The dragsters fire up during the 2010 show.

This Saturday, the busy corridor of Atlantic Avenue in Bixby Knolls will be shut down to traffic to make room for The Groundshakers.

No, not those giant seismic mega-trucks that rumble for miles around and send your pets scrambling for cover.

These groundshakers are much smaller in size, but historical giants that fueled a passion so great that it would come to define a generation.

The sixth annual Bixby Knolls Dragster Expo and Car Show will be held from 3:00-9:00pm on Saturday, featuring more than 200 cars on display and more than one dozen fire-breathing dragsters. There will be food, music, art, historical memorabilia, prizes for the best cars and much more. But the heart of the event is the tire-melting dragsters that once terrorized the asphalt of the Lions Drag Strip from 1955-72, and put Long Beach on the automotive map during perhaps the most car-crazed era in American history.

Disclosure: I have been given the distinct honor of serving as a judge during the show, and I cannot over-emphasize the following point: I CAN BE BRIBED. My preferred method of payment is a ride in your car, but get creative and we’ll see how my vote sways.

Check out the video above from last year’s show, when the dragsters roared us into the night.

P.S. Are you going to be there tomorrow? If you’d like to send photos of the show in to the lbpost.com, e-mail them to [email protected] with the line “Auto Show” and I’ll post them in a photo gallery on Monday. See you out there!

Disclosure: The Bixby Knolls Dragster Expo and Car Show is an advertiser of the Long Beach Post.