Power Tour 15 (tm)

Hey Everyone! I finally made it home to Minneapolis Monday night; we stayed another day after the long hauler awards to go tour New Orleans. Only had enough time for the French Quarter and that was a full day/evening.

We drove about 3100 miles round trip and had a blast. Will it was great to meet you and hope to see you again; the tour is addicting and I miss following others taillights. Chip, sorry we missed you guys, I was watching for you.

We had a couple of incidents this year, one of our group was in the lead of a pack of tour cars and he was flying....73 in a 55 according to the cop that pulled him over in Mississippi. He Told Dewayne if his license is as clean as his truck he had nothing to worry about. True enough the cop let him go with a "slow it down, son". 50 miles later in a traffic jam Hot Rod pulled me over for a photo shoot around Picayune; those pics are on the website. Looks good except they called my wife "Violet"; Sue thought that was kind of funny. The guys think it is hilarious and already looking for purple shirts for her.

I had my Z-bar break around Madison IL on the way to the drag strip. I had to drive with minimal clutch for 2 days until Birmingham where a fellow PT guy opened his shop for me and with some heat and beat and a welder I was back on the road again. The lower arm on the Z Bar cracked and tore away from the bar so there was little movement below at the clutch fork.

I have pictures to share and once I find the correct USB cord to load them in my computer I'll start posting up here. More to follow.....
John

 

Hey Guys, Good to see john again. I got your note at Gateway Chip but I misplaced it (found when I cleaned car out AFTER I got home). I did get to check your car out tho at memphis, but you were gone next time I came by. Next year PT is up in air for me, depends on route. We'll try to get that group pic sometime.

Brian Hawk (Red/black 72 Grabber)

 

Hi Brian:
Sorry I missed you . St.Louis was really cluttered and confused ... they had visitors parking in the LongHaulers areas, and vice versa .. A real mess .. There was a LOT of room near the vendor areas .. but unused since the folks
responsible for the parking arrangements seemed overwhelmed by the traffic. Maybe next time. I 'd like to meet you.
Cometized
(Chip)

 

Finally getting around to posting pictures, may take me a little while to sort through. Some random pictures of the drive up. I didn't get too pic happy until St Louis. Since we were "that close" Jen wanted to drive to Lambeau Field, so we registered, got punched in, and headed for Green Bay.

 

Day 2 was kind of a blur, we stopped at Heidts for some hotdogs, and stayed a little too long. We got caught in a pretty serious storm, sideways rain, barely see past the hood visibility. We were running behind as it was, so not many pictures. We made it to the event just in time to punch in, then head for the hotel. We got to the hotel at the same time the second round of storms hit, and spent the night in the dark.

 

The drive to St Louis was less stressful, Chip called, and was about 10 miles ahead of us, so he stopped and let us catch up. (Of course I didn't get any pics at the gas station). We split from him when we decided to go to the arch, which led us to a cobblestone street, and dragging sub frame connectors. We gave up on the arch, and went back to Gateway Motorsports park.

 

A few more from St Louis. The size of the events is just massive, the entire track, and infield were full of cars. Even more cars on the back side of the grandstands. We caught up with another Okie, Raymond with the 72 Torino, who joined us for a couple of days.
I tried to take pictures of not so common cars, like the Edsals, the Hemi powered Yugo, and the Fairmont. (And that sneaky silver foxbody Mustang) More odd cars to follow.

 

First casualty. The 40 sprung a leak. Luckily a small general repair shop fixed it for him for $20. He was too busy to pull and install it, so we gladly took care of that.
The breakdown put us behind again, so not many pictures of the drive to Memphis. We had cold beverages, and a swimming pool on our minds.

 

Just more randoms.

I actually had Rick Kirk stop me at St Louis.
For those who don't know, Rick is a serious FoMoCo collector. The guy has actual Maverick Boss 9 factory program stuff laying on his desk with Napa receipts laying on top of it. SOHC 427 stuff, he's probably got it. GAPP &ROUSH team shirts hanging in his office. Yeah. That guy. I've met him before, and he's a super nice guy, but the fact that he stopped me... made me feel like I'm somebody.

 

Hi Will :
Enjoyed the photos ..nice spread . I'm still sorting mine out .. I figure in a couple of weeks I'll have them up
in case anyone is interested. It was a great run .. we did 4415 miles , crossed the Mississippi three times, drove thru
12 States and did all this in ten days. The Comet got 20 mpg and didn't use a drop of oil. Remarkable since the engine only had 1500 miles on it when we left. Dr.Bill and Alex built it right. Hope to see you guys on the NEXT one .. don't
know Where it may go but we'll try to attend. See ya ..
Cometized
(Chip)

 

More from the road. The drive from Memphis was our first day of taking the "recommend route". It really is like the biggest parade you could ever imagine. Cars everywhere. Even a petty blue duster with no break lights, who almost got a maverick up his tailpipe.
Every gas station becomes a carshow, and the locals line the streets to wave, and check out the cars. Some of the girls at a restaurant we stopped to eat at were shocked about the traffic, and worried about how they were even getting home.
Got to pass Kenny Wayne Shepherd, see the actual Sanford and Son truck, and meet the coolest toddler with her pink Cadillac cruising the Hoover Stadium parking lot.

 

Thanks Chip, I've got more, it's just finding time to post them. We made a new friend in Hoover who invited us to stay at her place for Cruising the Coast this October. Depending on how the vacation time goes, we may be back on the Gulf before long.

 

One thing about Power Tour, you don't go anywhere that there are no cool cars.
Our new friend Gayle's pink Chevy that was vandalized at the Hoover event by a jealous hillbilly who took offense to the color choice.
79 F100 pace truck!
Gremlin pulling a trailer, yeah, there's some odd stuff out there.
Made it to the gulf! The traffic pulling into the Gulfport event was terrible, with lots of rising temperature gauges. I had to pop the hood a couple of times and pour my water bottle out on the radiator to just get into the event.

 

great pictures, i'd love to do that tour one day...

 

Be great to have you over. These guys shipped the Falcon from Australia to do the tour. So there is no excuse. Lol