Madison Motorsports rev up weekend: Car club celebrates 10 years with annual show

A full parking lot at JMU may or not be rare, but visitors of the C4 Lot this weekend would have found it filled with cars not typical of our crowded lots.

Madison Motorsports, JMU's drivers club, held its tenth annual car show on Saturday.

The club celebrated its 10th anniversary this weekend.

The show featured cars representing six classes including European, domestic, import and classic cars, as well as 4x4s and motorcycles.

But for the most part, the show hosted a slew of heavily modified Volkswagens, Mazdas and Subarus, many of which had popped hoods displaying impeccably clean engines.

Jake Thiewes, Madison Motorsports' president and a senior media arts and design major, had his two cars on display: a '91 BMW 535i and a '95 Mazda Miata, for street use and racing, respectively. But these cars were not there just to look pretty.

"The Miata's been fairly heavily modified for track stuff," Thiewes said. "But when I did all of that, it made it miserable to drive in the street."

Aside from hosting the show, the members of Madison Motorsports participate and compete in a variety of events.

These activities range from casual drives to events called autocrosses where cars navigate cone courses in parking lots.

While their local autocross venue is the Verona, Va. autocross track, frequent spots for the club include Summit Point in West Virginia and Virginia International Raceway in Danville, Va.

This year's Madison Motorshow was free and open to anyone, but displaying a vehicle required a $10 fee.

To garner attention for the event, Thiewes went on message boards, put up flyers around campus and contacted other local car clubs.

Justin Rende, a freshman international business major, didn't have a car on display but was one of dozens who attended Saturday afternoon.

"I just came to spectate, just because there are so many nice cars," said Rende, who joined Madison Motorsports this past semester.

Thiewes said he didn't know everyone who registered a vehicle, as there were more than 50 cars, with only about 20 owned by members of the club.

Madison Motorshow was in part sponsored by Subaru North America, and a portion of the proceeds went to support Cat's Cradle.

Contact Neal Hollowell at hollownr@dukes.jmu.edu.