THE DR. GEORGE SHOW, Saturday, February 8, 2020, Tennis Garden, Indian Wells, CA
This Pontiac Firebird ‘Bandit’ car won the Young Guns trophy.
A ’53 highly customized Kaiser won best of show.
The other award winners are below.
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Today’s automotive enthusiasts have come to embrace more variety in car shows. The Dr. George Show has been one of the few shows to take full advantage of this trend. The Dr. George Show has no limitations on make or vintage of entries and as a result the Show has continually grown to become hugely successful. This year – the 18th Annual Dr. George Show welcomed cars from late model Corvettes, to movie cars, to 30’s coach-built cars and nearly everything in between. The Dr. George Show is one of the few where you can see a rat rod in the awards ceremony line.
This rat rod was an award winner and offered the owner’s commentary on the “baby on board” sticker.
Another plus for The Dr. George Show is that it is a charity event. Proceeds from the Show goes to the Desert Cancer Foundation. The Show takes it’s name from Dr. Sebastian George, a local oncologist and co-founder of the Desert Cancer Foundation, who died in an automobile accident. After this year’s Show, the Palm Springs Cruisin’ Association will have given over $1 million to the Desert Cancer Foundation. Folks at the show are pleased to contribute to these good works.
The show opened with the posting of the colors by the U.S. Marines from the the Marine base in Twentynine Palms and the National Anthem was performed by Alisha Bates.
The Dr. George Show includes numerous activities – in fact with almost 1,100 cars to look at – it’s nearly impossible to take in all of the activities available. Again this year, Bob Beck hosted Car Talk with Peter Brock (the designer of the ’63 Vette and the Shelby Daytona Coupe), Allen Grant (Former Shelby employee and driver of the World Champion Daytona) and Jim McGee (Hall of Fame Indy Crew Chief).
When Jim McGee wasn’t enlightening an audience with stories of his past glories, he was making a few laps in the Pennzoil Bumper Car.
For the first time this year, Tate Auctions held a car auction during the Show. There were about 25 vehicles available to be auctioned off. These vehicles included hot rods, newer cars, a 30’s luxury car, even a customized motorcycle.
This customized motorcycle is a 1983 Honda complete with a side-car. It was one of the vehicles being auctioned off by Tate Auctions.
Another activity offered was fire-ups of two nostalgia dragsters.
The dragster on the left was driven by Tommy Ivo. In the late 50’s Ivo drove this dragster with its Buick engine to a World ET record. On the right is the Bivens & Fisher Checkmate top fuel dragster, a nitro car drive by Jerry Bevins in the 60’s.
On hand were the stars of the current movie Ford vs. Ferrari, which are shown above. The movie told the story of Ford’s successful efforts to win the Le Mans auto race away from Ferrari. The role of Carroll Shelby was played by Matt Damon and the part of Ken Miles was played by Christian Bale.
One activity that started at last year’s show, and returned again this year, is the pedal car racing. If you haven’t seen 10 three and four year-old kids race pedal cars, you’ve missed something pretty exciting.
After Mom gives a little encouragement, the kids are ready to race.
The first lap of the pedal car race is underway and these kids had a great time. Lined up behind the cars and drivers are the pedal car crews which are necessary to give a push start to each car.
After the trophies were presented, the winner took a victory lap in the Pennzoil Bumper Car with Jim McGee.
All of the kids, drivers and crew, received one of these ‘gold’ medallions. After the race was over, Tate Auctions auctioned off four of the pedal cars. The money raised will go 50% to the YMCA and 50% to the Desert Cancer Foundation.
This is Leo. His Dad said we could take his picture if we could get him to stand still. We couldn’t but were lucky to get the photo while he was on the move.
This is a photo of Florence and her big brother Hugo – he’s five – posing in front of their favorite car.
Bodie was sitting still in the shade and made for a perfect model.
Throughout all of these goings on – folks had to make time to see the cars – and there were plenty to see.
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The car above is a recreation of the Eleanor car from the movie Gone in 60 Seconds.
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>The photos above can be seen our SmugMug site and are available for purchase. Click on the SmugMug icon:
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2020 Dr. George Show, Tennis Garden, Indian Wells, CA
Today the Tennis Garden was full – about 1,100 cars, many exhibition cars, food and merchandise vendors, and many, many spectators. It was quite a day.
The showed ended with the awards ceremony. Below is a photo of the Best of Show. This car created from a 1954 Kaiser is named VooDoo Sahara. There will be more about this car in our Monday evening post.
The award winning cars lined up waiting for the awards ceremony.
Below are photos of a few cars at the show and there will be many more posted on Monday evening when we get home.
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There will be more photos and an article posted on Monday evening, including photos from the pedal car races and the awards ceremony.
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 2020 Dr. George Show, Tennis Garden, Indian Wells, CA
Today was the day for all the folks that had reserved parking in the Tennis Garden to check-in and select a spot. This was also set up day for the vendors and exhibitors. Since cars could be left overnight there were plenty of cars to take photos of today – below are a few:
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Even a fire truck showed up today.
With the warm desert sun, plenty of green grass, and 1,000 cars in the Tennis Garden, tomorrow promises to be a spectacular day at the Dr. George Show.
We’ll have a lot more photos along with a article about the show posted Monday evening. Check back to take a look.
The photos above can be seen our SmugMug site and are available for purchase.
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