Cars in the Park, Leelanau County’s longest running auto show, is back again this Memorial Day weekend and is celebrating 29 years of bringing car enthusiasts together to revel in a beloved tradition still going strong today.
Since 1998, the popular event has continued in Northport, attracting hundreds of car fans and families from the region and across the state. All the cars registered in this year’s event will be situated in Haserot Park in Northport. For the last few years, corvettes had to be parked in Marina Park by the pavilion for logistical reasons, but all cars will be parked in the same vicinity this weekend.
Awards are given out for multiple categories including: Top 10, the Founder’s Award, Best Modified, Best Sports Car, Best Corvette, Best Pre-War Classic, Best Classic, Best Modern Classic, and People’s Choice. It’s free admission for spectators, and the show opens at 10 a.m., with awards announced at 3 p.m.
People can expect to see local food vendors at the show as well like Antojitos, Taqueria Mosqueda, Why Knot Pretzels and Hot Dogs, and The Leelanau Lemonade Stand.
About 35-40 volunteers will be on site to help make the event possible. Whether it be assisting with parking cars in the judging categories or getting people registered for the show, these individuals help create a smooth and memorable event for all.
Darin Irvine has carried on the Cars in the Park tradition since 2015 as his father, the late George Irvine, first began the show in the late 90’s. Irvine and his wife, Lynelle, along with the dozens of volunteers that gather every year, happily put together the annual event, passing on and continuing the tradition so others can enjoy the experience, too.
“It’s a big source of pride for myself in two facets. One because it’s a very well-established Northport event, it’s not necessarily just for car people, it’s an event that happens and kind of kicks off the summer, so I’m proud to be able to continue that as a tradition here in Northport,” Irvine said. “Of course, the other aspect is because my family has been linked to it since the beginning. My father started it and my family, Lynelle, myself, and our boys, have been a big part of running it since 2015 when we took it over.”
Irvine said about 20% or so of the pre-registrations thus far are from people attending the event for the first time, adding that new participants help to keep the show fresh. A number of attendees that register are also returnees and drive up to the event every year, something Irvine said they equally appreciate and creates a nice mix of familiar and new cars featured in the show. The number of preregistered cars can be weather dependent though, Irvine added, and if rain and clouds are in the forecast, it can affect how many people show up versus on a sunny, clear skies day. For example, the year they had the most cars in the park was in 2022, the show’s 25th anniversary, but there weren’t very many pre-registrations.
“So certainly there’s both aspects of people wanting to see something new and people wanting to see something familiar,” Irvine said. “There’s people there that have been going 16-20 times and then there’s people that have been there 1-5 times, but between 20-25% are first time attendees in the show (this year)… The weather makes all the difference in the world. If you have a beautiful, sunny day predicted five, six, or seven days in advance, you can almost guarantee that you’ll have a large turnout. It’s Memorial Day weekend, so there’s a lot of things for people to do. If the weather’s not so nice, they’ll go do something else.”
For more information about registration or the event, go online to www.northportcarsinthepark. com.
