With support from the Downtown Business Association, numerous merchants both in the DBA and others, as well as the City of Bakersfield and it’s many departments we had our first event October 24, 25 and 26 of 2002. As much as we felt it needed tons of polish, we received numerous accolades and nominations for awards for the event. The final numbers came to 525 paid entries and over 25,000 spectators. We were thrilled to say the least for this, our first show. In 2003 the Highway 99 Cruise’n’Show improved to 544 paid entries with sponsor display vehicles included it brought the total vehicle count up to 657.