If you have lived in Pinetop-Lakeside long enough, you already know something is happening on SR 260 this week without needing to check a calendar. The pines look the same. The traffic does not. Around 4 p.m. on Friday, a line of cars that predate seatbelts as standard equipment will roll south through Show Low and into town, moving slow enough that you could read the hood ornaments if you tried.
That procession is the part almost everyone in town has seen at least once. What fewer people seem to register is that it is not the car show. It is the preview. The actual show, the one with 575 registered vehicles and a weekend's worth of vendor booths, happens somewhere you cannot just wander into off the street, on a schedule that runs on a completely different logic than Friday's rolling spectacle.
Two Car Shows Wearing One Name
Run to the Pines has run for 42 consecutive years now, which makes it one of the longer-standing traditions in a town where a lot of institutions turn over every decade or so. But the thing that trips people up, longtime residents included, is treating it as a single event with a single set of logistics. It is not. It is two distinct gatherings that happen to share a name and a weekend.
The first is Friday's Cavalcade of Cars Road Tour: a free, no-registration-required procession that starts at the LDS Church parking lot at the corner of the Deuce of Clubs and SR 260 in Show Low, then moves through Show Low and Pinetop-Lakeside to Hon-Dah Resort Casino, about three miles south of town. The second is the static weekend display at Pinetop Lakes Golf and Country Club on Buck Springs Road, where the 575 pre-1973 vehicles that qualified for the main show sit parked on the grounds Saturday and Sunday from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., surrounded by food vendors, live music, and activity booths.
Confusing the two is the single most common way people miss half the event. The Cavalcade is loose, roadside, and open to anyone with a special-interest vehicle who wants to join, no pre-registration needed. The weekend display is the opposite: tightly capped, invitation-and-mailing-list only for entrants, and already sold out for 2026 since packets went out back in May.
What Actually Happens Friday Afternoon
If you only catch one part of Run to the Pines this year, Friday is the one that costs nothing and requires no planning beyond knowing where to stand. The Cavalcade departs the LDS Church lot at 4 p.m. and proceeds down SR 260 through both towns before arriving at Hon-Dah. Local law enforcement provides rolling traffic control along the route, so this is not a road closure in the way a parade shuts a street down. It is a controlled, slow-moving procession sharing the highway with everyone else's Friday commute.
The people who get the most out of it tend to pick a spot along SR 260 ahead of time rather than trying to catch it from a moving car of their own. Once the Cavalcade reaches Hon-Dah, a low-cost BBQ dinner and entertainment show follows, open to the public, not just registered participants.
The Weekend Show, and the Parking Problem Everyone Discovers Too Late
Here is the detail that catches even people who have lived here for years: Pinetop Lakes Golf and Country Club has very limited on-site parking, and the event organizers say so plainly on their own materials. Spectator admission to the Saturday and Sunday display is free, with a non-perishable food donation requested to support local food banks, but showing up expecting to park at the club is the mistake that turns a relaxed weekend outing into a frustrating one.
The workaround is built into the event itself: park at Hon-Dah Resort Casino and take the free shuttle, which runs continuously across the weekend. It is a five-minute inconvenience that most people who have never been before don't plan for, and it is the single piece of information that separates a smooth Saturday from a wasted half hour circling Buck Springs Road.
Here is how the two halves of the weekend actually compare, side by side:
| Friday Cavalcade | Saturday–Sunday Display | |
|---|---|---|
| Where | SR 260, Show Low to Hon-Dah | Pinetop Lakes Golf and Country Club |
| When | Departs 4 p.m. Friday | 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. both days |
| Registration | None needed, open to any special-interest vehicle | Sold out, invitation and mailing list only |
| Cost to watch | Free | Free, non-perishable donation requested |
| Parking | Roadside along the route | Very limited on-site, park at Hon-Dah and shuttle |
If You're Bringing a Dog
Pets are not permitted on the show grounds at Pinetop Lakes Golf and Country Club, which surprises some dog owners who assume an outdoor event this size would be fine with leashed animals. The White Mountain Humane Society runs a kennel service specifically for the weekend, and a donation for that service is appreciated. If your Saturday plans include the show and your dog, this is the piece to sort out before you leave the house rather than at the gate.
Where to Take a Break Without Leaving the Weekend
Woodland Lake Park sits roughly two miles from the show grounds, close enough to use as a genuine break between show sessions rather than a separate outing. The park's 22-acre lake has a paved loop trail, fishing piers, and a shaded picnic and playground area, which makes it a reasonable stop if you are bringing kids who need a stretch after an hour of admiring paint jobs. Show Low Lake, about 15 minutes north, offers additional fishing and watercraft access if you want more distance between yourself and the crowd for a while.
Forty-Two Years Running
There is something worth sitting with in the fact that this event has run every year for four decades in a town of this size. The organizers, Ted and Randi Corbin and Jim and Darla Faulk, along with a volunteer base that keeps the mailing list and registration packets moving every spring, have already locked in the next two years: the 43rd Annual is set for September 24 through 26, 2027, and the 44th for September 22 through 24, 2028. That kind of forward scheduling is not typical of a casual local event. It is closer to how a town treats something it has decided is permanent.
The proceeds benefit a range of White Mountain charities, and the food donation requested at the gate goes to the local food bank. None of that changes what the weekend feels like from the sidewalk, but it is part of why a car show gets this much continuity in a place where plenty of seasonal events come and go.
The Part That Actually Matters for Your Weekend
None of this requires a ticket, a reservation, or advance planning beyond picking a spot on SR 260 and knowing to park at Hon-Dah instead of the country club. That is the whole point. Run to the Pines works because it asks almost nothing of the people who just want to watch, as long as they know which of the two events they are showing up for.
If this is also the weekend you are hosting out-of-town guests, worth knowing that the Fall Festival crowd tends to drain out of downtown by Sunday morning, which we covered in a separate look at how that weekend actually unfolds. Between the two events, this is a genuinely full week for a town this size.
Erin Amos has spent years watching how these small annual traditions shape the rhythm of life in Pinetop-Lakeside, the same rhythm that makes this stretch of the White Mountains feel like home rather than just scenery. If you are curious what else is happening around Lakeside this season, or thinking ahead to what a property in this area actually looks like day to day, reach out any time.
