Experience the West Side Nut Club Cruise-In Car Show on Evansville’s Franklin Street Through Virtual Reality

One of the best parts about car shows and cruise-ins is the shared love of cars passed from generation to generation. If you missed the West Side Nut Club's annual Cruise-In last weekend (and even if you didn't!) you can take an immersive tour along Franklin Street and experience it again, or for the first time, through an immersive virtual reality experience. Keep scrolling to read about how cars built a relationship between me and my dad, see photos from the West Side Nut Club Cruise-In and take a look at the virtual, interactive video walk-through of the event.

Bonding Over Cars

In my late teens and early twenties, I spent a lot of time at car shows with my dad. In fact, cars were sort of the glue that made us close. Dad loved classic cars and pretty much anything that went fast and he passed that love on to me.

Some Of My Favorite Memories

Some of my most cherished and favorite memories of my dad involve cars in some way - there was the time he taught me to rebuild a carburetor and the time he taught me to use an angle grinder on a fender... and the time I was changing my oil and the filter tipped over, spilling oil down my arm and into my armpit. I can still see the smile on his face when I rolled out from under the car laughing.

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Moments Etched in Time

There was the time when I drag-raced in Columbus, Ohio, and the burnout contest I entered in Vincennes, Indiana that put us in the tire shop the next day because I burned my tire down to the threads and I can still tell the brand of a tire based on how it smells when doing a burnout at the line of the dragstrip.

I Will Always Have My Memories

Dad has been gone for about a year and a half now, and admittedly, I haven't been able to bring myself to go to a car show yet. I had wanted to attend the West Side Nut Club Cruise-In this past weekend, and had finally worked up enough courage to feel like I could be surrounded by classic cars and not break down into tears, but ended up not being able to make it. Fortunately, there is a really cool video that captured the day.

Visit Franklin Street for the Cruise-In

While I am sad that I wasn't able to make it down to Franklin Street personally, I am grateful to still be able to experience all the day had to offer thanks to a cool interactive and immersive video captured at the event. The 19-minute video below allowed me the opportunity to have the experience of "being there" even though I didn't make it there myself.

Almost Like You Are There

The really cool thing about the video is that by putting the cursor within the frame of the video and clicking and holding the mouse, you can get a 360-degree view from the camera so you can literally walk down Franklin Street and look around as if you were really there. Take a look at it now!