MOSES LAKE — The Brent Reese Memorial Car Show is roaring back around June 7.

“Our first annual (car show) was a wild success,” said Jeremy Reese, who organized the show in honor of his father, who passed away from ALS in 2020. “We raised about $4,000.”

Last year’s show featured 64 registered vehicles and about 1,200 spectators came by to admire them, Reese said.

This year’s show, which will be held in the parking lot of Scotty’s Auto Repair, will feature free face painting, an outdoor beer garden hosted by the Moses Lake Taproom and food from the Corn Dog Company and Blacky’s Smokin’ Sweet barbecue. Moses Lake DJ Dale Roth will spin the music.

That’s just what was lined up by Friday. There’s space for 30 local vendors, and registrations are still coming in, Reese said.

Last year’s event was kind of a spur-of-the-moment thing, Reese said.

“It was a crazy, wild success,” he said. “I planned the whole show within a couple of weeks. It was down and dirty and fast, but it was cool.”

Reese said the car show idea came to him because his father loved to work on cars.

“My dad was a gearhead,” Reese said. “He always had a car, a motorcycle, a boat. He thoroughly enjoyed that scene, and I was raised on that.”

The foundation that benefits from the car show is called Team Gleason, founded in 2011 by former NFL player Steve Gleason. Gleason was diagnosed that year with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease, according to the Team Gleason website. ALS is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord, according to the ALS Association. That means the brain loses the ability to control various parts of the body, eventually taking away the ability to speak, eat, move or breathe. Some people succumb quickly to the disease; others fight for years as Brent Reese did, but the end result is always the same.

There is no cure for ALS, but technological advances partially funded by Team Gleason have allowed ALS sufferers to live longer and to maintain control of their bodies longer, according to the foundation’s website.

Besides the money that the show raises from registrations and donations, some of the vendors donated last year as well, Reese said. Blacky’s Smokin’ Hot donated 15% of its proceeds, and the Moses Lake taproom donated 20%. This was volunteered by the businesses, Reese explained; there was no requirement that vendors contribute.

Brent Reese fought ALS for seven years before succumbing, Jeremy Reese said. He had been a large, physically fit man until ALS robbed him of that.

“The first thing that was noticeable was his grip and his hands and his shoulders,” Reese said. “And then eventually (he lost) the ability to hold his head up, and losing a lot of weight and muscle tone … It’s a nasty disease.”

One star of the show will be Brent Reese’s beloved 1973 Camaro. He had entered the Camaro in car shows at every opportunity, Jeremy Reese said. After he died, his widow took the car to Texas, and Jeremy Reese bought it three years later.

“Once I got that car back, it was just like getting a big piece of my dad back,” he said.

Brent Reese Memorial Car Show

3-7 p.m. June 7

Scotty’s Auto Repair

1450 E. Wheeler Road, Moses Lake

Registration and donations: bit.ly/BReeseCarShow25

    A car owner puts a bit of extra shine on his vehicle as he visits with a car show attendee at last year’s Brent Reese Memorial Car Show.
  

    Jeremy Reese, right, presents Joe Smith with the People’s Choice award at last year’s Brent Reese Memorial Car Show.