Car enthusiasts gear up for the ‘Super Run’

By Jeremy Twitchell

Thursday, Sept. 18, 2008 | midnight

When a neighbor told him that his house had become known as the Hot Rod House in their Henderson neighborhood, Kevin Mazurkiewicz beamed with pride, just as he does as he retells the story.

After all, the silver 1969 Chevrolet Camaro Super Sport and the blue 1970 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am parked side by side in his driveway are a dream come true. In high school, two of his friends had those models and Mazurkiewicz would perform the upkeep and maintenance on them in exchange for cruising privileges on Saturday night.

But on Saturday, Sept. 27, Mazurkiewicz will be rolling his own dream cars into downtown Henderson for the Super Run Car Show, which kicks off Sept. 25 at the District at Green Valley Ranch and then moves to the Water Street District Sept. 26-28.

"These cars are beautiful," Mazurkiewicz said. "I love them. I tore them apart. Everything you can imagine. Every bolt, every washer has been taken off and either cleaned or replaced."

For car enthusiasts in Southern Nevada, Super Run has become the premiere event in their circuit and has reached beyond Nevada to attract gearheads from around the western United States.

Organizer Art Kam, executive director of the Las Vegas Cruising Association, said he expects more than 1,000 entries this year. With races, music and audience-selected awards to be decided, he said, the show is designed to offer something for everyone.

"We want to invite everyone out in the whole valley to see the show," he said. "There's a kids' pick, a ladies' pick and lots of others, so all you really have to do is get a ballot and vote. Everyone who comes gets to participate."

For the entrants, the cars being displayed represent untold hours and money spent in a joyful pursuit that keeps on giving. It is a true labor of love, particularly for Mazurkiewicz and his wife, Jayne, as restoring cars has become a bonding experience over the years.

Inside their home, the walls are adorned with pictures of classic cars and there are four new tires tucked away in a corner of the living room — waiting to go on the 1933 Ford roadster replica they are building from scratch in their garage.

It's not the first time they've kept parts in their house. When the Camaro's engine blew on the way to a show a few years ago, Kevin Mazurkiewicz wanted to remove the hood so that he could rebuild it. It had a fresh paint job and he didn't want to risk a scratch, so he stored it in the couple's bedroom — and then draped their new comforter over it to protect it.

And while that might have sent most men to spend the next few nights curled up in the backyard under some newspapers, for Jayne Mazurkiewicz, it was common sense.

"Most wives would have been having a fit by then," Kevin Mazurkiewicz said. "But not my wife; Jayne was just like, 'OK.'"

Jayne Mazurkiewicz nodded and said, "Well, the hood was worth more than the comforter."

A few blocks away, Steve and Kim Barr have a slightly different passion. They're a proud Ford Mustang family, but they are every bit as dedicated to their passion as the Mazurkiewicz family.

The couple's first car is a 1966 Mustang they saved from the scrap heap and then rebuilt as a family. Their son, 12 years old when they picked the car up, had hoped to be driving it when he was 16. Then he found out that by the time he could drive, he was too tall to fit inside the small car.

In this family, which has restored six Mustangs and kept two of them for sentimental value, that qualifies as a tragedy.

"We just got started on (Mustangs) and never found anything else that we wanted to work on," Kim Barr said.

Kim Barr's baby is the 1969 Mustang Fastback that she received as a 10th anniversary present and spent five years rebuilding and restoring to its original factory specs. Fully restored, she said, it is one of only two in the world made that year that can still make that claim.

For the Barrs, going to Super Run is about meeting car enthusiasts of all interest levels and sharing Mustang memories.

"It's people coming up and saying, 'I used to have one like that,' or 'My brother used to have one like that' or 'I wrecked one like that,'" Kim Barr said. "Everyone has a memory about a Mustang."

Steve Barr nods. "If I had a dollar for every time someone has come up and said something like that, I'd have my retirement paid for," he said.

Though last year's show drew nearly 1,500 entries, this year's show is expected to draw just more than 1,000. Kam said economic factors are contributing to the downswing, but that he'd still happy with 1,000, because he's seen other shows this year hit much harder.

Of course, when you're talking about cars that were designed with anything but fuel economy in mind, mixed with gas prices hovering near $4 a gallon, that's to be expected, Kam said.

Len Rickards, a Summerlin resident who will be showing off his 1970 Pontiac Firebird 400, knows all about that.

"My car gets less than 10 miles per gallon," Rickards said. "It costs me more to drive to Henderson from Summerlin than it does to enter the show (which costs $50)."

Despite the anticipated dip in participation, organizers and entrants are promising a show that between all the chromed-out eye candy, the live musical entertainment, the burnouts and the slow drags, will be enough to please anyone. Many of the local entrants are so dedicated to Super Run, they are volunteering to help run it.

"Nobody gets paid out of this deal," Kevin Mazurkiewicz said. "It's like having a street party — a four-day long street party."

Jeremy Twitchell can be reached at 990-8928 or [email protected].