Hot Rod Power Tour 2011: The Voyage Home

Waking up early, I wanted to grab breakfast at Toast N’ Jams before I had to get to the ferry, so I shot over there real quick.

I ordered their INCREDIBLE cinnamon roll pancakes and struck up a conversation with the owner of the establishment who just happens to be the brother of Dave Boertman who drove the blue 70 Rod Shop Challenger. What a small world! I ate my wonderful breakfast and then headed out to grab the ferry.

My thinking was that it was early Sunday morning, there wouldn’t be anyone around. The ferry would be empty. I was very mistaken. I got one of the last two car spots on the ferry. I got the car loaded onboard, grabbed my laptop and Top Gear DVD’s and headed to the seating area.

After settling in, we departed, passing the S.S. Milwaukee Clipper as well as the U.S.S. Silversides before we headed out to the open lake.

I settled below deck watch an hour of Top Gear, then the next things I knew I woke up (apparently I passed out from exhaustion) and I look out the window and I saw Milwaukee. I was finally on the right side of the lake! It was quite beautiful coming in to port. I grabbed some pictures before we docked. Ran downstairs and jumped in my car. Then unloaded.

I made my way through Milwaukee and headed south, towards home. It didn’t seem real, it did not feel like the end of Power Tour. I didn’t want it to end.

And that was the end I made my way home. After a little over 4000 miles, an unknown amount of gas (I’ll wait for the credit card bill) and a ton of new stories involving friends, a fake deer, and more cars then you would ever believe it was completed. I will miss all my new and old friends. It went by much too quick. Next year I hope to have my 71 Challenger up and going… or perhaps my pie in the sky idea of a Dodge Travco…. but I am sure I will be back!

Til next year, you can follow along with my other blog, about my adventures hunting cars in barns. http://www.carsinbarns.blogspot.com

Thanks for reading!

Ryan Brutt

Hot Rod Power Tour 2011: Day Eight, Long Hauler til the end!

I can’t believe it is already the end. The Long Hauler get together. What a epic adventure the past few days have been. There has been the good and the bad. Of course my morning spot would not be opened yet. So we headed to a Big Boy down the road. Unfortunately my timing is of course perfect, and I had to leave just as I got there. Saying goodbye to good friends and travel companions, as they were heading home right afterwards.

The turnout was great, the weather was nice enough. It was a good show too, with free donuts (even though I didn’t get any) but I did get some ice cream. It was a good show, we got flown over by an air plane for the group picture and everything. Unfortunately all good things you know, and after getting our Long Hauler swag, we all said our goodbyes and headed out. GM took us on some of their testing track, which was a blast. I wish I could do more of it. Doing those banked turns at 80 was awesome.

I wasn’t done though, I still had to get to the Mopar show at the Chrysler Museum. Which was of course over by the time I got out of the GM Proving Grounds.

After the brief walk around the show, I hit up the museum. It was nice to finally get to see the Chrysler Museum, I had heard about it for years, just never had the chance to view it. It was quite the collection. To view all the pictures, go to http://www.flickr.com/hemipwr70

After saying goodbye to Rob, Dave and everyone else in the group, I was on my own. I headed out for Muskegon to catch the Sunday morning ferry across the lake. I’ll finish up the blog tomorrow. With some final pictures and thoughts.

Hot Rod Power Tour 2011: Day Seven, Detroit, MI

Getting ready to head to Detroit, I had one of the busiest mornings yet. I needed to find the USS Silversides, otherwise I was going to loose my mind! I made my way to the beach, and did discover it. She looked quite good for her age. As I get there, one of the hatches pops open and a teddy bear pops out. Looked as though a Girl Scout troop had camped on the sub overnight and was just leaving! Almost had myself a turkey breakfast too!





I met up with everyone at this little restaurant in Muskegon, and they had some incredible cinammon roll pancakes and they were just incredible. After breakfast we went out into the pouring rain and headed out.



We made our way down the route, eventually meeting up with Dave and the Totally Auto group at a little restaurant in Jackson, MI. It was quaint, we grabbed some pictures and headed to Detroit.


After the lunch stop, we did a bunch of Go Pro camera video for upcoming http://www.moprtv.com episodes! So watch for them.


Our merry wet band of Mopars made out way across Michigan in the pouring rain, taking a back way to the venue to avoid traffic, which worked out well. We got there with plenty of time, checked in and walked what remained of the very wet show grounds. I got in line to meet Chip Foose again, which was cool.






Poor Fred was auctioned away for a good cause!



Not long after auctioning off Fred, they announced that the 2012 Power Tour would start at Metro Beach on June 2nd and end in Arlington, Texas a week later! That’s going to be one long trip. But I am already making plans! Not long after the announcements, we all left the grounds, tired and wet, we headed to dinner then off to the hotels! Of course I made a quick stop at a local cruise first! Ran into our good friend Bob Ashton, with the Muscle Car Nationals in Chicago. http://www.mcacn.com/












Tomorrow I will get the Long Hauler blog up, summarize everything. Until then, good night.

Hot Rod Power Tour 2011: Day 6, Muskegon, MI

This was so far the best day of Power Tour, we had a large group of Mopars together, a nice cruise north to Muskegon, and not blistering hot temperatures. It was nice to see friends from St. Louis  in the morning, along with the normal people. We all set out together, after a quick fill up. And thankfully the breakfast place did exist and did serve breakfast!




The route was fairly easy, it was only one road for most of the time. We got lucky though that the






Whoops, wrong turn…



And then the rain came… and went. Thankfully by the time we got to our stop at the Verhage museum, the rain was done.



Some people had more fun then others. These guys were alright thankfully.






The VerHage Museum was just incredible. So much cool muscle. Rob shot some of the cars for an upcoming issues of MCG. So keep an eye out for that.










But we needed to get going if we were going to get checked in before they shut down the time clocks. So we flew into Muskegon, which I had never been too. Very beautiful area, I would love to investigate it further someday soon.




We were able to get most of the group together in one section. We had at one time almost 30 Mopars, but we got seperated at the lights getting into town. It was still quite a showing though.


















There was even a GM Futurliner there, this thing was too cool for words!







The day came to an end after an unsucessful attempt to find a World War Two Gaito-Class submarine that is in Muskegon. How do you not find a huge sub? It was really, really dark out. So off to dinner a bunch of us Mopar guys went. We found a cool little place in town called Russ’s, which was pretty good!




Tomorrow I will post about our adventure to Detroit. But for more pictures, take a look at the link below.
http://www.flickr.com/hemipwr70

Bad Internet

Well the hotel I am staying at tonight has no internet that works. So no update until tomorrow. Sending this with my phone. Still doing same breakfast as is on the site. Night

Hot Rod Power Tour 2011: Day Five, Indy, IN

Another hot day on the MoPowered Tour. Our meeting at Arnold’s didn’t go quite as planned. They were only open for brunch, so off we went to Shoney’s. Which is just how I remember it, probably just left overs from back then. By the time we ate and were on the road, the main tour was already gone and we were behind for the longest section.   So I took off like the wind and headed to the venue.




Unfortunatley I was a bit late getting the message that there was serious traffic ahead, most of the Power Tour got stuck in it from 10 minutes to 2 hours. I was the latter. i did get a chance to clean the interior of my car though! Lucki;ly a few hours up the road we peeled off the interstate and took some incredible driving roads. Probably the best driving road I have ever been on. Wish I could have done it without all the junk in the car and a ton of muscle cars around me. But it was still a blast.








I pulled into Indy in the middle fo rush hour. It was not fun, I finally got to the track, parked and began pacing the show. I decided not to do a lap around, because the place was so messed up, the traffic wouldn’t allow you to get to the track. So after a while, I hit the road to the Mopar Show at The Finer Details.

The show at The Finer Details was exceptionally nice, well beyond what I thought was going to happen. Ken Moser, the owner of the shop had to run out three time to get more food! We jad everyone there, even Rob Wolf of Mopar Collectors Guide made it down, and will be with us teh rest of the tour.








As always you can see ALL the pictures at http://www.flickr.com/hemipwr70
We hung out there for a few hours, but we got tired and the herd thinned out and we all took off for our hotels. But it was a great night.
Tomorrow we hit up Charlie Brown’s Pancakes…. lets see if this place exists!

Hot Rod Power Tour 2011: Day Four, Nashville, TN

This has been a week of the unexpected. It was a great day. I saw some friends from last years MoPowered Tour, who came up just for the Wellborn Museum! Had an actual breakfast at a place that actually existed still and served breakfast…. a first for this Tour so far. Our merry band of Mopars headed out to one of the best Muscle Car Collections in the country.




We took off for the museum, and it was a beautiful drive there. All two lane roads and nothing but the road in front of us. It was a very enjoyable time. Even found a cool old caboose being used as a home or something.


We got there and made a beeline for the showroom floor. It was incredible. I feel so lucky to be able to go there twice in two years. I don’t know the next time I will be down this way and see it again. But it is absolutely worth seeing! Even got a model in a few of the pictures… For all the pictures. take a look at http://www.flickr.com/hemipwr70














Before we left we had one of the curators there take some really nice group pictures of the group. We don’t look half bad. After the museum we ate right next door at the Sonic. Where we discovered that the Cuda was having some pinging issues. And since I am not one to leave a car behind, we would all go around 60 mph on the way to the venue… which turned a 5 hour drive into more like 7…. We took scenic routes for some of it, but running late we hit the interstate and flew!









After a few hours, we pulled into LP Field in Nashville, TN. We got there at 5:50 and technically you can’t sign in after that. But we did, we also got MSD to help Dave with the Cuda and I talked with Stacy David of Trucks! and Gearz fame. http://www.stacydavid.com. Spoke with Dennis for a bit, ran into Fred…. poor Fred. Then proceeded to leave and find something to eat. Forutnately though I ran into my friends from the Chicago Gearheads and I spent a few hours there talking with them, and how they hit a deer with their station wagon on the way down, suffered little to no damage and kept on going. It was a great night.








Tomorrow we have the longest stretch of the week. So we have an early morning tomorrow! Meeting at Arnold’s Kitchen in Nashville which is supposed to be very good.

Hot Rod Power Tour 2011: Day Three, Montgomery, AL

Today was another beautiful hot day on the Power Tour. We started with meeting up at AJ’s Kitchen, which did still exist and was still a restaurant… unfortunatley they didn’t serve breakfast anymore. So we all split up, I had a small group of Mopars and we headed out to the venue. Of course my wonderful GPS told us the long way to get to the Hot Rod Power Tour Route, but we got there eventually. When we met up with the main route, the rest of the MoPowered Tour waited for us. And some friends that had gone the actual route found us. So we had a pretty good size caravan going for a while, over a dozen cars. Most of the group grabbed lunch at this local BBQ place in Phenix City. It was a decent meal, and most of us didn’t even have breakfast! We almost completely took over a abandonded Shoney’s parking lot. After our short break, we took off for the venue… with the GPS saying about two hours to get there… and oh boy was it wrong. First the directions given to us were incorrect, so we got lost. Then the GPS we were following took us down a little tiny road that dead ended at an old enterance for the Motorsports Park. And here about twenty muscle cars had to turn around and find another way in! And I hear we weren’t the only ones to have done that. We got turned around, got good directions to the venue and got over there as quick as we could. The temperature at the venue was nearly 100 degrees and hotter with the humidity. We parked and got stamped in. After that we just hung out, looked at the few new cars that arrived and then headed to our hotel rooms to cool off, except myself. I ran into Finnegan and Pittsenbarger who were driving around with their new friend, Fred. Apparently Finnegan bought a fake deer from a pawn shop, named him Fred and he is now a staple of the Tour. Talking with Pittsenbarger he said that the Rustoleum Road Runner was having charging issues. And that if I had any guidance he would apprecaite it. Well I was unable to help him there, but Dave Ferro was more then able to help him out. After a quick shower and over and hour trying to get a pizza to our hotel (The number to the pizza joint on the key would not deliver to our hotel… says right on the key “deliver to your room”… very aggrevating). Dave discovered that it would apprear to have been a bad Voltage Regulator and just happened to have a spare to help the Road Runner out. So it was fixed, everyone was happy…ish. And we all went back to our hotels, excited for tomorrow at the Wellborn Museum! Tomorrow morning is all good, I called and made sure that the Cracker Barrel still exists, and is open for breakfast. So tomorrow morning at 8:30 AM we LEAVE for the Wellborn Museum!

Hot Rod Power Tour 2011: Day Two, Adel, GA

Today was a good day, we met up at the restuarant that once was called “The Omelet Station”. I guess Yelp is a little out of date. None the less, a few Mopar guys did appear, and we did eat breakfast there and it was good! After breakfast we headed out to Garlitt’s Museum. Unfortunately on the way there, we ran into a snag.



After watching my car get covered in feather, from a goose that got hit by the Nissan in front of me, we came upon a 71 GTX that had thrown a fan belt. Unfortunately there was no way to fix it on the side of the highway. Luckily a guy from the Tour had his empty trailer with him, and brought the stricken GTX to the Museum, while I went to fetch a new belt.



Getting to the Museum, all the guys were already in there, so I got in and started shooting cars like crazy. You can see all the pictures at http://www.flickr.com/hemipwr70








Coming outside, the guys had gathered around the GTX, and finding out that the belt I had gotten was the wrong one. It comes up in the computer as correct, but wasn’t. So off to the parts store I go again. Got the correct belt and we got it on there real quick.




The guys with the GTX and green 71 Super Bee wanted to limp the GTX home, so they took off. Luckily being somewhat local. The rest of the group headed out to catch the rest of the group.





We caught up with a large portion of the Power Tour group just off of I-75. And we cruised all the way to the venue together.


Fortunately I made a wrong turn and came to the venue from the opposite side, thus bypassing all the traffic.


At the show the temperature was right around 100* without anything added in. I made a beeline to check in, which was already after 5, but with everyone being delayed by NASA, they kept it open longer! I also ran into Mr. Freiburger and he didn’t try to run me over with a golf cart of beat me with his camera. So it is a step in the right direction.




Scott putting on some experimental hood brackets













We took off not long after we got there and checked into the hotel. Went to dinner then just got back and was hanging out in the parking lot with all the other gearheads. It was a really great day, can’t wait to see what tomorrow brings!

Hot Rod Power Tour 2011, Day One: Cocoa Beach, FL

First day of the Hot Rod Power Tour 2011. I opened the shades and it wasn’t raining, or over cast. Just really hot. So I packed up my stuff and headed over to the Waffle House for some quick breakfast before heading to the venue. This was easy peasy, not like in past years where I come in on the first day of the Tour. This made things much easier. Just cruised in down the road.



Pulling in, the signs were not very clear, where the cars had to go when done registering and such. Most parked near registration and thought that was it. They were very confused when confronted and told that this was just for those registering.







After registering to win a 1970 Superbird, I made my way to Mike Meade and the rest of the group, already situated in the main venue. Which was pretty interesting area, used normally for cars I guess when getting on cruise ships. It was hot today, and there was little to no breeze. But it was still fun to walk around.












































I walked and walked through the entire thing. The show cars were broken into 4 sections byh fencing, so it was fairly easy to just go up and down the rows and hit everything. I’m sure i missed stuff as it came in. But it was a easy walk, except for the heat. Ironically as I got to the end of the show cars, PINKHEMI from a few boards I am a part of showed up.

We introduced ourselves and chatted for a while about our cas and what had been going on. But we moved on as they wanted to hit up the show.


I ended up back at my car, recovered for a bit with Mike, got some water in me and we both setout to hit up the vendors area. I had yet to go in there. It was nicely condensed, unlike in some past venues. It was easy to hit up everything in a relatively short time. Saw some of my Hot Rod buddies, from Dennis Pittsenbarger to the guys from Eaton… who remembed me winning a free center section… and then never claiming it. But they said that they would talk to their bosses and see if I could still claim it.



















By late afternoon I had throughly cooked my arms, and needed to remove myself from the show. I had wanted to just see the shuttle, but that wasn’t in the cards. Instead I found a cool Mopar car hauler and Dart looking like it had seen better days.








After a nice dinner with good friends, on our way back we saw a derelict Barracuda, not being able not to help, we pulled in and asked what we could do. Fortunately they had someone running to get the loctite to help hold the bolt keeping the oil filter adapter in place. So after waiting a while, getting the stuff and putting it back together we actually had a pretty good gathering of Mopars right there in an abandoned BP station!





Eventuallt Dave Ferro and the Totally Auto crew found us! We were just hanging out in the end, enjoying the company. Swapping over some stuff he had for mr. It was fun. But all good things ya know. It was getting later, I was exhausted and needed to get up early.



To view all the pictures go to the link below.
http://www.flickr.com/hemipwr70
NOW THE BIG THING>>>>>>> The Omelet Station no longer exists, it is called Boston Beef and Seafood. I heard they have a good breakfast, so the time and address are the same.