Motor Meetup: Car enthusiasts show off their rides

It was a sort of makeshift museum.

More than 50 cars – classic to fresh off the assembly line – showed up as Saturday’s sun set in the Staples parking lot on North Stratford Road in Moses Lake.

Moses Lake resident Alex Pineda said he organized the get-together because there have been so few events through the pandemic.

“I just wanted to throw something that everyone could come to, everyone could hang out, everyone could have a good time and talk about cars and just show off,” Pineda said.

The cars on display represented many decades, makes and models. But none of that really matters, Pineda said.

“The thing that makes me like someone’s car is the time they spend on them,” he said. “The work they put in.”

His passion for cars came from his dad, he said. Growing up, his dad raced on drag strips across the state in the white 1989 Toyota Supra, present Saturday.

Next to it, Pineda stands in front of his white 1990 Supra, the car that he “wasted all (his) money and savings on” when he was 15. Since then, he’s completely rebuilt the engine, replaced the exhaust and lowered it.

Pineda said what he really wants is a hypercar, perhaps a McLaren.

Meanwhile, Othello resident Javi Ramirez’s dream car is a Nissan GT-R, he said, and he drove it to the meetup.

The luxury car had just been to the shop for seven months after he crashed it, Ramirez said. Saturday night, he displayed it under blue and purple LEDs, with $16,000-worth of cosmetic upgrades.

His first car was a Jeep CJ-5. Since then, he’s driven Hondas, Toyotas and Subarus. He has just always loved cars, he said. For work, he’s a truck driver.

Thirty minutes into the event, a Ford Explorer drove through the display with bright white lights flaring. A police car.

“They’re already kicking us out?” Ramirez asked.

Through the radio speakers, out came the officer’s commands: “If you don’t have a V8, go home,” he said.

When he cruised past the end of the line of cars, he said, “This is where all the cool cars are at. If you don’t have a Tesla, go home.”

Smiles broke out across the enthusiasts.

Afterward, the officer reminded everyone to keep the noise down, be safe, and took off.

The encounter was hilarious, said Moses Lake resident Joe Collier.

“Even (the police) understand this is kind of a cool thing as long as we don’t get knuckleheads,” he said. “We don’t need someone coming in and acting a fool.”

Everyone seemed to be behaving, said his wife, Cindy Collier. In fact, all of the cars were even inside the parking lot’s lines, which is rare.

There’s a pretty big car culture in the area, Ramirez said. The DTP Car & Truck Show March 27, in Kennewick, is already sold out.

Many car shows and meetup events in Grant County, Spokane and the Tri-Cities are coming back, he said, and people are excited.