Hello TAC,
I've been wanting to drive the Hot Rod Power Tour (HRPT) for a long time. I thought I'd share my experience in case it might help anyone else decide if it's worth their vacation time.
The HRPT started in Memphis TN on Monday June 13th. We left Philly Saturday to take the scenic route from Philly to Nashville via West Virginia and Kentucky.
We spent Sunday exploring Nashville. Did you know they had a replica of the ancient Greek Parthenon there!?
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Tom Sherer I didn't.
I also didn't know that there was a Gibson guitar factory there. My kid is a bit of a guitar geek. So this killed a lot of time.
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Tom ShererA bunch of unrelated stuff came up which led to us changing plans and not driving out to Memphis for day 1 of the HRPT. Instead we spent time visiting family. The plan was to meet up with the tour when they came to Nashville Tuesday.
At lunchtime Tuesday we headed over to Nashville Speedway to meet up with the tour arriving there from Memphis. It was cool being able to drive up through the tunnel to the infield where the HRPT venue was set up...
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Tom ShererThe weather was NOT cool. It was super hot, and humid. On the way in, sitting in traffic, we saw people in convertibles with beach umbrella's set up in the back seat for shade, many improvised shades, and battery fans in car windows I wish I would of got pics of the cars in line doing everything possible to stay out of the sun.
Luckily, I had planned ahead and made a set of T-Top shades:
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Tom ShererThey helped us stay cool head-to-toe in the blazing sun.
The event set up consisted of a sponsor mid-way:
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Tom ShererSome cool sponsor cars:
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Tom ShererAnd, a stage.
On the stage, they interviewed Faye Hadley, of All Girls Garage. It was too hot to hang out to see what else was going on. But I didn't hear any bands or anything like that as we explored.
Mostly we walked around to check out the participant's cars.
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Tom ShererThe venue was OK. I liked exploring speedway. And they had sprinklers to walk through and free water. In the shade of the paddocks there were cooler fans which made taking breaks from the heat possible. We had a decent time.
We hung out until 5, then headed back to my brothers for dinner. That's when we had our first issue. The TA threw the accessory belt right when we fired it up to leave for the night and head out to Alabama the next morning!
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Tom ShererThe tensioner pulley on the Kwick Performance AC bracket was out of whack:
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Tom ShererThis appears to be a design flaw with this setup. This being the 2nd time the tensioner pulley bearing race will wore uneven after 10,000 miles. Luckily the parts were available locally. It only took 1.5 Hrs to get the parts and install 'em in my brother's driveway.
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Tom ShererThat night, we installed our official HRPT windshield banner too! I was excited for our first day traveling with the group. The itinerary said the departure for the trip from Nashville to Hoover AL was from Nashville Speedway at 8 AM.
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Wednesday morning we arrived back at the speedway a little after 8. There was nobody there! The venue was closed. Just a few people hanging out under a shade tree in a track adjacent lot. Asking around about where the HRPT people were, we found a guy from Butler Performance. He was leading a few other Pontiacs to a tour of Butler's facility. Which happened to be along the way to the next venue. So, we cruised with 4 or 5 other Pontiacs to Butler's facility in Lawrenceville.
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Tom ShererThe Butler facility was impressive and the team there was cool We got a tour of their facility, a T-shirt, some coffee and donuts, and an Iced Tea for the road to boot. Sweet! Thanks Butler! After that, we headed to the HRPT venue at Hoover AL Met Complex. More cool cars, more intense heat!
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Tom ShererWe had our first encounter with a casualty here. Dump truck vs. Camaro. If I remember correctly, the dump truck backed into this poor Camaro.
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Tom ShererThe venue was not great. it was all black-top. Unlike the Nashville speedway, there was nowhere to cool down or find shade. And nothing interesting to do.
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Tom ShererEverything else was the same as the prior day. Right down to Fay Hadley getting interviewed on the main stage (Sigh).. We hung out for a couple of hours checking out some more participants' cars.
I spotted this very original '81 Turbo TA...
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And, this IROC done up in the vintage IROC livery. I'm surprised I haven't seen one done like this before. I don't like IROCs. But I deem this one cool.
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We hung out for a couple of hours, then headed to the nearby hotel in Hoover AL.
This was our first evening bunking at the same hotel as many of the other HRPT people. Lots of nice cars in the lot:
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Tom Sherer, on Flickr
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Throughout the evening I ran into a couple of small groups of guys hanging out in the lot and tending to their rides.
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Unfortunately, I think I saw that the sweet Convertible 1st Gen in the group above got rear ended the next day. Casualty #2.
I heard from a couple of HRPT Vets that (so far) the '22 HRPT was 'off' compared to prior years. Things were less organized, the venues were not very good, and the official routes were mostly Interstate driving. They did say that in prior years there was a team with a Power tour bus that lead the official departure. But, those guys hadn't looked for it on this trip.
Armed with some new unofficial information that there -is- normally an 'official' group departure, I was excited to ride to FLA the next morning in a big convoy of classics.
Thursday morning I got up extra early to wipe the car down...
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We arrived at the prior day's venue at 7:30 for an 8:00 departure. There we found...
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Nothing. Same as the prior day, there was just a few cars hanging out wondering where the 'official' departure group was hiding.
We snapped a couple of pictures...
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Then headed out with a group of about 25 cars. This would be the closest I'd come to traveling with a big HRPT convoy...
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The trip from Hoover AL to Pensacola FL was almost completely Interstate. At least we were in with a nice size group. And, we crossed paths with several similarly sized groups of classics along the way. Gas & bathroom stops were also way better than a regular road trip. It was a decent day.
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Tom Sherer, on Flickr
But...
I was disappointed when we arrived at the venue. The Pensacola fair grounds. Too much concrete and not enough shade or area's to cool down from the heat. The midway and entertainment on stage were the same as the prior days. We parked off to the side in order to set up our (now umbrella equipped) chairs over on the grass to watch the cars roll by:
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We didn't stay long. We hit the hotel, cleaned up, and headed to check out the Gulf...This was my first visit to the gulf coast. Cruising Pensacola Beach was a good time...
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The hotel that evening was another decent car show. But it was quiet.
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I felt safe with the TA parked with the herd. But, not everyone felt the same way...
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This guy wasn't the only person to chain his car to a pole. Word was that on night one in Memphis 2 Hellcats were stolen and a couple of cars were broken into. I was happy to have missed Memphis. I heard nothing good about it.
OK - Last day...Pensacola FL to Atlanta GA...Still no organized group departure. A lot of interstate miles were followed by a few miles of backroads. This was the best venue though. Atlanta Motor Speedway. There was drag racing and a drive on the speedway itself. Plus places to cool off!
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All in all a good day, but we had to split out a little early. Our accommodations that night were at a Motel in a little town in NC, close to the "Tail of the Dragon", US 129.
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Tom Sherer, on Flickr
The trip home on Saturday started with a ride on the "Tail's" 318 curves in 11 Miles...
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Tom Sherer, on Flickr
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...with a bunch of Honda Civics!
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