When you go to a car show and check out the multitude of classic musclecars, it’s usually just a visual display – eye candy for the gearhead – and not until the show is over do we get to hear the rumble of performance engines, and smell the fumes that only a gearhead enjoys. But once a year at NAS North Island in Coronado, that rumble happens all day long, for two long days.

The opening ceremonies are always a great display of pride at the Festival of Speed.

The race at the base during the Coronado Speed Festival is a huge attraction that draws thousands of spectators to the military installation – Naval Air Station North Island – during Fleet Week San Diego. In addition to the racing of vintage sports cars and musclecars, our Navy brings out some of their biggest and baddest vehicles for display, and offers up tours of ships and submarines to anyone willing enter the deck.

With games and activities for the kids, racing for the gearheads, and a car show for those who have spent years building their pride and joy, you’d think it was a full enough weekend with plenty to keep every attendant busy. But there’s still more to do at the Speed Festival, including vendor exhibits, and one of the coolest challenges of the entire weekend: The Military Pit Crew Challenge, where military crews get to test their speed and skills on a mock NASCAR vehicle by changing tires, fueling up, and pushing the car across the finish line.

We were supposed to be there taking pictures, honest. How would you like to turn around and be greeted by this bunch?

The Navy’s Only West Coast Open House

The Naval Base at Coronado houses more than 20,000 active duty military and over 4,000 civilian employees. Most of the year, the public only gets to see what goes on past the gate from the outside, but during Fleet Week the reigns are loosened a little and come the weekend of September 19-20, the base was open to one and all to greet and meet with our brave military personnel and to rub shoulders with pilots and service men and women who operate heavy machinery, or to talk with those who help keep our military strong.

The Coronado Speed Festival is produced by the San Diego Fleet Week Foundation, and hosted by the Naval Base Coronado as well as the Morale, Welfare, and Recreation Program (MWR). These organizations benefit military personnel and their families, and provide positive support through quality of life programs for active duty military and their families.

If this doesn’t make you proud, you don’t belong on this base. Military support was very strong for Fleet Week San Diego.

The overall winners of the 2015 Naval Base North Island MPCC – VRC-30, better known to the cheering crowd as the Dirty 30.

Military Pit Crew Challenge

The Military Pit Crew Challenge (MPCC) was created by Bill Rhine, the owner of Rhine Enterprises/Rhine Built. Rhine has been involved with many aspects of motorsports, including fabrication, design, and racing. His reputation has led him to advisory roles to building props and appearing in movies like Talladega Nights. He created MPCC to give our military personnel an opportunity to actively participate in a real NASCAR-type challenge and to compete for prizes and notoriety among other service personnel.

It’s a simulation, but the weight is added to make it more realistic.

The challenge gives them the opportunity to experience being on a simulated pit crew, and it’s free to the men and women who serve our country. But don’t think that it’s a walk in the park, because MPCC promises they will make you sweat and put your physical abilities to the test. They train with each member and work them hard to achieve their goal, whether it’s just of the experience or to someday be on an actual pit crew.

Team members are worked hard, and fast, and they must make sure that everything is tight and nothing is left unchecked. The competition is real, even if the challenge is simulated. Several teams come out to compete, and in a ladder bar-style competition each winning team advances until the finals are held on Sunday.

MPCC is a way of giving back to those who serve our country, and truly helps build team spirit, morale, and camaraderie among those who compete. Although there is a definitive winning team, there are no losers in this event, and all come away with a sense of pride in know they did their best.

How’s this for vintage racing? The famous #77 Challenger was missing this year, last we saw it was a couple years ago.

Vintage Racing On An Active Air Strip

The race at the base is held on an active runway used by the U.S. Navy, and the backdrop is a spectacular display of ships passing from the West, and military vehicle on static display from the East. The pit area is a huge playground of trailers, pop-ups, and more race cars than you can imagine from various vintage racing classes. The Sports Car Vintage Racing Association (SVRA) puts on the event, and here you’ll find cars from decades past racing around the base in a flag-to-flag competition to determine who is the fastest.

Cruising through the pit area you’ll see recognizable vintage cars from the past that have been restored to their racing glory, and fired up once again to take to the track against other vintage racers who push their cars to the limit. Many of these cars don’t have the benefit of modern suspension technology, and in some classes you won’t find the latest low-profile, super wide racing tires that would help these cars to handle and perform much better.

Coming at you and making the ground rumble, these machines kick up some serious dust.

On the SVRA website, you can find specification for make and model regulations that limit these cars to specific year and model, and engine specifications for the race. For example, the Pontiac Firebird must be 1967-72 and the maximum wheel size is 15 x 8.5 inches, and a maximum of .060 overbore on a 302 ci engine with cast iron heads. This is vintage racing and the rules are there to keep the competition fair.

When was the last time you saw a four-door wagon on a race track? This one was clean and badass.

The Car Corral Is Also Impressive

The car show at the Speed Festival was once again hosted by the Mopar Club San Diego who led show winners from each category around the track in a somewhat accelerated parade lap. While the drivers are clearly instructed to keep it tame, there are always a few who feel the need to show off a little bit and make some noise. This isn’t always condoned by the powers that be, but try to tell the crowd that they can’t enjoy the thunder of classic and modern musclecars and sports cars and you’ll have an unhappy mob in attendance.

The start of the day and they were lining up. Check the huge gallery below for more pics of some great rides.

The Car Corral typically fills up on Saturday, with local clubs and affiliates filling space after space and row after row with some of the coolest cars you don’t normally get to see. By Sunday, the spaces start to open up and, as was the case this year, we saw a lot fewer cars from specialty clubs or groups, but there were still those who managed to come down for the second day in a row to wow the crowd with glistening chrome, mile-deep paint, and horsepower overload from under the hood.

Trying to find a favorite among the cars on display is like trying to figure out which grain of salt added the most flavor to your burger, because every entry was pretty unique and special in its own right. Whether you enjoyed classic VWs, Erkel machines, musclecars, sports cars, or modern exotics, they were all there and many owners were more than willing to fire up the holes and make that sweet music for anyone who cared to listen.

Of course, if you want to get a better look at the cool cars in the Car Corral, check out the big gallery below and see if you can figure out which one was the best in show.