RON FRANCIS WIRING

successfully presented, and gave us confidence to take a giant step.

By 1983, the Gatlinburg hot rod round up had ended. We decided to try to fill that void by hosting a fall event in Pigeon Forge. In 1983, we presented the Grand Run hoping to have 300-400 cars attend. We had exactly 1000 cars registered for the first Pigeon Forge show. We gave away $1,000 and chose the top 15.

The event was a great success from our standpoint. The city was elated by the crowd we drew and the business that was created. Most importantly, those in attendance loved the event and the word of mouth advertising was better than we could have imagined.

Over the next 26 years we presented our round up at 5 different venues in Pigeon Forge. Each move was made to enable us to present our round up to as many folks as was possible with the least amount of inconvenience.

In 2010, we moved to Dollywood’s Splash Country. Splash Country is by far the best venue we have enjoyed. The location, the facilities, and the very cordial people combined to further enhance our show. All of the folks at Dollywood that we have worked with have bent over backwards to accommodate us in hosting our event and it has been a real pleasure working with them for the last 12 years.

Gene Scherrer, Kris Houser, Jordan Leach, Lance Ridley, Bonnie Hall, Janet Dawson, Mike Brown, Matt Young, Lynette Hill, Laura Howard, Jack Anthony the electrician, and too many others to mention have worked closely with us each year in assisting us with signage, utilities, providing temporary electrical services for the event, EMT’s, food service, site preparation, equipment, hotel reservations, providing trailer parking, crowd control, traffic control, and the numerous other requirements in putting on our event. Many thanks to Dollywood and Splash Country.

“I could go on a lot longer about our show from year to year but going through the exercise of putting my thoughts on paper, one thing became crystal clear to me. It was the people that I have met that stand out to me as the most important treasure that I would have never known, if Joe and I had not gone to a hot dog cookout with no hot dogs.”

My Hot Dog Heroes

James Long of Morristown, TN, has missed very few, if any, of our 39 round ups. Since the 70’s through the present day, James has built many of the best cars in our sport, and he’s still building outstanding hot rods 50 years later. We always look forward to seeing James at our show usually driving his dark blue ’50 Ford sedan. From the beginning, we have had the support of icons such as James Long and Barry Lobeck.

When I think of Barry, I remember the Gillette Motel on Airport Road in Gatlinburg. All the “Ohio” guys were around and they showed all of us hillbillies what a hot rod could look like. We have always had great support from the Cincinnati hot rod community.

Bob Oney has been to many of our events, always displaying an outstanding hot rod. Bob’s 3 window that was black with flames leads me to “Ohio Flames.” Ohioan’s Wade Hughes and Bill Roehl, creators of “Ohio Flames”, made their flames look right at home on many hot rods. Several of those flames proudly reside in East Tennessee.

George Poteet has long supported our event. He has displayed some of the best hot