With excellent weather again at Zephyrhills for the Winter AutoFest, February 19-22, this 30th Anniversary event was quite impressive. Lots of special vehicles were seen in the car and truck show and car corral, plus there were tremendous numbers of vendors in the swap meet and there was a great collector car auction and awesome vintage dirt track auto racing. With tremendous public attendance, lots of people had a great time at this big event.

The Zephyrhills swap meet and car corral areas of the big 207 acre Festival Park site were completely filled, with all available spaces rented by early Saturday morning. This was anticipated by owners Mike and Cynthia Sierra, who had seen really strong pre-registrations. There were more new and used car parts offered by more sellers at this February event.

For the third straight Zephyrhills AutoFest, a new all-time record was set in the collector car auction for sales volume. At this event, total sales were over $2,168,000 including 5% buyers premium. Buyers and sellers came together to produce sales results that included a ‘70 Plymouth Road Runner for $46,200, a ‘55 Chevy Bel Air for $50,400, a ‘58 Buick Roadmaster for $21,000, and a ‘57 Chevy Pickup for $21,525 (these figures all include the 5% buyers premium). The auction had great momentum from start to finish both days, Saturday and Sunday. To see the results of this February 2004 auction and the preceding November 2003 Zephyrhills AutoFest auction go to www.zephyrhillsfestivals.com and click on the auction button and then the auction car list button and then link to the results.

This recent Zephyrhills AutoFest saw a huge gathering of vintage stock cars, sprint cars and midgets racing on the non-banked 1/3 mile dirt track. Some of the best exhibition racing anywhere was seen all four days as Zephyrhills veterans and northern newcomers including some from Canada with thirties and forties vintage coupes put on a fabulous show to the delight of fans in the stands. At Zephyrhills, the public admission fee gets you in to the entire event including the swap meet, car corral, car and truck show, vintage dirt racing, and auction (if you want to register as a bidder, there is an extra fee and you need to meet certain qualifications shown on www.zephyrhillsfestivals.com). Public parking at Zephyrhills is free.

This Zephyrhills event had great cars everywhere you looked: in the auction and car corral, on the race track, and in the car and truck show. The next big Zephyrhills event, the 20th Annual Fall AutoFest, will be Thursday through Sunday, November 11-14, 2004. Everything you need to know about this event, including a map showing Festival Park’s location on US Hwy 301, a little northeast of Tampa and not far from anywhere in central Florida, can be found by visiting www.zephyrhillsfestivals.com or by calling 813-258-6726. CN