Madison, Wis., resident Leah Williams sits in the car while her boyfriend, Brad Legris, right, a mechanical engineering senior and member of the MSU Racing Club, talks to Stockbridge, Mich., resident Jim Elowsky at the Spring Car Show held Saturday on campus. Williams said she was in town for Easter and decided to join Legris at the car show. “I’m the bored girlfriend,” Williams said. Kat Petersen/The State News
—Car guys and fraternity brothers combined their horsepower Saturday to host the first MSU
Racing Club Spring Car Show.
More than 50 cars, ranging from exotic cars to hotrods, filled Lot 39 to take part in the car show hosted by MSU Racing Club and Phi Kappa Sigma, said James Hewston Jr., a psychology junior and president of the club.
“(The show was meant) to get the word out about our club,” he said. “(It’s a way to) get car people together because it’s a nice community, and car guys like to hang out together.”
Although the club only has hosted car shows among their own members in past years, this year the club invited the Lansing community and many others to participate, Hewston said .
“We (had) people that drove all the way from Toledo, Ohio,” he said. “We have people who have driven upwards of four hours to be here today. … We have people coming from Grand
Valley (State) University, from U-M, from up north.”
Wanting to establish the show as an annual event, Josh Williams, an animal science junior, vice president of the club and chapter president of Phi Kappa Sigma, contacted sponsors, local car clubs and businesses.
“We do a lot of off-campus racing at different race tracks, but this (event) kind of gave us an opportunity to involve campus,” he said. “(Hosting the show) during the school year got students involved (and) a lot of foot traffic from people that were just walking by.”
Robert Boomer, a mechanical engineering junior, participated in the show out of sheer enjoyment of showing off his 2000 Audi S4.
“There’s no real grudging going on about makes. We’re just having a good time,” he said. “The home brew guys come out here with their homemade cars all built by themselves versus the big show cars that normally come out.”
Other students, such as Chris Lutz, a mechanical engineering senior and member of the club, had fun winning the loudest car contest.
“It was pretty exciting beating some cars that just had open headers,” he said. “There were some cars that were a lot louder at idle, but once we revved them up as high as we do … my car kind of was the loudest.”
Watching the East Lansing and Lansing car culture grow to include anyone with a passion for anything automotive was the goal of the event, Hewston said.
“We really hope it will just keep getting bigger and bigger over the years, and we hope we can keep getting more cars out here and just bring more people together,” he said.
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