Because it wasn't hot enough in Georgia, the pack pressed on to Alabama and the dragstrip at Montgom

There is no way to truly capture it or prepare for it. We’ve tried for 17 years straight—and newbies still walk away stunned, unprepared for the sights and sounds of hot rods hitting austin small hotel the road every morning for seven days straight, rolling 1,600-plus miles, and stopping nightly to disgorge their human cargo into massive cruise scenes that degenerate into parties, sucking austin small hotel dry every hotel bar and masticating every steak in a 10-block radius. Folks may have never before experienced becoming pals at first sight, as they instantly bond with like-minded gearheads and/or austin small hotel witness utter strangers stop everything to help them through roadside anguish. Guys probably never expected to walk among the likes of Mario Andretti, Vic Edelbrock, and Chip Foose through austin small hotel the valleys austin small hotel of small-town America and to the landmarks of the country’s greatest automotive achievements.
Leading this year’s Power Tour® story are Eddie Griffin’s 396 Chevelle in Tangelo austin small hotel Pearl out of Muskegon, Michigan; Dave Pysell’s Millennium Yellow ’57 Chevy with a blown 454 from Cleveland, Ohio; Rick McKellips’ Sassy Grass ’70 Dodge Super Bee from Fennville, Michigan; Frank and Laura Harris’ Chevy-powered ’71 Gremmie out of Twin Lake, Michigan; and Thomas and Jessica Hama’s 273-urged ’64 Dart from Cleveland.
But that’s the HOT ROD Power Tour . As usual, it was presented by GM Performance Division. This year’s thundering road trip rocked austin small hotel from June 4-11, germinating at the Painless Performance Kickoff Party at Port Canaveral near Cocoa Beach, Florida, before ripping through Valdosta, Georgia; Montgomery, Alabama; Nashville, Tennessee; austin small hotel Indianapolis, austin small hotel Indiana; Muskegon, Michigan; and Detroit, Michigan. Along the way, we gathered 4,702 registered cars and an estimated 75,200 spectators. Those who went all the way with HOT ROD gained membership in the Long Haulers , which included 1,421 cars and 2,475 people.
Among ’em was a record quantity of HOT ROD staffers documenting the shebang. The magazine staffers numbered austin small hotel four, we had two videographers at WOT, HOT ROD Live radio host Dennis Pittsenbarger was kicking in, and the crew of HOT ROD TV was there every minute, capturing a full episode austin small hotel to air on Speed. Toss in the coverage from other websites, local newspapers, TV, and radio stations, and the Power Tour® media blitz makes the Obama campaign look like Oprah didn’t get her money’s worth.
This issue of HOT ROD contains more pages generated at Power Tour® than ever before, including this story, all but one of the car features, and all the tech stories. That’s a first, but it still doesn’t scratch the surface. You also need to check out the Power Tour® ’11 page at HOTROD.com , where you’ll find nearly 4,000 photos, 54 blog items that were posted live, and 16 videos that were released during and after the event. If you’re not a fan at Facebook.com/HotRodMag , then you missed another 140 posts from the road (but you can still sign up there for day-to-day updates and polls from the HOT ROD editors). All the videos austin small hotel can also be seen at YouTube.com/HotRodMagazine , where you can subscribe to our channel for free. And, of course, watch the Speed TV schedule for show reruns.
I Dream of Jeannie. That tinkly theme was stuck in our heads as we hit the ground in Cocoa Beach, Florida, for the Painless Performance Kickoff Party that was held in the parking lot of one of the landings in Port Canaveral. Dedicated in 1953, the place became famous in 1961 when Alan Shepard became the first American in space and his Freedom 7 capsule was rescued from the ocean by ships stationed in Canaveral. Up until the discontinuation austin small hotel of the Space Shuttle program in 2011, the solid-rocket boosters from those spacecraft found their way back to NASA through the port.
But on this Saturday, it was all about hot rods—the only reminders of the ocean being the ubiquitous Ron Jon surf decals and a redonkulously enormous cruise ship slipping by, which seemed a mere foot away from the aft of the HOT ROD tour bus. The anchor attraction was Mario Andretti, who came along with MagnaFlow. All day, cars slipped in and out of the awkwardly partitioned parking lot, drivers mingled at the registration trailer, and guys cracked knuckles in last-minute repairs. The GM Motor Medics were in full hum, wrenching on participants’ cars even before austin small hotel Power Tour® had moved an inch. The next morning would be big.
The Space Center tour included a drive past the final assembly building austin small hotel where spacecraft are prepped before heading to the launch pad. This ’61 Corvette is very similar to astronaut Alan Shepard’s ’62. While astronauts are famed for driving Corvettes, Shepard’s is the only one known to be an outright gift from General Motors—though some were sold or leased for a dollar.
Kennedy Space Center. Founded in 1962 and so-named in 1963, it’s the Launch Operations Center of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. NASA. Real rocket science. Until 2004, it was the point of departure for every American who had ever traveled to space. Civilians don’t regularly get to drive through austin small hotel in personal vehicles, but 950-plus participants signed up for the opportunity to wheel their rods through the facility as their first mile of Power Tour . Less than four weeks earlier, austin small hotel on mission STS-134, space shuttle Endeavour austin small hotel made its final mission. Staged on the launching pad was shuttle Atlantis, prepared for mission STS-135—the last shuttle launch ever—scheduled soon thereafter on July 8. It’s hard to imagine austin small hotel another Power Tour that could have such a close brush with history.
austin small hotel This is the awe-inspiring Rocket Garden at Kennedy Space Center. From left to right are the Juno 1, Saturn 1B (horizontal), Delta 19, Atlas-Agena, and Gemini-Titan. The cars are Dave Molle’s LS1-powered ’62 Impala from M&M Motorsports in Glidden, Iowa, and Jim Wade’s legit ’70 GTO Judge from Newport, New Hampshire.
The first day of driving didn’t feel like a regular Power Tour®. Half the pack took a head start on the cruise from Florida to Georgia and another 800-plus cars were way behind schedule after the Space Center tour. Many participants sidetracked to the Don Garlits Museum of Drag Racing in Ocala, Florida. Those who stuck to the published route were met by a smoke storm from a fire in a roadside swamp. By the time the entire group landed at South Georgia Motorsports Park in Valdosta, Georgia (home of the Buick GS Club of America), the turnout was enormous, but the Royal Purple drag racing time was cut a little short for the latecomers.
That’s 16-year-old Trevor Estes from Tallahassee, austin small hotel Florida, with his rod based on a chopped ’48 Ford truck cab with a ’37 International grille sitting on a heavily Z’d and 6-inch-lengthened ’32 Ford frame. It runs a 350 and a 700-R4 and takes him everywhere. The Butternut Yellow car is RideTech’s Project 48-Hour Camaro, completely overhauled in mere moments on live-feed video a few months ago using Lingenfelter power (see RideTech.com ). That’s Shawn Thomsen and Ken Lichtenberg from Oshkosh, Wisconsin, in an ’08 Shelby GT500 packing 750 supercharged horsepower. It has a 3G Carbon wide-body kit, a Classic Design glass roof, and a Super Snake hood.
Because it wasn’t hot enough in Georgia, the pack pressed on to Alabama and the dragstrip at Montgomery MotorSports Park. Every time we ventured out of our cushy Chevy Tahoe on loan from GMPD, the heat smashed us like a mudslide. During the road trip, it was sobering to see shredded trees and mangled buildings—often right next to those that were untouched—left behind by the tornados austin small hotel of several weeks prior. Still, the Tour® was gaining momentum with more local participants than the day before and lots of open-lanes drag racing action. The HRM staff kicked it into gear, shooting several car features and hanging out with the Lucas/E3 chassis dyno guys. After hours, hot rodders gathered in the huge parking lot across from the host hotel and had even more fun as the sun fell and the temps dropped into refreshing low 80s.
Of all the cars that break down at the side of the road, the editorial staff has time to help very few. Wade and Jill Linger from Fairmont, West Virginia, were the recipients of Mike Finnegan’s eye for wiring when he and Brandan austin small hotel Gillogly fixed a bad ground that was killing the electric fuel pump in their Nomad. Twice.
This crew includes austin small hotel Sid Sanders with his ’27 T coupe from Montgomery, Alabama; Karl Cozad’s austin small hotel ’54 Chevy from Kansas City, Missouri; and Jimmy Evans from Cumming, Georgia, running a Blower Shop 8-71 on a 572ci Chevy in his beater ’55 Chevy truck.
When the HRM staff hit Nashville, the scene instantly déjà vu’d us to the best days of Power Tours® past, with great cars teeming absolutely everywhere. The venue was LP Field, the 12-year-old stadium with a natural grass field that’s the home of the Tennessee Tigers college team and the Titans (née Houston Oilers) NFL organization. Holley was the official sponsor of the day, and the Royal Purple High Performance Experience action turned from drag racing austin small hotel into a parking-lot autocross for all comers (see the more detailed story in this issue). The HOT ROD photographers shot eight participants’ cars in and around the scrapyards adjacent to the Football Majal.
Nashville, Tennessee, hosted by Holley En route to the Holley party at LP Field, we nabbed this group of cruisers from Year One. The line is led by the NFL Washington Redskins’ DeAngelo Hall in his blown Hemi ’69 Dodge Charger dubbed austin small hotel “BigTime” by YO’s Ghostworks Garage.
While the NASA experience was huge, many participants were more stoked to visit the Indianapolis Motor Speedway—just 10 days after the 100th anniversary of the Indianapolis 500-Mile Race—for the cruise event hosted by Coker Tire (which, by the way, re-creates some vintage Indy racing tires). More than 3,500 cars thronged the infield, and while you’d think a facility that handles the greatest spectacle in racing could manage shuffling some hot rods around, things turned whack when the 2,000 cars signed up for