just got this car together in May of 2022, so I am just having fun getting it sorted out, and re-educating myself on how to drag race, since it has been a long time for me. Here are a couple of random pics I took while the True street class was lined up in the staging lanes for one of our passes.
I had over 2000 images from the event. But for some reason there is a big gap in the middle of Saturdays show where none of the pictures recorded to my memory card. So there is still a ton of stuff, just the middle show stuff is gone.
I didn't take very many pictures at the Holley Moparty.
Geoff Turk let me sit in the Blackbird Challenger and fire it up. That was awesome. He's such a great and nice guy when you talk to him. The video of me in the car starting it up (on youtube)
Here’s my pictures of the car show part of the event. I have a ton of photo editing and organizing to do of my racing and exhibitions to do before I get an album of that together.
Cut in paste that link to see, Moparts won’t make most of my links live anymore (they always were for about 16 years, but not for the last year or so) Or my work around for this site not liking my Flickr links, is my links to other Mopar sites work, so here is a link to another site I posted on.
I just did their survey, they had a section that asked if there’s anything you want to share. I said this show is going to put the nats out of business!
This is our third year of vending at the event. The first year was hampered with Covid and year two saw rain on Saturday morning and all of Sunday. This year, the weather was great and the show just continues to grow. I have to think that the car show has doubled in size and I know that the swap meet has doubled in size since last year. Although the grounds has some elevation issues with the rolling hills, but Carlisle has similar areas in the swap meet area. You do not have all of the dust and ditches and mounds of asphalt renderings as you do with Columbus.
For a car enthusiast, there is so much to see in one area. An organized cruise event, evening activities, drag racing, rally racing, burnout contest, show car area, four wheel drive course and a swap meet along with a theme park and camping grounds right on the venue. I do not know of any other show that packs so much into an event. The LS Fest and Ford Fest is much larger than the Mopar event, but they have been going on for a number of years. If the momentum can continue for this Mopar event, it will seriously put a hurting onto The Nationals as held in Columbus as mentioned above. There is no reason that the event cannot double in size for next year. The only problem will be in where to put everything.
From my perspective, the show field was scattered randomly across the facility. I imagine that with a truly judged show field, then something will have to be done to put like cars together and keep another area open for clubs and groups so that they can be together as well.
There was an actual survey that was handed out and collected from those who registered for the swap meet. There was plenty of people to direct and assist you in getting to the correct area.
I would have to say, without any previous standards, the quality of the vehicles registered for the event was better than the Nats. You saw everything form rat rods to highly detailed restorations from the cars of the 50s to those of the late 70s. There was a number of restored pickup trucks and one semi. I believe that there was more wing cars at the show than at the Nats as well. For those following the drag racers, everything from Pro Mods, Super Stock Hemi's to street classes were running. And the rally cars were running all through the weekend and there was probably ten or more of them running.
All in all, it was a very good event. Some things need to be worked on as for as the registration process and the ease of purchasing a ticket. I know several members of the FM3 group and the Holley effort. There was a scheduled call today at 10 this morning to review some of the concerns whether good or bad. I know that the President of Holley is all in for this event and is not afraid to get involved to make it happen. It is good to know that this event has the potential to become a marquee event if the support continues and we can all move forward and support it with our attendance. With that said, hope to see more of you guys and girls there in 2023!!!!
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Thank you to everyone who came out to Holley MoParty 2022! It's been great to see this show grow and I can safely say that Saturday the show was larger than it has ever been, period. The broad mix of cars, the excellent action...all of the thanks is owed to you. Please continue to send in those surveys and any opinions you have on the show.
The Moparty was a blast and will be one of my yearly shows to attend from now on. Lots to do and see and it exceeded all my expectations. It was a pleasure to meet you in person Remy. Next year I'll try to chat with you more. I got our car photographed by Holley for a write up and Street Muscle magazine did a photo shoot and video for their blog also. I did win the best interior award, just bragging a little bit now. The quality of cars and people was fantastic. Keep up the great work and Beech Bend Park is the perfect venue.
Most of the workers at the Moparty are actually Holley employees & retirees - something I think is cool. They were all very gracious, and kept thanking us for bringing our cars out to race and show off. Very cool to be treated that way by the event staff. They gave me some healthy ribbing about having Fitech efi on my Cuda - but we were all laughing about it. The True street Class only had about 11 cars, and out of that 11, there were only 3 "old" cars - My Cuda, a really nice brown Dart, and a cool 80's/90's Red Dakota. The rest of the cars were newer Challengers and a 300C. I had fun racing everyone - and it was pretty laid back. My Cuda won the 12.0 mini bracket within the True street class, with an average ET of 12.1. My best ET during the weekend was 11.99. I just got this car together in May of 2022, so I am just having fun getting it sorted out, and re-educating myself on how to drag race, since it has been a long time for me. Here are a couple of random pics I took while the True street class was lined up in the staging lanes for one of our passes.
That’s me talking to the driver of the white Charger in your first pic. He’s won money the two previous years in TS, I won some the first year.
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