By Sara Beth Williams–
On Sept. 11, the local group “MAGA Riders,” led a colorful, American flag-flying caravan of vehicles through Citrus Heights with a homemade model of the Twin Towers leading the way to honor the memory of those who lost their lives on Sept. 11, 2001.
Event organizer and local resident Keith Schrenk said in an interview that the group holds a weekly vehicle train where decorated vehicles play patriotic music as they travel through the city.
A vehicle train led by the same group, captured on video last weekend, included messages like “Trump is my president,” “Trump 2028” and “We are all Charlie Kirk,” referring to the conservative activist who was assassinated while speaking at a college campus in Utah on Sept. 10, 2025.
Each Saturday night, the group of vehicles decked in American flags, begins at the Stock Ranch shopping plaza and travels throughout parts of Sacramento and Placer Counties beginning at 6 p.m.
This week, in honor of the 25th anniversary of 9/11, organizers decided to hold the weekly cruise night a day early. Ahead of the event, organizers built a model of the two World Trade Center towers on the back of a trailer, with the word REMEMBER in bold white letters stretching vertically in its center.
“Everyone knows where they were,” Schrenk said, recalling the terrorist attacks in 2001.
As the vehicle train began its four-hour route on Sept. 11, 2026, in place of the typical patriotic tunes, Schrenk’s truck blasted “Have you Forgotten” by Darryl Worely, a country song from late 2002 that asks listeners if they’ve already forgotten about the tragedy of Sept. 11.
One of Schrenk’s fellow organizers said she also planned to dress up as Lady Liberty and stand on the back of the truck during a portion of the route they planned for that evening. The route generally takes about four hours, Schrenk said, spanning from Citrus Heights to Folsom to Roseville.
Schrenk said the MAGA Riders are a newer group who branched off from another group called the Freedom Riders, adding that he has “nothing but respect” for the Freedom Riders, but that they’ve “dialed back” their engagement lately.
According to multiple videos posted online by various publications, the Freedom Riders 1776 organized multiple “Trump Train” cruises throughout 2024, many of which began at Sunrise Mall.
Both the Freedom Riders 1776 and MAGA Riders have private Facebook groups.
Aside from the weekly cruise nights, Schrenk said the group has a food trailer and regularly feeds the homeless. Schrenk also plans to add to the group’s community service efforts, helping victims of natural disasters with disaster relief supplies.
