Annual show brings out St. George car lovers, raises money, collects Toys for Tots gifts

ST. GEORGE — Beau’s Carquest Auto Parts employee and classic car lover Dave Vallette summed up the 13th annual Rick Massey Memorial Car Guys Care Toys for Tots car show.

Organizers Shane Dastrup and wife Yvonne with Santa at the 2023 Rick Massey Car Guys Care Toys For Tots car show, St. George, Utah, Dec. 2, 2023 | Photo by E. George Goold, St. George News

“Cars bring people,” Vallette said inside the car parts store Saturday afternoon. “Cars bring business.”

Outside the store in the Beau’s parking lot at 920 North 2100 West in St. George, residents strolled among a sterling collection of classic automobiles assembled for the fundraising and toy collection event for Toys For Tots.

“This is our 13th year for the show and third year we’ve been doing here at Beau’s Carquest Auto Parts,” Car Guys Care organizer Shane Dastrup told St. George News.

Dastrup reported that last year the event hauled in a record $6,300 and 700 toys.

“This year we’re going to go well past that,” Dastrup said. “I think probably our estimates for this year are around $7,000 or $8,000.”

Dastrup said the event evolved over the years through various classic car clubs in St. George. Car Guys Care is a non-profit that now runs the event along with several others that cater to an active local community of classic car enthusiasts.

The event is named after longtime Toys For Tots coordinator Rick Massey, who died three years ago.

“He was the man who got me into this 13 years ago,” Dastrup said. “This year we added the name Patrick Curtis, he was a retired colonel in the Marine Corps. A real good friend of the car hobby and he passed away a year ago so we added his name to the memorial.”

Dastrup is nicknamed “Mustang Shane” in the community because of his affinity for the classic Ford automobile. He said he owns three at the moment and his wife drives one.

Volunteers at the 2023 Rick Massey Car guys Care  Toys For Tots car show raised money for Christmas presents, St. George, Utah, Dec. 2, 2023 | Photo by E. George Goold, St. George News

“I got my first Mustang in 1966. I’ve had nearly 100 Mustangs that I’ve built and restored over the years,” Dastrup said. 

He said that the classic car crowd in St. George is growing every day.

“All the time, we see cars we’ve never seen before show up at different events,” Dastrup said. “I started Car Guys Care 13 years ago, not as a club but as a group. We wanted to bring all the clubs together for one event, and that’s how this was born.”

Dastrup said the group holds several different events for car lovers and that the Toys For Tots collection goes on throughout the year, not just at Christmas time.

“It’s strictly a fundraising group,” Dastrup said. “We’re just a bunch of car lovers that like to hang out and do things that are good for the community.”

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