By Gary Meyer and Patric Hedlund

The Ridge Route Run car show drew over a thousand people to downtown Frazier Park on Saturday, May 29 for a dazzling display of vintage, late-model and high-performance cars. The event appears to be on its way to becoming a welcome “instant tradition” in the Mountain Communities.

The Frazier Mountain Car Club (FMCC) transformed Mt. Pinos Way into a glittering walkway from Los Padres Drive up onto Monterey Trail and then west to Glendale Trail near Caveman Cavey’s Pizza.

M.K. Kanke’s winning race cars, Nightflight and Achilles, were on hand, along with the $200,000 transport rig that serves as an auto-shop on wheels for the Lake of the Woods-based champ.

A dozen Hollywood Star Cars were on display, including the Ghostbusters’ Ecto-1, the Batmobile, the Back to the Future DeLorean time machine and Herbie the Love Bug.

Steve Hill’s band provided blues and popular music throughout the day.

The Mountain Communities Boys & Girls Club is the beneficiary of the earnings from the car show this year—a good choice, because the group provides after-school and summer activities for local children, a vital service in a place where so many parents commute long hours to work. But the club is struggling to meet expenses this year, with economic tough times cutting into donations from businesses and community sources, while expanding the number of youth in need of services.

“We have a check for the Boys & Girls Club for $2,614.89,” Ridge Route Run organizer Kevin Lundin said. “We should be ready to make the donation on Friday.”

He added that there are a few “extra car show T-shirts for sale for $10 each. If people want to buy them, this money will be donated to the Boys & Girls Club too. We also collected lots of canned food at the event that will be donated to the Mountain Communities Family Resource Center food bank.”

The car club will also start an annual Mark Ehly Award to be presented to an outstanding Ridge Route Run volunteer.

This year FMCC presented a bouquet of flowers to California Highway Patrol Officer Mark Ehly’s widow. He was the jovial public information officer for the Fort Tejon CHP office. He passed away of a stroke at the end of March.

Lundin said with a sense of humor that Ehly was being recognized for “crashing our party” last year, where he gave out shiny gold CHP badges to the kids and showed off the most recent CHP cruiser right beside a classic CHP ‘black and white’ of the 1950s.

“The FMCC puts this car show together with lots of volunteers to support our community. We felt this would be a great way to show our appreciation to a man who served our community,” Lundin said.

It appears the Ridge Route Run is a welcome and lasting addition to mountain life.

This is part of the June 04, 2010 online edition of The Mountain Enterprise.

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