WATERLOO - They've promised him Fourth Street, and Jim Koch is fairly confident he'll get it on Saturday.

But just in case he doesn't, Koch's got an alternate route for the annual 4th Street Cruise.

"They're still telling me the streets are going to be done by then," said Koch, chairman of the 4th Street Cruise, referring to the ongoing road construction at various points along Fourth Street and in downtown Waterloo.

Whether or not the streets are finished on time, a route will be in place and hundreds of classic car owners will still descend on downtown Waterloo for the 28th annual 4th Street Cruise, featuring the appropriate theme, "Rippin' Up 4th."

The event starts at 11:30 a.m. Saturday, with a Show and Shine event from 6 to 9 p.m. at the Pepsi Pavilion Friday. A dance will take place from 8 p.m. to midnight Saturday at Electric Park Ballroom, featuring the band GTO.

Jeff Swartzendruber, co-owner of Image Pointe, annually sells the 4th Street Cruise shirts and shows off his 1969 Dodge Charger RT. He said the muscle car is for sale, with the money going toward humanitarian efforts in Bosnia, where several Image Pointe employees are from.

"I love cars, and you never know what kind of cars you're going to see," Swartzendruber said of the Cruise.

If the streets are finished in time, the route will be the same as in past years. Two opposite loops will begin on the west and east sides of the Cedar River and follow Fourth Street, looping around and coming back.

If Fourth and surrounding streets aren't finished, an alternate route is planned that will bypass the construction. But organizers hope to try to stay on Fourth whenever possible. It is, after all, not the Commercial Street Cruise.

"We feel it's a kickoff of the summer, and we generate this for the community," said Koch. "It just draws people back downtown. They used to cruise Fourth Street when they were kids."

That includes Tom Held, who remembers the days of cruising Fourth Street as a teenager in his '46 Ford.

Though he no longer has that car, Held built a candy-apple red '39 Chevrolet coupe more than 40 years ago and drives the street rod in the 4th Street Cruise every year.

"A lot of guys in this town can build some pretty nice cars," Held said.

Don Betts, program director for cruise sponsor COOL 105.7, gets to drive the company's white 1962 Chevy Corvette every year. Until it stops going backward and forward, Betts said that tradition will continue - and the sentiment, he suspects, is echoed.

"Everyone likes to come out and look at the cars and listen to great tunes," he said.