Feel the burn(out): Auto show in Leduc promises dyno thrills, tire-smoking chills for all ages

Show cars on display outside New Age Motors in Leduc, Alta., on July 9, 2026. The vehicles will be on display during the shop's first Namfest auto show on July 11. (Sean McClune/CTV News Edmonton)

Expect a sensory bonanza on Saturday in Leduc, featuring a bouquet of smoking tires and a symphony of roaring engines in a first-time auto show festival – all while benefiting a charitable cause.

And among the supercars that will be on display at Namfest: rides from the Fast and Furious franchise, which has taken movie-goers on thrilling cinematic chases over 11 films, with a 12th planned for release two years from now.

Namfest is free for spectators, while tuners can donate to register their vehicles for a display spot and the opportunity to run them through a dynamometer, better known as dyno runs, and on the burnout pad at New Age Motors, host of the inaugural event.

Food trucks, vendors and family-friendly activities, such as face-painting, balloon animals and bouncy castles, will also be on-site at the shop, located at 3510 74 Ave. The event’s hours are 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

The organizers, owner Mark Rhodenizer and manager Brett Jorgensen, are expecting a wide range of vehicle builds to attend the show, from original and ‘restomod’ classics, custom creations and high-end performance vehicles to exotic modern autos.

A dynometer measures several performance benchmarks of a vehicle’s engine, including horsepower, torque and other power-related metrics. A burnout pad is a specialized, controlled space for vehicles to:

• spin their tires at high rates of revolutions-per-minute (also known as RPMs) -- ‘burning rubber’ is a common term; and
• perform ‘doughnuts,’ a driving maneuver in which a driver intentionally oversteers a vehicle to cause the rear tires (in a rear-wheel-drive automobile) to skid and spin the auto in circles, leaving circular tire marks.

There are two tiers of admission for vehicles, with all proceeds being donated to the Kids with Cancer Society.

Rhodenizer encourages drivers to bring their pride-and-joys to put them to the test.

“If you have a car that you’ve built and you are proud of and you want to see what actually it puts down to the pavement and you want to impress the crowd, bring it down,” he told CTV News Edmonton.

Prizes and trophies will be awarded in the car show, mobile dyno and burnout pad categories.

Both Rhodenizer and Jorgensen say they are looking forward to welcoming the community to their shop, which opened in 2019.

“It’s been a lot of fun planning this event, pulling everything together, speaking to sponsors,” Jorgensen said. “Mark and I did a lot of market research this year, going to different events, seeing how they put things together, so I’m just looking forward to giving people a good time, getting their name out there, raising money for the Kids with Cancer Society.”

With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Matt Woodman