First ever Riverhead high school car show set for May 31

Update: This event is postponed a day to Sunday, June 1 due to Saturday’s weather forecast.

Riverhead High School will host its first car show Saturday, May 31, from 11 am to 5 p.m. In the back parking lot of the school. The event was organized by 17-year-old senior Daniel Carty, who wanted to share his passion for cars with his fellow students.

“I didn’t do any sports or anything in school — no extracurricular activities or anything like that. I really wanted to do something to benefit the school, or something for all the other kids in the school who are into cars and stuff like me,” said Daniel. “I decided to bring up this car show idea to a couple of my peers in the school, and they all thought it was really good idea.”

The students formed a planning board to hammer out their ideas, and then brought the proposal to the school principal. 

“We went over it for a pretty long time, and he liked the idea, but of course, I had to get approved for by the whole board and everything like that,” Daniel said. “So a couple weeks went by, and he got back to me. We had another meeting of him telling me that it got approved and everything. After that, it’s just been a lot of planning and coordinating for this whole event to happen.”

Cars are definitely in Daniel’s blood. He has fond memories of car shows from his childhood, and his family used to race at Riverhead Raceway. It was important for him to share that experience with his classmates.

“I’ve been going to car shows ever since I could walk, ever since I was a kid. My dad took me to a lot of car shows, and I really enjoyed all of them. My whole family is around cars and everything. I wanted to bring what I got as a kid to everyone else,” Daniel said. “I live with my grandparents. They were really supportive. My dad also supported me, even though he’s far away. He used to live here, so he was in connection with a lot of the car groups, and he reached out to a lot of them, asking them to show up.”

Car owners who are interested can pre-register for the show now for $5 or $10 the day of the show. The show is free for spectators.

“Everything is welcome. There’s going to be, probably bikes, there maybe trucks, vintage cars, newer cars. There might be a couple drag cars,” Daniel said.

He said he was surprised by the response he has received on social media. The community has really taken an interest in the event.

 “It’s gotten so big,” he said. “It just kind of blew my mind, because it went from maybe like 30 people coming to more than 150.”