Nothing says hot weather and cars like the Cruis’n WI Car Show, which took place on Sunday, July 12 at Mckellar Park in Blanchardville. There were 467 vehicles and vendors registered this year.
The 2026 Cruis’n Wisconsin car show celebrated its 40th anniversary took place this past Sunday giving spectators the opportunity to view a wide variety of cars, trucks, motorcycles and vendors. It was a hot sunny summer day and it was nice to get back to a normal layout in the grass and parked in classes without any rain, no river flooding and no standing water. Aaron Jorenby reports that 467 judged and display only vehicles were registered this year. Eric Johnson featured “Octavia”, a 1971 Aston Martin built by the Ringbrothers and Ryan Fielding, shop manager and fabrication expert for the Ringbrothers was on hand giving spectators an up close look of what a 2.4 million dollar built looks like. Wrecktify Collision and Restoration showed off several of their vehicles as our Special Vendor. Thank you to Good Fellas Tavern, G.G.’s Auto Detailing,
Hawken Utility, COOP Oil Association and Wahl Signs for sponsoring the awards. Huge thank you to Rachael and Rays for sponsoring the services of 3D Sound Company. Blanchardville Vending and Robert McGowan for sponsoring the feature vehicle. Blanchard Hall, RBS Activewear, Corner Pub & Deli, Flex Fitness, The Legacy, Mckeon Landscape Services, Accession Law Office, System Technologies, Wrecktify Collision & Restoration, Fire Rescue Supply, Titan Plumbing, Cullens Custom Detailing were T-shirt sponsors and J&R Underground was our sponsor for the dash plaques and was greatly appreciated.
And I want to make sure to thank the crews with Maddrell Excavating, Augeli Concrete and Payne and Dolan for their hard work this spring and summer in getting the road construction done just in the nick of time for our show. I am very grateful for their efforts in making sure everything was wrapped up for our car show weekend.
I would like to thank everyone who made this show a success, this show really puts Blanchardville on the map and its profits go back to this amazing community. I could not do this show without the help from the parkers who did and outstanding job in the heat parking cars in correct classes, dealing with some people with attitudes and making all the lines straight and organized. To all the judges that continue to answer my phone calls when July rolls around asking to help judge. Believe me, judging this year was not an easy task as we had some of the nicest vehicles Frank and I have seen. A big thank you goes to Beth McGowan for doing all of the social media networking and multiple tasks not only the day of the show, but weeks and months leading up to it. To Nate Dammen and Rolly McGowan for all the efforts with the park mowing and cleaning duties making Mckellar park an unforgettable place to attend a car show. A big thanks to Frank and Jessie Schlumpf, Bob & Virgina McGowan, Tiffany Bethke, Diana Kaiser and to Drew Kreibich for his drone photos. For going above and beyond the call of duty, a big thank you to Matt Jorenby and Alex Esser for helping setup the park and Brent Belken, Mark Wahl and Paul Weigel for helping all day and being my “clean up crew” and “Timmer” for the use of his Ranger throughout the weekend. To the boys helping hand out dash plaques, to the young ladies selling car show merch and helping clean up the park, and to the wonderful ladies for working registration all day, including Todd Peterson, Tim Gabriels and Paul Saether; especially Miranda Weigel, Trisha Wahl, Molly Belken and Megan Jorenby for having an extremely difficult task in tallying the judges results for awards … I could go on and on and on. And most importantly thank you to the community and car show enthusiasts all around who came to this event and for having patience with everyone on our crew for adjusting to the hand mother nature dealt us earlier in the week ……. thanks again for making this a BIG SHOW …… until next year, Keep on Cruisn’.
Aaron Jorenby, Show Coordinator
