CRUZ attracts hundreds of auto enthusiasts to Port Orchard

For the second week in a row, Bay Street was closed to traffic on Sunday as hundreds of classic car owners and enthusiasts descended on Port Orchard for the CRUZ car show.

A week after the downtown was closed for the Paint the Town effort, the Saints Car Car Cub hosted the 22nd version of what has become one of the Northwest's premier car shows.

“It’s the biggest one-day event in Kitsap County,” said event organizer John Kincl, explaining that a typical CRUZ has 500 to 600 cars for show and about 30,000 people that come to look at them.

This year’s event featured a 1956 Chevy 210 Del-Ray owned by Dick Brown of Kent, and a 1932 Ford Graffiti Coupe, which Kincl said has been built to resemble the “Deuce Coupe” featured in the movie “American Graffiti” as much as possible.

That car is owned by Steve and Denise Bergerson of Buckley.

Many of the cars on display Sunday can be drive across three states, however, as evidence by several men from Costa Mesa who attend the CRUZ every year by driving up from California.

Their cars, and everyone else’s, were on display along Bay Street, starting near Kitsap Bank, from 8 a.m. until 4 p.m.

Bay Street was closed much of the day, with shuttle buses driving attendees from Towne Square on Mile Hill Drive and behind the Kitsap County Courthouse on Cline Street to the event.

Visitors from Seattle or Bremerton shuttled across Sinclair Inlet by foot ferry.

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