As Sweet Home approaches its first year without the Oregon Jamboree, a different kind of event peers through the curtain as being a potential economic boost for the community.
JD Rettinger and Cole Iliff, both of Albany, are gearing up to bring their annual PNW Showdown Smokeshow & Shine car show to the former Willamette Industries mill site off Tamarack Street.
But their prospects go beyond just a one-day, once-a-year show expected to draw thousands of spectators.
The pair are also planning monthly drift events on the property at the north end of 24th Avenue. In fact, they hope the first one will be held in February.
The car show
Rettinger and his wife, Amy Rettinger, operate N Touch Detailing in Eugene. It’s a business he’s been involved in for nearly 14 years now.
They also host Eugene Cars & Coffee, a monthly gathering of car enthusiasts, usually held at his shop.
In 2024, the pair promoted their first car show at the Lane County Fairgrounds, drawing in about 350 registered cars and more than 5,000 people, some of whom came from outside the state, JD Rettinger said.
Given the popularity of the initial event and the size of this new location, Iliff expects as many as 10,000 may show up to this year’s event in Sweet Home.
“We just have a huge passion for cars and events, and we noticed it’s almost a dying breed anymore of bigger car shows,” Rettinger said.
According to him, that one-day event generated more than $100,000 for the city. However, the county didn’t invite them back the next year.
“At the end of the day, we had such a big need for it that I needed to find a new place for it. I realized Lane County wasn’t it.”
Through word of mouth, Rettinger and Iliff were connected to Josh Victor, owner of the old mill property, and they took a look at the spot.
“I knew that it was gonna take some work, but at the end of the day, I’d seen the potential,” Rettinger said.
Victor is also excited about the partnership.
“I think it’s got a lot of potential,” Victor said. “I think especially if they’re gonna start doing stuff monthly, it may be a good little draw to get people into town, and just have something to do around here. It’s pretty exciting.”
The PNW Showdown Smokeshow & Shine will be held July 25 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on the 12 acre lot at the east end of Tamarack Street, between 18th and 22nd avenues.
Participants coming from far away will be invited to camp on the property and enjoy a private pre-show party the night before the event.
The car show – which Rettinger points out is open to all years and models – will feature trucks, classics, modern muscle and off-road drift cars.
Rettinger plans to bring in several inflatables for kids, food trucks, a beer garden and opportunities for local vendors. There are also plans for a motor blow (drain a junker of its fluids, run the engine and predict how long it will take before it dies), and potentially some live music.
The show’s “finale” will be a burnout competition at the north end of 24th Avenue, where the monthly drift events will be held.
Iliff noted the burnout pad will be held inside a box of concrete barriers, for safety.
“We have a very big following, and now that we’ve done a show (in 2024), people see how we operate,” Rettinger said. “They see what we can do, our potential, and now it just motivates me to go bigger and better.”
While the big car show is planned to be a once-a-year thing, Iliff said it could possibly go twice a year “if it grabs good traction.”
To register a car or be a vendor, follow the PNW Showdown Smokeshow & Shine Facebook page, or wait for more information at EugeneCarShow.com.
“I’ve brought in people from over five states away,” Rettinger said. “It doesn’t matter what the hell corner you’re in. If you’re putting something good on, they will find it and they will drive to it.”
Drifting events
While Rettinger is more of the car show guy, it’s Iliff who’s more of the drift track guy.
For the uninformed, drifting is the motorsport skill of causing rear tires to lose traction after a hard steer, and controlling the resulting slide, or skid, sideways around corners.
“You go through (the course) and you slide your car around the track,” Iliff said. “It’s a big growing sport comin’ up, so we’re trying to get into it while people are interested.”
Iliff, personally, is trying to be a professional drift driver and is close to getting into Formula DRIFT, a televised professional drifting championship show (follow his IG @driftrollas).
“It’s like the NASCAR of drifting,” he said.
But when talking about the sport, he focused more on the benefits of a hobby that can pull kids away from their phones.
“Taking a kid for a ride at that age where they’re gettin’ into cars, it just gives them another drive to be able to get out there and do something, help motivate them to just do different stuff,” he said. “Too many people are stuck in the house nowadays.”
Iliff’s day job is through Anderson Brothers’ Buck’s Sanitary Service, and assists Rettinger with paint protection film applications, but he also owns CCC Racing for his drifting pursuits, and is 10 years into his ownership of Protect Ur Hood Towing out of Eugene. In that business, he’s seen “too many kids” getting hurt on the road.
So for him, giving teens and young adults access to a safe location for car play is a good idea. He likened it to a skate park, where kids can engage in an active sport as long as they follow certain rules, such as wearing a helmet.
A place to drift keeps people off the road and is more likely to avoid injuries.
“It’s gonna happen, kids are gonna be kids, but if you make a place for ‘em to be safe, then they’ll wanna follow the rules a little bit more,” Iliff said.
Using a forklift, Iliff maneuvered large concrete barriers around the lot that has been termed The Mill Drift Track (find it on Facebook), a five-acre spot on the old mill property at the north end of 24th Avenue.
The barriers help create something of a track that drivers can drift through while also providing safety to those outside the track. They also give Iliff the opportunity to change the track around from time to time.
When public drift events happen there, Rettinger encourages people – especially kids – to bring a helmet if they want a chance to do a ride-along.
“There’s usually a standing line of vehicles (waiting to drift),” Rettinger said. “If you’re over there and you have a helmet and you’re showing that you have interest that you wanna go for a car ride, there’s always gonna be somebody there that says, ‘hop in and buckle up, let’s go for a ride.’”
A community thing
When Victor let Cut the Gut hold a burnout event on his property a few years ago, he expected it to draw a couple hundred people, but was surprised to see “closer to a thousand.”
It made him realize not only the amount of interest and potential for that type of experience, but also the potential for the city.
Now that Rettinger and Iliff are building the foundation for that same experience, Victor is reaching out to find other similar event organizers who might be interested in bringing their show to the city.
“Luckily it’s not really around any other neighbors,” Victor said about his venue spot. “It’s far enough away from any residential, I think it shouldn’t be that big of a problem. We’re hoping it should turn out good.”
The Victors want the community to have a place to have fun, a place that can grow with the community, Rettinger said.
“This is gonna bring in so much revenue year-round for the community,” Rettinger said.
He estimates about 90% of his show’s attendees will be from outside Sweet Home.
“We’re really hoping that we get a good response back from the town. We really try to run things the right way, not the reckless way, because we want it to last,” he said.
Rettinger said he’s looking forward to connecting with more locals and working more with the city. And they hope the community will work with them.
“We’re not just trying to come in and do our own thing and not listen to anybody. We want to bring in the town and listen to the feedback and move on that,” he said. “We want to be able to have this for the long term.”
In fact, both Rettinger and Iliff emphasized their passion to support the community and small business.
“We’re all about community, small business, pumping everybody up. That’s how we work,” Rettinger said.
Their way to do that is to share their lifelong passion for cars with others in a safe way that brings a community together and provides a “good vibe,” but also brings an opportunity to help others, Iliff said.
“We’re all about supportin’ the local community and tryin’ to get everyone helping each other like it used to be,” he said.
Gettin’ ready
The whole of Victor’s lot is probably about 150 acres, giving Rettinger and Iliff a lot to work with.
“It’s very, very big,” Iliff said. “We’re hoping to do a lot of different other kinds of motorsports there. We just wanna start off getting a little bit at a time, making sure the community is enjoying what we’re doing and it’s actually gonna work for everyone.”
For now, though, Rettinger and Iliff make regular trips to Sweet Home with a crew of people working hard to prepare the property.
“There’s a lot of cleanup,” Rettinger said. “This place hasn’t been operated in over 50 years, so there was a lot of groundwork that needed to be done, but we know with our time that we can make that happen.”
The crew is filling holes, clearing out an spot for camping, creating a pit crew area, making a water pad, and even sweeping up every bit of rock and sand – which apparently affects the drift action. Even Victor was out on his property breaking up concrete foundations.
“We just needed a place, a private property that sees our vision and that knows that we’re gonna do something the right way,” Rettinger said. “Lucky enough, we found that in Sweet Home, and we think that it’s gonna be a great opportunity for everybody.”
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