2011 Hot Rod Power Tour Dates and Locations:
Saturday, June 4 – Cocoa Beach, FL at Port Canavaral
Sunday, June 5 – Adel/Valdosta, GA at South Georgia Motorsports Park
Monday, June 6 – Montgomery, AL at Montgomery Motorsports Park
Tuesday, June 7 – Nashville, TN at LP Field
Wednesday, June 8 – Indianapolis, IN at Indianapolis Motor Speedway
Thursday, June 9 – Muskegon, MI at Downtown
Friday, June 10 – Detroit, MI at Metropolitan Beach
Saturday, June 11 – Detroit, MI (Long Hauler Awards – TBD)

Also to get the most up to date information on the Tour, please follow them on their twitter site. And Chip Foose will be at the first stop in Newton, IA. I’m a big personal fan and can not wait to see him in person, even if I do just get his autograph.

I came up with a little idea, I’m going to have a balloon attached to my car. Something easy to see and noticeable. I don’t know what it will be, but when I find it I will post it up here and let you know.

Keep those photo of the day PMs and e-mails coming!

Saturday June 5, Iowa Speedway, Newton, IA 

Sunday June 6, Springfield, IL 

Monday June 7, Du Quoin, IL 

Tuesday June 8, Bowling Green, KY 

Wednesday June 9, Chattanooga, TN 

Thursday June 10, Birmingham, AL 

Friday June 11, Mobile, AL

I’ve already got my hotel rooms reserved and I signed up online for the Power Tour at familyevents.com. See you all out there!

We set out single file after the driver’s meeting and it was a parade as we left. Police blocked off intersections for us and locals parked and waved as we drove by. Our first stop was at NASCAR’s number 17 Matt Kenseth’s fan showroom just outside of Madison. Here’s a little view of the traffic:

We passed through a little town called Cambridge, WI in which we really felt like celebrities. People lined the streets hootin’ and hollerin’, all jazzed up for the tour. Shenanigans ensued when bystanders threw water on the street and convinced drivers to “light ‘em up”. The police put a swift end to that as we got a stern talking to from one of Cambridge’s finest (thank god he let us off with a warning). The best part was that we didn’t even do a burn out, the Pacer’s just so loud the 5-O just assumed we were up to no good.

The optional stop of the day was in Union Grove, WI at Great Lakes Dragway. We HAD to run the Pacer to see what she’d do…however it had rained earlier and while they dried the track, nobody could really get their cars to hook up. My dad’s best time today was a 14 flat, but the tires spun through 3rd. If he could have gotten any traction it would have been much better. With a bit more tweaking, mid to low 13’s should be easy. We look forward to Bristol where more drag strip fun should be plentiful. I’ll have a video up of today’s 14 run tomorrow.

Due to the popularity of the drag strip, we got held up and didn’t make it into Racine until 4:30 or so. By that point, things were so huge that I didn’t stand a chance of seeing everything. I walked around a bit, but our stomachs were growling and we had some serious bench racing to do over some steaks. Ryan, I’m hoping you got some good stuff today, because I had too much fun at the dragstrip to get enough shots of stuff in Racine.

Now, here’s where the Power Tour gets fun. When we parked the car in Racine, we saw that the front camber on the wheels of the Pacer is way off. We’ve been battling this ever since we lowered the car, and it looks like we’re going to have to do something about it if we want to save the brand new Kumho’s up front. Unfortunately, we’ll have to skip the driver’s meeting tomorrow to find a suspension shop, but it shouldn’t slow us down too much.

That’s for tomorrow. For today, below are a few of my highlight shots from today. I promise, there will be a LOT more tomorrow.

A DIESEL Hot Rod. Owner claims 52mpg. Wicked.

See the rest at MotorFanatics!

Read more after the jump!

We stayed in Rockford last night and made the quick drive up to Madison this morning. The drive was smooth and easy, and we found the Pacer cruises best around 85. Autobahn much? Unfortunately not. We arrived in Madison, and soon started to see muscle cars and hot rods and followed the pack to Alliant Energy Center where we registered and started checking out the power shenanigans.

The best part about the Power Tour is that people show up to drive rain or shine. They’re predicting rain for the next few days, but it hasn’t really hampered things at all. Tomorrow morning there should be some drag racing on the way to Racine, but it might get rained out. Finger’s crossed the rain holds off until after we can get the Pacer down the ¼ mile a couple times. Might even get to run the OTHER Pacer that showed up too!  I’ll get some more action shots and lifestyle shots tomorrow at the driver’s meeting too.

Check out a few highlight shots below, and check out all my photos and my top 10 gallery at MotorFanatics!

Just arrived!

The other Pacer!!! Sporting a Mopar 440!

60 Edsel Wagon

Quiz:x Lincoln. Anyone guess year?

59 El Camino

86 Omni GLHS…one of the ORIGINAL hot hatches, only 500 Shelby’s were made.

Check back tomorrow for Day 2 coverage!

Saying goodbye to home, I headed to work for the day.  Arriving at Car Guy Garage, the place was abuzz.  Everyone was excited for me, Jim, President of the company and Tim, the Vice-President were both getting everything in line for me leaving.  Jim is a computer genius and had all the “geek” gadgets ready for me.  Camera, laptop, website setup, FTP access for this blog to post video (test later). Continue reading after the jump!

Robert and LaVaughn who I also work with put in effort to get everything ready for the Tour. LaVaughn spent hours (I think) in figuring out a easy way to convert the videos I will be sending, putting them into a format so that any computer can easily view the updates.

By the time this is put up, I should already be in Wisconsin getting ready for a BBQ tomorrow. Here is the information on the BBQ for anyone interested in attending. And my groups arrival time in Madison on Saturday.

My group is going to be showing up on Saturday at 1.

The BBQ is at:

Lakeland Camping Resort
2803 East State Road 59
Milton, WI 53563

There is a party at my place though on Friday. It is only a half hour straight south on I-90 from Madison.

Once you enter LAKELAND, go down the main road to the main store, with the pool. I’ll be setup there.

2300 miles, here I come!

Day six was like no other. Everything was going well. That’s where the trouble started. I had heard from a friend that Wisconsin had been hit hard by storms the night below. At first it didn’t click that my family’s camper and pier are might be in danger.

So I just cruised along the Mississippi River with a few friends. It was an absolutely amazing day. Sun was out, weather wasn’t too hot, and I had a Mopar party to get to. Continue reading…

So the drive south from Rochester was a nice one all the way to the Mopar show. There were no major backups. It did feel good to cross east of the Mississippi again though.

I pulled into Coon Valley, WI to go to the Mopar party at Mega Parts. I thought they did a lot of new parts, but I was completely wrong! They had a long barn full of cars and parts. It was a literal treasure trove of parts!

I held myself back, though. I enjoyed some beverages and lunch when the MoPower Tour rolled into town. That’s when the party really kicked off. Lines of Mopars filled the parking lot across the street from a 69 Charger Daytona to a original (with original rust) Hemi Satellite.

Our group basked in the hospitality of our hosts and was allowed to enter "The Temple of Doom." I got my Indiana Jones hat, and Rob Wolf of Mopar Collector Guide and I made our way back into the barn. On the one side were stacks of Mopar parts, the other side, a 69 M Code Cuda, 63 Dodge Polara I believe, and buried in the back was a 71 Road Runner! And rare parts wherever you turned.

I eventually made my way back to the front door after crying a bit. And made my way back to the Caprice. The MoPower Tour was getting ready to leave, and JoAnne and her Daytona were going to follow me in the Tour. We both had enough gas, so when the rest of the tour stopped in Coon Valley, we continued on.

We drove for quite a while. Just cruising along, everyone giving the Daytona thumbs up! I actually heard on one of the slow spots on the tour, some people actually got on their hands and knees and began to worship the Daytona!

We got gas outside a little down some valley in Western Wisconsin. The Caprice got gassed up with some 91 as did the Daytona. When we went to get going, the Daytona wouldn’t start! My father discovered that the battery cable was coming apart and was lose. So we got it temporarily fixed and continued on our way.

On the drive to Madison, we saw some of the flooding that had been occurring homes and cars underwater. Roads completely covered. We were travelling on Hwy 14 and had little to no problem. I-90, though, was closed outside of Mauston, WI because flooding took out part of the road.

We went like this for the next hour coming into Madison. JoAnne and I split right outside Madison as she was going to head to the hotel to meet up with someone. And we continued on with the rest of the tour.

It was this time that I began to realize that I really should check up on our place in Wisconsin. That is when I got bad news that the lake had gone up several FEET in a few days and that our pier was now under water.

This pushed me into overdrive. I got into the Madison venue and took a whole bunch of pictures, got my Long Hauler sheet stamped and headed out. I wish I could have stayed longer, but there are more important things in life.

So I flew down to Lakeland Camping Resort where the actual camper was safe and sound, but everything else down by the lake was a mess. The lake was four or five feet higher then normal. Where our pier used to be, the water was up to my shoulders.

I was able to save the metal framework and six of fourteen pieces of the pier. But the rest were lost. So I returned to the camper, got some dinner and crashed. I wondered what the long hauler meeting would bring. It was a day I’ll never forget!

The day started with sadness. The storms we had just slept through had killed some Boy Scouts miles away. And it didn’t look good for us as the clouds looked very bad.

But we persevered and headed out west to pick up Hwy 69 North. We pulled onto 69 and at that same time our friends were there. The group drove north heading to Jewell, IA with rain sprinkling here and there.

About two miles outside of Jewell there was a shop with a bunch of Mopars. We drove past fairly quickly and then all of a sudden came to a stop. Apparently the breakfast in Jewell was such a hit they didn’t have room for everyone. So the backup just got bigger and bigger. Continue reading…

Our merry band of GM vehicles did a u-turn and headed another way, which put us ahead of the backup and cruising along at a steady pace. Then 69 had a detour–it had been washed out on the main route, so we had to take this LONG detour around.

We went through a whole bunch of little towns and made our way back to 69 north. All went well, we were really making good time and having a blast. The weather started getting better and better. Then Hwy 18 East loomed ahead. So we turned onto the highway and found the first gas station in over an hour, so the majority of our group had to refill.

At this time I got a call from JoAnn from the Chicagoland Mopar Connection club. Someone had told her not to do the detour and she was lost in Iowa. I gave her directions to get to Highway 18. And I also told her about a secret meeting. The MoPower group was going to meet up at the last place that Buddy Holly and the Big Bopper played at before they died, the Surf Ballroom. So we all met up there and chatted for a bit, then took off to head to Minnesota. Later we found out that the new directions we were given were bad, and there were more lane closures caused by the flooding. So we hopped on I-35 North to Minnesota and never looked back.

Now I never grew up in the muscle car era. So all of a sudden to have a 69 Charger Daytona behind me, 70 Challenger R/T Vert in front of me and everything else Mopar around me. It was quite incredible. While my Caprice is made for cruising and is only twenty years old, those forty year old car never missed a beat and were pushing past me like nothing!

We took I-35 North for quite a while. Time just kinda blurred together on those large highways. It was fun going triple digits with all those Mopars. We got into Minnesota and then merged onto Highway 14 East. We took that all the way to Rochester, MN. We pulled into the city limits and some of the group needed to fill up since they hadn’t the time before. And there just happened to be a Famous Dave’s BBQ place next door. The poor place didn’t know what hit it. We took up a good chunk of their back room. The cops were outside, and it was nearly complete chaos.

I was told an amazing story by a friend I met on the tour. He owns the blue ’69 340 Cuda I mentioned a few blogs back. He was driving along when he blew a headgasket on his 340. No big deal he thought, but his girlfriend wanted to head home. He didn’t think it was that bad, so he took her to the Little Rock, AR airport for a flight out. Well apparently it was bad and on his way to Ames the head decided to melt down on the side of the road.

Well a farmer helped him get it onto his farm and the farmer was a Mopar guy with a whole bunch of Mopars sitting around that he was building or using for parts. Thehead couldn’t be saved so the farmer GAVE him a head off of a 360 he had lying around from a 80s RamCharger. They swapped it over and he was on the road the next day. The farmer didn’t even want anything in return. The guy with the ‘Cuda quietly accepted, but will be repaying the kind old man in the future for the assistance he did. With what I’ve seen on this tour, gives me some hope in humanity!

Our group pulled into the show around 3:45 pm and got an end spot. And I began to investigate the show. It was quite a nice show, the weather turned out perfect and I was there with good people. I started walking around and what do I see, a BRAND NEW CHALLENGER. I am of course giddy with excitement and begin asking the guy all these questions about the car. His response was, "I just bought the car two hours ago, brought it straight here and want $55,000 for it." I said thanks, snapped a bunch of pictures and continued on my way.

There was quite a stable of cars at this show, a 70 Superbird, Cobras and everything in between. I spent some of my afternoon with some Mopar guys I met from the area, chatting with them about Mopars and new technology. Then I took off a little early to get ready for the last leg of the trip, south to Madison.