History Of The Big Iron Classic

It all began somewhere in the mid 90’s. I would run into and plan vacations around the different truck shows with people I knew from truckin’ for almost 15 years myself, and

about what their thoughts would be on a NON-TROPHY show. Just a simple little get together for the sole purpose of showin’ off their iron, which they live and work in 52 weeks a year. If nothing else, it’s a reason to slow down for a weekend and polish the truck they are so proud of and enjoy time with their friends & family, while revisiting all the reasons we started driving BIG IRON in the first place.

The response was overwhelmingly “heck yeah”, so with the help of far too many people to name, I decided to go for it and we were able to put it all together in just under two months. What an undertaking! We weren’t sure just how many trucks would actually make the trip to Kasson, MN.  We thought we would be doing great to have 50 or maybe even 60 trucks attend, and when we tallied the numbers from that first show in September of 2000. We had 98 entries with some significant sponsorship from the trucking industry. We had truckers coming from Pennsylvania to California, Texas to Canada. At that point, we thought this might just be worth puttin’ on for a second year.

Everyone agreed from the start, this should benefit some very worthy causes. Therefore, we decided that all anyone had to “pay” to be a part of the show with his or her iron was to simply bring a toy for a little boy or girl.  That became a rallying cry for some folks over the next few years as we had people bring wagons full of toys and we have been able to donate up to 3,000 toys a year and make cash donations most years to local and national charities around Christmas time.

The second year we added a Semi-truck pull and that is the only part of the show that has ever awarded anyone a trophy. We have had so much fun over the years, and we fully intend to keep this up as long as we are able and people still want to be apart of it.

The show has grown way beyond our wildest dreams, from 98 trucks the first year to cresting 400 in’05, 451 in ’06, 548 in ’07, 452 ub and who knows where it will go from here.

It surely wouldn’t have succeeded with out all the volunteers and support from family, so thank you, thank you, thank you and you know who you are.

It should also be noted that we have had significant support from an increasing number of corporate sponsors.

MOST OF ALL THANK YOU TO THE OWNER OPERATORS AND DRIVERS WHO KEEP THIS NATION ON IT’S FEET AND HAVE MADE CHRISTMAS A LITTLE MORE SPECIAL FOR SOME KIDS AROUND SOUTHERN MINNESOTA.

You are the reason we started this show and the reason it has been successful at all.