Friday June 4th -- Well Pat, Fitz and I made it to Iowa yesterday with no issues. Went thru a little rain, but nothing too serious. We picked up Alan Stroh from the Brandywine Cruisers on the way as well. Made a stop at the "worlds largest truckstop" based just inside Iowa on I-80 ... don't get no better than that, maybe tomorrow we'll see the worlds largest ball of string or something!! :))
Sat June 5th -- Registraton went good and we had a great steak dinner at Grinnel, Iowa. Last night it rained like I've never seen before...one town near by got 5 inches of rain!!!!! Today was pretty nice and we took in the Sprint car hall of fame at the Knoxville speedway. That was pretty kool if you are a sprint car fan. Looked like our lucky day as the World of Outlaws are in town to race tonight... we planned to go, but the skys opened up again about 6pm (luckily we were already back at the hotel) and it rained monsoon like for about 30 minutes so the race was most likely rained out :(
Sun June 6th -- Everything is still going well! Had a great day of cruising today! Weather was great all day! Went from Newton, Iowa to Springfield, ILL. today with no issues. The drive through the small towns along the way was fun. There were tons of folks just sitting along the highway waving at us all as we passed. Kinda feel like a rock star. It's way kool!! Springfield really rolled out the red carpet and the whole downtown was shutdown for the Hot Rod Power Tour. :)
Tues June 8th -- We made the trip from DuQuoin IL to Bowling Green today. Beautiful day, the cars ran well all day. The HRPT was set up at the local airport. Very hot today, temps in the mid 90's. We got stuck in traffic entering the venue and the Prez's goat got up to 220 degrees before we got parked, a little too warm for sure! Along the road today we ran into 3 funky looking vehicles at a gas stop. They were some dudes from Australia driving 3 Holden vehicles (very similar to the Holden GTO's) except these were styled like the small Dodge trucks that were kinda "El Camino" esk. We also detoured from the pack to Metropolis, IL, as in Superman fame Metropolis. There was a Ford Tri-Motor airplane giving airplane rides today as well. The 3 amigos decided to stay planted on the ground. I got a few pix of the orange GTO ('64 conv) that was detailed in a recent issue of the legend. Its an '06 GTO fitted with '64 sheet metal. Very clever indeed. He drove here from Colorado!!! We decided to take in the Vette Museum since neither Fitz nor Pat had ever stopped to see it before. All in all a great trip and good day. Tomorrow we are off to Chattanooga, Tenn. and hope to make contact with Tom Hart, a past Prez of the Indy GTO Assn.
Till Then, Cruz'em if ya Got'em
Prez Bill
Wed June 9th -- Bowling Green to Chattanooga, Tenn. We took off and decided to pass on the cross-country drive due to the on slaught of rain and we took the major highways and interstates. Sounded easy, but co-pilot Fitz blew to the navigator duties multiple times, so Pat & I had to fire him and go with the Garmin :)). Today's event was held at the Chattanga Community College right downtown on the river front. Very nice venue, but once again a big crowd, big traffic back-up and the Presidental Goat was not happy about running around at +220 degrees. Today was my day in the barrel form a poor running car. On the way to Tenn. my Goat was beginning to miss out running down the highway and I was having trouble keeping it running when stopping at signals and stop signs. We headed to the venue and got our credentials stamped with no problems. However, once we got to the hotel, checked in and I went to move my GTO out from under the front door canopy and .... no start. Lots of crank'n but it flat refused to move any further. Of course when this happens in a public place like that, you get plenty of "help" from the peanut gallery. Well, I had plenty of gas being fed in, plenty of air, not so much in the spark deptartment. A quick inspection of the coil wire revealed it was lose on the coil and had arc'd pretty badly and needed repalced. A short trip to the local parst house and I scored a new coil wire, back to the hotel, replaced the wire and that beautiful sound of a 455 cid Pontiac came to life!! What a relief!! These trips are always a bit of a calculated risk, so it was good to resolve this issue with minimal interuptions. At least I wasn't at some gas station in the middle of "banjo music country" with no "back-up." What fun this is!! If you're a car nut and doing the HRPT isn't on your "bucket list" you might want to re-think you're bucket list!! :)) It's been hot as Hell the last two days and now we head .... South! Fitz is hanging tough and probably handling the heat better then me!!! We had dinner tonight with Alan Stroh (Brandywine Cruiser-Greenfield) and his co-pilot Dave tonight. They said on the trip through the country side today they came across a wadded up '69 Camaro in the middle of the street, then later at the venue saw a lime green Camaro with its tail end all wadded up ... oops, alegedly the Camaro "hit water and hydro planned" and the guy backed it into the guard rail. Bummer. Well, that's about all of the excitment from today . Tomorrow we are off to Birmingham, Al. Wish us luck!!
Cruz'em if ya Got'em
Prez Bill
Fri June 11th -- Goatsers, This was a complete bummer of a day. Friday June 11th there was a fatal crash on the power tour. Thankfully, no one from our group was involved and we all returned Saturday safely to Indiana with no issues (or at least very few issues). Please keep this family in your prayers. Prez Bill http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/article/20100611/NEWS/100619954/1007?Title=Florida-man-killed-in-head-on-collision&tc=ar#
