Hundreds of Raiders fans donned the silver and black and filled the National Automobile Museum on Sunday for the team’s first Raiders Motor Fest.
“Let's just say the fans are electric, and it’s litty,” says Ansar M, one of the many fans in attendance.
Raiders Senior Vice President of Marketing Kristen Banks says Sunday's event generated great turnout.
“We see so many people come, whether they're coming from California, Oakland, LA, Las Vegas, now Reno,” she says. “We think this is a great opportunity to really reach the fans where they are."
Banks says the team will consider returning to Reno for future events. Previously, she said the team was at Hot August Nights last year.
Of course, you can't have an event at the Auto museum without a car display. On the museum’s outdoor patio, fans brought cars covered in the Raiders emblem, photos of players, and, in Tony Valdivia's case, a train horn display. He says the got the horns first, and it slowly came together after that.
“I was going to make the Raider emblem into the [air] tank,” he says, “but somebody told me that because the tank is not round, it wouldn't hold the air right.”
Instead, Valdivia incorporated a smaller cylindrical tank into the design. It’s printed with a photo of Allegiant Stadium, with the moving field tray shown just below it.
If you look closely at the stripes on the hood of Valdivia’s truck, you'll find photos from all of the Raiders events he's been to.
Moving back indoors, two Raiders alumni took questions during halftime of the game against the New England Patriots.
Robert Gallery played in multiple spots on the Raiders offensive line from 2004 to 2010.
“No matter what's going on, we're down by a few scores right now, but people are here cheering them on. That's what great about the Raider fans,” Gallery says.
Miles Burris grew up near Sacramento and caught one or two raider games a season growing up. He still remembers getting the call in the 2012 draft.
“I can still pull back to that memory of getting the call and seeing it was an Oakland number and then hearing the voice and my whole family erupting,” he says. “I just, I get chills every time I think about it."
Now, Burris has taking up acting, playing a part in the upcoming "Madden" movie.
The Raiders may have lost Sunday’s game 45-17 to the Patriots, but Raider Nation’s support for the team never waned at the National Automobile Museum.
