Cars of all generations gathered in the back of Schar Center for the Elon Motorsports car show. 60 participants from the Elon community came together to sponsor or enjoy the event.
Elon Motorsports club hosted the car show for an end-of-year event on April 13 with partnerships from other North Carolina universities and the local community. Local car group Burlington Cruise In joined the group of students in the event. Vice President of Elon Motorsports Quintin Lasky said the event was to introduce new motorsport enthusiasts to the community, as well as bringing the experienced groups together.
“We’re focused more on the introduction,” Lasky said. “The people who are just getting into motorsports within the past five to ten years and they don’t have the financial resources. They might not have time to build these really extravagant builds. We want to make sure everyone is included.”
Motorsports President Bong Realiza organized the event with support from the university. This is the first large-scale event the club has had this year. They have partnered with other universities to organize cruises and drives, but not one to this scale. Realiza spoke to participants as they walked around the event admiring the different varieties of cars. He said the event was made to accommodate the journey of different improvements and restorations within all age groups.
“It’s a little bit different from the normal meets you see in Greensboro or Burlington,” Realiza said. “These guys have really expensive cars and a ton of money to put into a car. While at Elon, we’re just freshmen or sophomores. If you don’t have a ton of money, people just show up.”
Sophomore Anne-Marie Wright came to the event with a 2023 Porsche Spyder. Her car won first place in the event’s award ceremony and two more awards were given to a participant with a 1968 Volkswagen Beetle. As a female-identifying student in the club, she said she appreciates the efforts the club makes to be gender-inclusive.
“I’m one of the few girls who showed up today, but I feel they’ve done a good job making it very inclusive to girls,” Wright said. “Elon Motorsports has definitely made me feel super welcome and not have to memorize every part of an engine to have fun with cars.”
Burlington Cruise In member Keith Richardson came to the event with one of the older cars in the showcase, a 1974 Ford Bronco named “Sweet Pea.” Richardson has spent the last few years restoring Sweet Pea to its original state, including its olive green exterior and interior. The car was only one of 908 of the originally manufactured cars made in its color. Richardson hopes students become more involved in restoring older cars and keeping the practice going.
“I wish people would get out and try to find older Broncos,” Richardson said. “I understand they don’t want to put their life savings and fixing up one. I wish the younger generation would find older cars and maybe restore too, like what I did to Sweet Pea.”
Elon Motorsports hopes to organize a similar event next year with greater turnouts as they attempt to grow the community on and off campus. As of now, they hold meetings in the Innovation parking lot every Friday at 5 p.m. As well, the town of Elon holds Cars and Coffee events every August until October on select dates.