Boyd Coddington Garage All Speed Expo aims to be annual event

Four weeks before the first-ever Boyd Coddington Garage All Speed Expo at the KCI Expo Center, Russ Dickey, co-founder of the event, reported that they already had three dozen exhibitors purchase booths.

The All Speed Expo is designed to allow retailers, customizers, restorers, manufacturers and other automotive or racing organizations the ability to get their products or services in front of thousands of car and truck enthusiasts.

With 70,000 square feet of space to work with at the KCI Expo Center, at 11730 NW Ambassador Drive in Kansas City, Dickey said they will be to handle any exhibitors who want to show their work right up to the day of the show, which will be held Nov. 21-22.

The goal for Dickey and his partner, Scott Pennington, is to fill 50 to 75 booths. A first-year introductory price for a 10 by 10 booth is $200. For more information go to www.allspeedexpo.com.

Admission is $10, and children under 12 are free.

Dickey hopes the Boyd Coddington Garage All Speed Expo will be the perfect avenue for people in the car and truck parts, restoration and other facets of the automotive industry to come and promote their work.

“The genesis behind this is when Scott and I were sitting around, talking about how there are so many talented car fabricators, painters and restoration shops in town who don’t have a big marketing budget, and nobody really knows about them,” Dickey said. “Through various car shows, we learned about these guys who do great metal work or they are motor builders, but nobody knows about them.

“We thought if we like it, surely car guys would like it. We find all these guys who do pin striping and upholstery and it is amazing and nobody knows about them. They don’t have marketing. They work out of their garage or shop.”

The vision for Dickey is for this to become on a smaller scale like the SEMA show in Las Vegas, which promotes itself as the premier automotive specialty products trade event in the world. The SEMA event just concluded, running Tuesday through Friday.

“We thought, wouldn’t it be great to do a Kansas City version of the SEMA show,” Dickey said. “We can bring everybody in town together under one roof that has anything to do with classic cars and trucks or performance cars, no matter what that is, no matter what particular thing you do, and have it open to the public.”

The thing that thrills Dickey is the range of exhibitors who have already committed, from Soap Box Derby to Kansas City Off Road Racing Association to NASA road racer to drag racing companies.

“We have kind of covered the gamut for motor sports as well as anybody who supplies parts here in town,” Dickey said.

It is what Dickey and Pennington had in mind when they started All Speed Expo at the start of 2015. In May, they kicked into high gear the promotion of their first show.

They spent the summer going to car shows and cruises – Dickey says they attended about 250 – throughout the region and passed out more than 15,000 fliers.

Dickey, who is from Kearney, estimated they put in 30 hours each week this summer in addition to their regular jobs. Dickey makes a living as a website developer and Pennington, who is from Independence, is a respiratory technician.

“It is another job for us,” Dickey said. “We worked weekends and nights. Plus, we have family and friends volunteering and helping us pass out fliers and sharing stuff on social media for us.

“We are trying to do as much grass roots stuff as possible. Facebook has been fantastic for us. Once our exhibitors come on board, we share that. The more foot traffic there is benefits everybody.”

Along the way, All Speed Expo attracted the attention of Boyd Coddington Garage, which came on board as the title sponsor.

Boyd Coddington Companies started out as a backyard business created by Boyd Coddington Sr. who took the company to Wall Street and the NASDAQ exchange. Over the years, Boyd Sr. became an industry icon not just by designing and building award-winning hot rods, but also by designing and building revolutionary products. After he passed away, his son Boyd Coddington Jr., continued building the family legacy and its reputation by providing variety of different world-class products.

“Obviously having Boyd Coddington Jr. associated with it is nice,” Dickey said. “It is a legendary name in the hot rod industry.

“He found us. He happened to see information on it. He said, ‘I’m now in Kansas City. I moved from Southern Cal to Kansas City. I opened Coddington Garage. Let’s pair up and make it happen.’ It was very nice to have a name like that contact us.”

Dickey said they wanted to make the event more than just a trade show.

In conjunction with the Boyd Coddington All Speed Expo, there will be a car show. They have already selected 10 cars each in 11 different classes.

“We have been having people apply online for months,” Dickey said. “We’ve been giving out invitations at car shows this summer trying to find the best of the best in each class.

“Halloween was the deadline. Then the cars go to a judging committee, who will pick the 10 finalists from all the different applicants, and we will invite them. The plus for those guys is there is no entry fee. If you are selected as one of the 10 finalists, you are free to come show off your car.”

Dickey is also excited about some of the celebrities who plan to appear at the All Speed Expo. One is Terry McCarl, known as T-Mac.

“He is a multichampion sprint car racer,” Dickey said. “Anybody into dirt racing knows him.”

Another celebrity in the race world who plans to make an appearance is former NASCAR driver Stacy Compton from Virginia. He will be one of the judges for the car show. Dickey added that Duane Mayer will also be present.

“He was on American Hot Rod,” Dickey said.

Dickey and his partner want this to be a success and an annual event. He likes the location because it is close to KCI Airport, and a Holiday Inn is connected to the Expo Center. Also, parking is free.

“We were looking for the biggest building we could afford,” Dickey said. “Bartle, at this point, was out of our range. KCI Expo is so good to work with. The people there are great at adjusting to your schedule.

“Obviously, in any first-year show there are hurdles and challenges to pull it off to make sure there will be a second-year show. Thus far, with the support we’ve seen, we feel confident this will be an annual event.”

This story was originally published November 5, 2015 at 6:01 PM with the headline "Boyd Coddington Garage All Speed Expo aims to be annual event."