A hot rod shoots flames into the summer night. Photos by Dale Brown.

It makes thunderous noise, draws throngs of onlookers and shuts down city streets. More than 20,000 combined horsepower firing up simultaneously tends to have that kind of effect. The dragster cacklefest at the annual Bixby Knolls Dragster Expo & Car Show is always billed as the event’s main draw.

But this year, it wasn’t. This year’s Bixby Knolls show, the sixth annual, had several main draws.

In addition to the cacklefest, the show featured extensive auto-themed art and memorabilia, an exhibition dedicated to racing legend Mickey Thompson and an appearance by the First Lady of Drag Racing Shirley Muldowney.

Perhaps an even more telling sign of the growth – in both size and quality – of the show was the roster of 200 plus cars lining more than five blocks of Atlantic Avenue. Every entrant was truly special in one way or another. They were unique, iconic or in flawless condition. Many were all three.

And yet the cars that made up the bulk of the show were all somehow connected by their nostalgic link to the time period when the Lions Drag Strip drew massive crowds – not unlike the one at Atlantic & Carson on Saturday – every single week to watch gearheads scrunch up the asphalt in pursuit of the best quarter-mile time. They nearly all fell into that 1955-73 frame that Lions dominated the local car craze, and to bring them all together – along with the celebrations of Thompson and Muldowney – created the picture perfect tribute to a fondly-remembered era.

Even with the thermometer climbing as the sun rose on a scorching summer day, organizers said the 2011 show was certainly the biggest yet.

The First Lady of Racing signs for fans.

Photos by Dale Brown.

Photos by Ryan ZumMallen