When you mention Pomona, many people think of either drag racing or the endless aisles of swap meet booths – and the beer tents when it gets too hot outside. Those are great reasons to head out to Pomona, and are always great events to check out. This year, we found a different reason to check out Pomona: the 3rd Annual Street Machine and Muscle Car Nationals.

This show had just about everything you would expect – and then it gave you that much more. The coolest part of this event had to be the cruise route, where not only did we get to cruise the show in search of the ultimate beast, but often times throughout the three-day weekend the beasts came to us in a Route 66-esque drive by. We hit the route a couple of times in our own project car, and then parked it for a bit to walk the route to check out all that Pomona had to offer us that weekend.

We visited the fairgrounds on both Saturday and Sunday to get a look at the best that Orange County had to offer, and it was definitely worth going for a second day. Just inside the entry gate for the walk-in crowd we were greeted to the sounds and smell of burning rubber.

Smoke And Mirrors

A decent-sized autocross track was laid out and while any and all comers gave it their best shot to beat the cones through the course, we did see a few cars that could use some driving school. But that’s what the cones are for; if a driver caught one under the car, they usually drug it around for a half a lap and the course workers – who kept busy all day long setting up cones – ran to the cone’s rescue to retrieve it.

Bragging rights brought to you by Dynojet. They kept busy all day with hopefuls looking for that magic number.

The autocross has become a popular spectator event at classic musclecar shows, thanks to the whole Pro-Touring scene. Big wheels, fat tires, oversized brakes, and gobs of power allowed drivers to push their cars harder than Detroit ever intended for these cars 40+ years ago.

On both sides of the event, smoke filled the skies. On the autocross course, we had the pleasure of watching a pair of vehicles drift around the course – and each other – billowing smoke so thick at times you couldn’t see the vehicles.

On the opposite side of the event, the burnout contest had a few entries that would lock it up and lay it down for the honor of Best Burnout. Even the infamous ice cream van strutted its stuff for the crowd.

FiTech was on hand to show some of the old schoolers how to make their cars and trucks more drivable.

There weren’t as many burnout entries as the autocross, but there was definitely just as much – if not more – smoke in the air. At times we couldn’t even see the vehicle doing the burnout.

In between the smoke, the aforementioned cruise route and the maze of cars lined up on either side. The many vendors in attendance were there to inform, and it all kept you busy throughout the day, even the whole weekend.

At the end of the day Friday and Saturday, everyone headed out to come back and do it all over again the next day. The vendor booths brought out their best, and even Dynojet set up a dynamometer so the bragging rights could be exercised. FiTech EFI had a cooler place to setup and shared its EFI systems with the crowd. Baer Brakes and Wilwood brought out their best as well… from custom calipers to carbon rotors.

While there was plenty to keep you occupied outside in the sun with the cruise route and vendor booths, there was also a cooler place to lay low and check out even more vendors and some pretty amazing rides. The most expensive builds typically get the inside display areas, and there were more vendors inside to greet us as we made our way around.

Understandably, the vehicles that end up in these buildings are there primarily because they’re completely spotless. Every polished component is properly polished, the paint is flawless and a mile deep, and there’s really no visual evidence many of these cars have ever been driven. It’s not that they aren’t driven, it’s just that they are just that clean.

This is not to say that some of the cars along the cruise route weren’t equally as impressive, just that the cars inside were clean enough to eat off of. Unlike most of the shows we go to, picking our favorites was a little easier with this show: most of them, and that is our final answer.

So instead of throwing up a group of our favorites (which literally became in inside ten, an outside ten, and several dozen honorable mentions) we decided that a huge gallery of what we got to see might be better for you.

Hopefully, seeing how awesome this event was, we’re encouraged to come back again next year for the 4th Annual Street Machine and Muscle Car Nationals, and hopefully you’ll be encouraged to stop by next year as well. Enjoy the gallery!