Motor City

The Heavy Rebel Weekender will start its ninth annual run at the Millennium Center on Friday.

"We never expected, we didn't plan for, we didn't think we'd see nine years," said Mike Martin, one of the organizers of Heavy Rebel. "I remember talking with Dave (Quick, the other founder) about how funny it would be if we were still doing it in five years, and here we are at nine.

"Each year the people keep showing up to support it and rock out. As long as they keep showing up, we'll keep showing up."

There will be some new features this year, including a new burlesque stage called The Wiggle Room that features dancers, acrobats and magicians. But the old favorites will be back as well, including the Heavy Rebel Kustom Car and Bike Show, a free event that is held Saturday on Trade Street.

Classic cars and motorcycles will be on display from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m.

"We're expecting a pretty good turnout," Martin said. "We had a good turnout last year, and we had high gas prices then."

But whatever happens to gas prices or the weather, he said the car show will go on.

"It's an integral part of our Weekender," he said. "We've had it during rain and thunderstorms and lightning."

Back when he and Quick first came up with the idea of Heavy Rebel, the car show was already a part of the idea. "Cars were an integral part of my life," Martin said. "I owned a garage at that point."

And considering that rock and rockabilly seem to go hand-in-hand with hot rods and classic cars, combining them seemed like a natural.

"It's part of our way of life, our culture," said Don "Tid" Tidwell, one of the organizers of the car show and a member of the Saints car club. "It's all about rock and roll, living fast and dying hard. And it's about doing the majority of the work on your own car, not just taking it to the garage."

The car show is one of the Weekender's most popular features, Martin said. "It's kind of the more calm, family-oriented, free part of the day," he said. "It's nice to see locals come out."

Since it's free, the car show attracts people who aren't taking part in the rest of the festival

And it also attracts a lot of car enthusiasts, both drivers showing off their handiwork and admirers who want to see some vintage vehicles.

"We went from 25 cars at the first show to 130 or more last year," Martin said. "It was pretty packed."

Along the way, the festival lost the "burnout contest," in which cars tried to burn the most rubber on Trade Street. It was a popular attraction for the first three years of the Weekender.

"The city told me that I was going to have to pay to fill in the streets," Martin said. "They don't like it when you put 6-inch-deep divots in the road, apparently. They don't think it's half as cool as we do."

Two North Carolina car clubs are helping Martin put on the car show this year, The Saints and the Maulers.

The Saints have been part of Heavy Rebel since the festival began in 2001. The club has four or five active members, who are scattered around North Carolina, plus several more inactive members.

This is the Maulers' first time as an organizer of the car show, though members of the club have attended Heavy Rebel since the beginning.

"We went to the first (Weekender)," said Rich Holt, the president of the Maulers, which is based out of Wilmington. "We didn't drive our cars then, but a friend's band was playing. We've been trying to go up ever year."

The festival provides a chance to mingle with other lovers of classic cars and rockabilly music, Holt said. And, he pointed out, classic cars can also be seen as eco-friendly.

"Long before recycling was ever popular, we were doing it," he said. "With a real hot rod, most everything is recycled parts. You get stuff from a junk yard and put it all together and make it work."

Much of the fun of the hot-rod culture is "finding parts for cars and bringing them back to life," Tidwell said. "We will scrounge up anything we can find. Our favorite price is free or cheap."

The Maulers' cars range in age from a 1918 roadster to a 1966 Lincoln.

Anyone can bring classic cars to the show, though there are some rules to what gets accepted.

"They have to be pre-1968," Martin said. And no muscle cars, such as Camaros and Mustangs. "It's not that we don't like muscle cars, it's just that they have their own car show circuit," Martin said. "This is more for rat rods (hot rods that appear unfinished, often with primer paint jobs), traditional rods, and stock. And no trailer queens."

In other words, the cars have to be able to drive in on their own power. "This is basically a driving show. If you don't drive it, we don't want to see it," Martin said.

Trophies will be awarded at the end of the car show and presented after the 4 p.m. mud wrestling -- another free event at Heavy Rebel that invariably draws a big crowd.

"We've got a couple of categories," Tidwell said, "Best custom, best hot rod, best bike, best paint, best engine, longest haul for the one that came the farthest, and we might throw in a couple of other awards."

And like the cars themselves, the trophies are done with the "Do-It-Yourself" mentality. "They're mainly made out of old parts; we paint them and put pin-striping on them," Tidwell said. "All the trophies are homemade."

Want to go?

The Heavy Rebel Weekender will be Friday through Sunday at the Millennium Center.

More than 60 bands will perform at the festival, including some returning from previous years and some performing at the festival for the first time. Among them are Dash Rip Rock, Koffin Kats, The Chop Tops and Mexican rockabilly band Viva Las Vegas.

Tickets are $35 a day or $90 for three days, and are available at the door.

A pre-party will be today at The Garage, 110 W. Seventh St., with several bands. Admission is $5, and the doors open at 8 p.m.

A full schedule of bands, acts and events is online at www.heavyrebel.net. The site also has e-mail addresses to preregister your car for the car show, or you can register on Saturday between 9 a.m. and noon.