So This is Springfield

Springfield, Missouri, is a great town, and the NSRA Mid-America Street Rod Nationals, held there every Memorial Day weekend, is a great show. We know this is old news to a lot of our readers, since this event is the National Street Rod Association's largest show west of the Mississippi River and draws pre-'49 iron all the way from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico. However, flip through your old issues of R&C, and you'll see that in the 20 years NSRA has been holding this event we've never covered it. Between Bakersfield, Knoxville, York, Louisville, and the rest of the schedule, we've always missed this one. That might have to change, because this is an impressive show, both in terms of attendance (2,158 registered cars, a record) and the overall quality of the rods (really good). Even the cops were nice. The night before the Nats, the Springfield Police hosted a street rod parade from a local park to Grizzly Tools. On Saturday, NSRA set up corrals for Mopars, roadsters, cars with luggage trailers, '48s of any make and model, and cars belonging to the Under 21 crowd. In addition to all the rods, this event is a magnet for aftermarket companies, with almost 100 exhibitors on the grounds. We've been missing a good one.

After years in primer, Lee and Yvette Thompson's all-steel '36 Chevy was finished in February. The owner-built coupe turned out great and runs a crate 350/700-R4 combination. Lee chose the Prime wheels as a modern version of the original artillery-style wheels	One of the nicest traditional-style early Fords belonged to local folks Jim and Jo Houston, who built the unchopped Deuce five-window with a Buick nailhead, steelies with rings and caps, and white tuck 'n' roll inside.	Harold Kurtzer won a Chevy crate engine at Americruise last summer, but it's an LT4 between the fenders of his '36 Chevy coupe, set off with Billet Specialties rims. The Chevy has won a few prizes, too.
Bill Flesher did a good job of combining contemporary components (Show Me roadster body, ZZ4 engine, Lexus paint) with some nostalgia-based elements (three-spoke banjo wheel, quick-change rearend), ending up with a super-clean '32 roadster.	Mike and Peg Westphal, from Lincoln, NE, turned their '48 Chevy pickup into a cool smoothie, packed it with a 468ci big-block, and doused it in monochrome purple, leaving some shine around the grille bars, frenched headlights, and Boyd five-spokes.	People in the Midwest are familiar with this '23 track T, owned by John and Carol Robison from the Early Rods of Tulsa car club. The hemi is an aluminum Toyota V-8, used in limos in Japan.
Lance Tsenberg drove down from Zumbrota, MN, in his screaming green '35 Dodge with a cross-ram 440 engine. It's all original (nobody reproduces these) and hit 30K miles just outside of Springfield.	Gary Hodges' smooth red '48 Chevy looks great inside and out, but wouldn't you love to see what it'd look like dropped to just a few inches above the street? Nice job on the frenched headlights and antenna. The engine is a Chevy Mouse motor.	Another nice Mopar was this deep-blue '38 Plymouth hauler, driven by Paul Knapp from Oklahoma City. The small-block-powered pickup is updated in the cab with tan leather buckets and a Grant steering wheel on a tilt column.
One of the best rods in the Under 21 corral was this '35 Chevy, owned by 19-year-old Ryan Jackson from Carl's Junction, MO. Ryan drove the small-block-Chevy-powered coupe in gray primer for three years until his dad Roger painted it.	In the midst of all the fancy finished cars, Central Arkansas Rods member Danny Vint, from Sherwood, AR, always had a crowd around his open-air '31 coupe, running a 502 we wish we could've heard.	After retiring from GM, Jim Russell feels guilty driving a '34 Chrysler but says he can fit all his friends in the four-door sedan when they go to the Sonic. At least the engine is a Chevy small-block, with Street & Performance injection.
N O A '53 issue of Hot Rod Magazine inspired the appearance of Jerry Eckhardt's green '39 Ford, with the Mooneyham blown Hemi Jerry calls a "flathead on steroids."	The Ford is a gallery of custom components including the rear brake lights in the bumper guards, dummy clutch pedal, dummy single tailpipe, and more than 150 louvers all over the car--on the framerails, firewall, fenders, even on the rearend housing, fuel tank, and oil pan.