hot rod power tour 2011.
We're pretty much exactly 1 month away from hrpt 2011. Today is 5/7/11 and on 6/4/11 we'll be driving in for the first night of car showing on the Tour in Cape Canaveral, FL. So, we're celebrating the count down with a Power Tour Pow Wow to discuss drive times, hotels, potential problems & CARS! The result is that there are 5 Corvettes, 1 El Camino & 1 BMW (because the 'Cuda is in parts still) in front of our house right now. It's a mini car show for families on their evening walks.
Oh, and there's a picture map hanging on the wall. It makes the Long Haul look easy.
Oh, and there's a picture map hanging on the wall. It makes the Long Haul look easy.
"Get the motor running, we’re lookin for adventure" - the 2011 Hot Rod Power Tour has begun! This year’s trip is 2800 miles from Atlanta to the official start in Port Canaveral FL and then on to Valdosta Ga, Montgomery AL , Nashville TN, Indianapolis IN, Muskegan MI, and Detroit MI before finally heading home to Atlanta. Monitor our progress on the map below.
Power Prep; There is a military saying to the effect that a plan is only good until your first moment of contact with the opposition. Well here is a summary on the war between man and. machine – you judge who is the winner:
Two weeks before DDay ( departure date) : 66 Vet needs new clutch - two days to order special clutch. Remove hood and motor to replace clutch. Car returns 7 days before DDay. Build custom console using BMW parts, add racing gas cap, remove front bumpers, add 69 camaro spoiler, build custom tow hook from bumper bracket.
One week before DDay: Cammie’s new 13 inch vette brakes leaking. Rebuild leaking brake proportioning valve, then replace with aluminum one from Florida, then with brass from GA. Drivers door jamming so replace hinges using three different kits. Car returns 36 hrs before DDay .Morgan paints brake calipers yellow at midnite.
Two days before DDay: Steve Bearse blows his back out - with good drugs hopefully will see him in Valdosta GA and Montgomery AL.
Day before DDay : now the vette drivers door is sticking shut… rebuild DDay morning.
DDay 5 pm: Vmail that Betts’ 70 AAR ‘cuda tribute wont make it. Unsuccessful getting new 6 spd tranny to work. Scratch a Long Hauler. Our numbers dwindling.
DDAY: “We gotta get out of here … Girl there is a better place for you and me”.
Sometimes the Power Tour is like an endurance race testing to see if you are man (or woman ) enough to be considered a Long Hauler. Hows five and a half hours in 95 degree traffic with no air conditioning, a Hotlanta traffic jam, and 45 minutes of smoking forest fire work for ya? Happily we cruised thru it all at 80 mph sipping gas at 12 and 16 mpg. Soon after hitting the road the cars started speeding up and then braking to capture us on their cell phone cameras. Gas station talk “How fast? Gonna drag race it?". Near state border start seeing some peers – mostly twosomes – 66 Nova Wagon / 69 Camaro, 67 GTO/84 Vette, 56 f100/72 c10 pickups. Morgan’s phone buzzes… everyone is already in Port Canaveral!!
But wait there’s more…More tomorrow that is!! Plan is to drive 90 minutes to Ocala to see Don Garlits Museum of Drag Racing before 2 hour drive to Port Canaveral. Catch you later!!
Steve and Morgan
Power Prep; There is a military saying to the effect that a plan is only good until your first moment of contact with the opposition. Well here is a summary on the war between man and. machine – you judge who is the winner:
Two weeks before DDay ( departure date) : 66 Vet needs new clutch - two days to order special clutch. Remove hood and motor to replace clutch. Car returns 7 days before DDay. Build custom console using BMW parts, add racing gas cap, remove front bumpers, add 69 camaro spoiler, build custom tow hook from bumper bracket.
One week before DDay: Cammie’s new 13 inch vette brakes leaking. Rebuild leaking brake proportioning valve, then replace with aluminum one from Florida, then with brass from GA. Drivers door jamming so replace hinges using three different kits. Car returns 36 hrs before DDay .Morgan paints brake calipers yellow at midnite.
Two days before DDay: Steve Bearse blows his back out - with good drugs hopefully will see him in Valdosta GA and Montgomery AL.
Day before DDay : now the vette drivers door is sticking shut… rebuild DDay morning.
DDay 5 pm: Vmail that Betts’ 70 AAR ‘cuda tribute wont make it. Unsuccessful getting new 6 spd tranny to work. Scratch a Long Hauler. Our numbers dwindling.
DDAY: “We gotta get out of here … Girl there is a better place for you and me”.
Sometimes the Power Tour is like an endurance race testing to see if you are man (or woman ) enough to be considered a Long Hauler. Hows five and a half hours in 95 degree traffic with no air conditioning, a Hotlanta traffic jam, and 45 minutes of smoking forest fire work for ya? Happily we cruised thru it all at 80 mph sipping gas at 12 and 16 mpg. Soon after hitting the road the cars started speeding up and then braking to capture us on their cell phone cameras. Gas station talk “How fast? Gonna drag race it?". Near state border start seeing some peers – mostly twosomes – 66 Nova Wagon / 69 Camaro, 67 GTO/84 Vette, 56 f100/72 c10 pickups. Morgan’s phone buzzes… everyone is already in Port Canaveral!!
But wait there’s more…More tomorrow that is!! Plan is to drive 90 minutes to Ocala to see Don Garlits Museum of Drag Racing before 2 hour drive to Port Canaveral. Catch you later!!
Steve and Morgan
Lake City FL to Port Canaveral/Cocoa Beach FL
Left at 9 am to get to Don Garlits Museum of Drag Racing in Ocala by 10:30.
“Go daddy, Go Daddy, Go Daddy Go!!” Unbelievable collection of drag racing memorabilia. Now adding Funny Cars to collection. Got a picture of John
standing beside the Swamp Rat he saw with his Dad in the early 60’s when Garlits came to town. Don was away in New Jersey with the National Hot Rod Association drag racing events.
By lunch it was back to the low 90s temp wise a pleasant change from Georgia’s high 90’s!
About three pm we pulled into Port Canaveral.
Before we can get into the venue we have to register at the waterfront district.
Its chock a block with cars and spectators all milling around in front of bars
and restaurants. Families, bikers, tourists, locals and hot rodders all pointing
and staring. Morgan has directions to meet up with friends from previous Tours
so she is off to check in with them. And then we do a quick walk thru the
vendors area and get all sorts of free hats, tshirts, posters, and knapsacks.
After a quick look at some cars, we caught a great seafood dinner along the
Port.
Steve B calls at dinner – a bad back cant keep a good rodder down. He is heading to Valdosta tomorrow.
At 830 pm with the Old guys tucked safely into their rooms I get a text from Morgan who is out on the town with folks from Iowa and Tennessee. Cammie’s electric cooling fans aren’t shutting off after the car is shut down. Happily we have two manual shut off switches so we don’t have to worry about draining the battery.
More happily, the problem is getting the fans shut off, not in getting them to
go on. Can you imagine how long an engine would last in 95 degree weather with no radiator cooling fan!
Well as soon as the Canucks beat the Bruins in Game Two overtime I am off to bed since we have a special drive inside the gates of Cape Canaveral tomorrow at 730 am before a 930 drivers meeting and 4 ½ hr drive to Valdosta GA for drag racing. Man this schedule is as crazy as work!
And so we now leave the interstates and shift to the backroads of America to see what America is all about.
The adventure continues!!
Steve
Left at 9 am to get to Don Garlits Museum of Drag Racing in Ocala by 10:30.
“Go daddy, Go Daddy, Go Daddy Go!!” Unbelievable collection of drag racing memorabilia. Now adding Funny Cars to collection. Got a picture of John
standing beside the Swamp Rat he saw with his Dad in the early 60’s when Garlits came to town. Don was away in New Jersey with the National Hot Rod Association drag racing events.
By lunch it was back to the low 90s temp wise a pleasant change from Georgia’s high 90’s!
About three pm we pulled into Port Canaveral.
Before we can get into the venue we have to register at the waterfront district.
Its chock a block with cars and spectators all milling around in front of bars
and restaurants. Families, bikers, tourists, locals and hot rodders all pointing
and staring. Morgan has directions to meet up with friends from previous Tours
so she is off to check in with them. And then we do a quick walk thru the
vendors area and get all sorts of free hats, tshirts, posters, and knapsacks.
After a quick look at some cars, we caught a great seafood dinner along the
Port.
Steve B calls at dinner – a bad back cant keep a good rodder down. He is heading to Valdosta tomorrow.
At 830 pm with the Old guys tucked safely into their rooms I get a text from Morgan who is out on the town with folks from Iowa and Tennessee. Cammie’s electric cooling fans aren’t shutting off after the car is shut down. Happily we have two manual shut off switches so we don’t have to worry about draining the battery.
More happily, the problem is getting the fans shut off, not in getting them to
go on. Can you imagine how long an engine would last in 95 degree weather with no radiator cooling fan!
Well as soon as the Canucks beat the Bruins in Game Two overtime I am off to bed since we have a special drive inside the gates of Cape Canaveral tomorrow at 730 am before a 930 drivers meeting and 4 ½ hr drive to Valdosta GA for drag racing. Man this schedule is as crazy as work!
And so we now leave the interstates and shift to the backroads of America to see what America is all about.
The adventure continues!!
Steve
And They’re Off!!
I made it! Finally in my room enjoying AIR CONDITIONING after a long day in the +95 degree heat. Its been another win for man vs machine.
Today began with the El Camino having a flat battery!! Since we were heading to the Kennedy Space Center for a special tour beginning at 730 am, the battery’s timing was most inconvenient.
Anyone who knows me, knows I am a night person so life and death and
battery problems at 645 am are not welcomed. My clever but still asleep mind
quickly concluded that this failure was as a result of continued radiator fan
problems. The rule of Long Hauling is too keep going, so the obvious decision was to jumpstart the battery. Amzingly the REAL problem was a loose negative battery terminal. Twist a bolt and Bingo we have ignition!
The Kennedy Space Tour was amazing.
We were able to walk into the Explorer Space Shuttle - 3/4ths of it was
cargo hold/rocket boosters. The other 1/4this smaller than a 36 foot Winnebago Motor Home and 7 people live in it. Morgan and I couldn’t understand how 7 people could get along for months in a space that size. The Launch Experience was also wonderful. Strapped into your seat you are tilted back 90 degrees an blast off experience the rumble, vibrations and thrusts and sound as the boosters are deployed progressively until its quiet and your floating in
space.
While a great experience, by the time we had driven on a special tour inside the gates it was 11:15 am and we still had 4 ½ hrs of driving to get to the drag strip in Valdosta GA. The route was surprisingly speedy partially because there were no stop lights or small towns to drive through. However it was disappointing that for the first time in five years we saw virtually no spectators on the tour. Was it the 95 degree heat or were all the car buffs in Florida already on the
Tour?
Drag racing was fun. I have never raced on a legal drag strip and now found myself teaching Morgan based on my teenage days street racing on Carling Ave in Ottawa and everything I have read in 45 years of Hot Rod Magazine. Morgan ‘staged’ at the tree (lights) perfectly, held the brakes, pressed down on the accelerator pedal‘ til the car was shaking. Now the lights went down the tree Yellow, Yellow, Yellow, GREEN…. And Morgan launched the El Camino perfectly.
She left a new black 5.7L 390hp HEMI Challenger in the dust!
BANG the tranny shifted into 2nd, the HEMI receeds further.
Then BANG the tranny hits 3rd and the Hemi starts closing the gap at the
very end of the track.
Morgan clocked a 15.8 second quarter mile time at a top speed of 86 mph.
Not bad for a first time driver in a 4200 lb 35 year old car/truck in humid +95 degree heat after 5 hours of highway driving!
After 3 runs, Morgan's best was down to 15.3 seconds at 88 mph. She has great
reaction times off the light but ultimately Cammies’ weight and aerodynamics are against her.
My first legal race in a stick shift car was frankly very disappointing. The Vette launches loud, sticks it rear out sideways and then hauls! No issues throwing the gears but when I shifted into fourth I thought I had hit the rev limiter because the car completely died and stumbled its way down the last part of the track stuck at 3000 rpm.
15.8 seconds – same as the much heavier Camino? And my top speed was 62 mph!!!
Impossible. Second round I made sure to shift before hitting the limiter. But same issue again and same 15.8 time and speed. Really disappointing and I was worried I had a very sick engine. Time to go home??
And then I opened the hood and found that after the recent engine removal and
replacement, the air cleaner had been installed incorrectly, become unbolted and
lodged in such a way as to prevent the carb from opening fully. Tomorrow will
bring another drag strip in Montgomery AL and hopefully a better time with a new bolt.
Had a nice dinner with Cliff and family and friends, and Steve and John. And
then returned to hotel at 930 pm to fix Cammie's fan. Now it was coming on when no one was near the car! It's working better now that I by passed a defective solenoid switch and am using the second switch only. Tomorrow will bring the reality check!!
So for today I’d have to say machine beat machine (but not woman!!). But a new day rises tomorrow!
Steve
I made it! Finally in my room enjoying AIR CONDITIONING after a long day in the +95 degree heat. Its been another win for man vs machine.
Today began with the El Camino having a flat battery!! Since we were heading to the Kennedy Space Center for a special tour beginning at 730 am, the battery’s timing was most inconvenient.
Anyone who knows me, knows I am a night person so life and death and
battery problems at 645 am are not welcomed. My clever but still asleep mind
quickly concluded that this failure was as a result of continued radiator fan
problems. The rule of Long Hauling is too keep going, so the obvious decision was to jumpstart the battery. Amzingly the REAL problem was a loose negative battery terminal. Twist a bolt and Bingo we have ignition!
The Kennedy Space Tour was amazing.
We were able to walk into the Explorer Space Shuttle - 3/4ths of it was
cargo hold/rocket boosters. The other 1/4this smaller than a 36 foot Winnebago Motor Home and 7 people live in it. Morgan and I couldn’t understand how 7 people could get along for months in a space that size. The Launch Experience was also wonderful. Strapped into your seat you are tilted back 90 degrees an blast off experience the rumble, vibrations and thrusts and sound as the boosters are deployed progressively until its quiet and your floating in
space.
While a great experience, by the time we had driven on a special tour inside the gates it was 11:15 am and we still had 4 ½ hrs of driving to get to the drag strip in Valdosta GA. The route was surprisingly speedy partially because there were no stop lights or small towns to drive through. However it was disappointing that for the first time in five years we saw virtually no spectators on the tour. Was it the 95 degree heat or were all the car buffs in Florida already on the
Tour?
Drag racing was fun. I have never raced on a legal drag strip and now found myself teaching Morgan based on my teenage days street racing on Carling Ave in Ottawa and everything I have read in 45 years of Hot Rod Magazine. Morgan ‘staged’ at the tree (lights) perfectly, held the brakes, pressed down on the accelerator pedal‘ til the car was shaking. Now the lights went down the tree Yellow, Yellow, Yellow, GREEN…. And Morgan launched the El Camino perfectly.
She left a new black 5.7L 390hp HEMI Challenger in the dust!
BANG the tranny shifted into 2nd, the HEMI receeds further.
Then BANG the tranny hits 3rd and the Hemi starts closing the gap at the
very end of the track.
Morgan clocked a 15.8 second quarter mile time at a top speed of 86 mph.
Not bad for a first time driver in a 4200 lb 35 year old car/truck in humid +95 degree heat after 5 hours of highway driving!
After 3 runs, Morgan's best was down to 15.3 seconds at 88 mph. She has great
reaction times off the light but ultimately Cammies’ weight and aerodynamics are against her.
My first legal race in a stick shift car was frankly very disappointing. The Vette launches loud, sticks it rear out sideways and then hauls! No issues throwing the gears but when I shifted into fourth I thought I had hit the rev limiter because the car completely died and stumbled its way down the last part of the track stuck at 3000 rpm.
15.8 seconds – same as the much heavier Camino? And my top speed was 62 mph!!!
Impossible. Second round I made sure to shift before hitting the limiter. But same issue again and same 15.8 time and speed. Really disappointing and I was worried I had a very sick engine. Time to go home??
And then I opened the hood and found that after the recent engine removal and
replacement, the air cleaner had been installed incorrectly, become unbolted and
lodged in such a way as to prevent the carb from opening fully. Tomorrow will
bring another drag strip in Montgomery AL and hopefully a better time with a new bolt.
Had a nice dinner with Cliff and family and friends, and Steve and John. And
then returned to hotel at 930 pm to fix Cammie's fan. Now it was coming on when no one was near the car! It's working better now that I by passed a defective solenoid switch and am using the second switch only. Tomorrow will bring the reality check!!
So for today I’d have to say machine beat machine (but not woman!!). But a new day rises tomorrow!
Steve
Muskegon to Detroit MI
This will be our final run of 230 miles today. Unfortunately it's cold and in half an hour a heavy rain storm is scheduled to hit so we need to motor quickly out of Muskegon. The plan is to leave at 8am and join John about 15 minutes along the route as we pass nearer his hotel.
That plan gets destroyed as soon as the El Camino stalls out repeatedly before we are even out of the hotel parking lot. It had been dieseling a bit yesterday and now on restarting it belched black smoke big time. Unburnt gasoline. Thinking the spark plugs might be fouled by all the idling in traffic I hoped
(actually I prayed) we could just burn off the deposits from the plugs by
goosing it around the block a few times. Using that approach took half an hour
to circle the block as the Cammie stalled every 30 ft.
We got back to the covered hotel parking garage just as the sky opened up. A quick call re-directed John to our location.
Meanwhile I confirmed we had gas and air, so obviously we were lacking the spark to burn the ignition. Since replacing the coil and ignition module on the Vet, I had spoken to many who had had ignition failures in the heat. So
by the time John arrived I had confirmed the combination distributor cap/coil
was carboned up and was half way thru replacing it with a spare. Everyone kids me about carrying so many tools/spares but here we were solving our problem in 15 minutes when others would have been driving round looking for parts for a 1972 Chevy.
Happily the distributor cap seemed to do the trick as I buzzed around the block in mere minutes with no issues. Man beats machine! Time to rock and roll.
After taking almost an hour to clear construction in Muskegon, the roads opened up as the rain continued to push down on us. The cars liked the cool mid 60 temperatures but the rain still made life unpleasant inside our cars. And then we hit a wall of traffic. Creeping uphill ahead of me, Morgan signals on the walkie talkie that the Cammie is coughing. It stalls.
A restart , a cloud of black smoke, and 30 feet later another stall.
It repeats the process.
And yet again repeats the process. My heart sinks. Teaming rain. No
shelter. No indoor lighting overhead. The clock is ticking.
160miles to go. Will the Cammie get to Detroit?
We find shelter under a portable carport that is for sale by the roadside. The tools go out. Then the first spark plug is out. It's coated in black powder- soot.
Uncombusted gasoline deposit. I have replaced the distributor cap/coil. The timing seems fine. What is it going to take to burn this gas and get going again? All I can think of is clean the spark plugs for better combustion.
Over my shoulder I here, “Whats the verdict dad?” says one of Morgan’s new found friends – Mike from Wisconsin in the’ Evil Doer’ Nova.
And there is Alex and his Iowa team, and Kevin the Canadian, and Mike’s
friend Frank. One GTO, one Nova, one Chevelle and now three Corvettes have protectively circled the wagons around the ailing Camino. A comrade is hurt.
Mike and Kevin are all about TOO MUCH GAS and the carburetor. John and I had never thought about too much gas. We had always been taught to make sure you have ENOUGH gas, ENOUGH air and ENOUGH ignition. TOO MUCH was an entirely new concept –out of the box – hell it was radical!
Fifteen minutes later having disassembled part of the carburetor, Mike and Kevin concluded the choke was cutting off air to the carb and thus the gas to air ratio was too rich. So it was not so much too much gas as it was not enough air after all. A quick twist of the choke adjustment and Cammie was idling better. We were back in the game. Thanks to Mike and Kevin and Alex and….
And then we really rocked and rolled!! Clipping along at 80. The cars are in their zone. Each with 400+ horsepower burning down the road. Gotta get the miles under our belt before another surprise tries to stymy us in achieving our goal.
And we do it! We get there. All of us.
Because we are a team. A team of 2500 cars and 4500 people committed to getting to our cars to our destination. And committed to helping our brethren get there too.
We are Long Haulers!!
This will be our final run of 230 miles today. Unfortunately it's cold and in half an hour a heavy rain storm is scheduled to hit so we need to motor quickly out of Muskegon. The plan is to leave at 8am and join John about 15 minutes along the route as we pass nearer his hotel.
That plan gets destroyed as soon as the El Camino stalls out repeatedly before we are even out of the hotel parking lot. It had been dieseling a bit yesterday and now on restarting it belched black smoke big time. Unburnt gasoline. Thinking the spark plugs might be fouled by all the idling in traffic I hoped
(actually I prayed) we could just burn off the deposits from the plugs by
goosing it around the block a few times. Using that approach took half an hour
to circle the block as the Cammie stalled every 30 ft.
We got back to the covered hotel parking garage just as the sky opened up. A quick call re-directed John to our location.
Meanwhile I confirmed we had gas and air, so obviously we were lacking the spark to burn the ignition. Since replacing the coil and ignition module on the Vet, I had spoken to many who had had ignition failures in the heat. So
by the time John arrived I had confirmed the combination distributor cap/coil
was carboned up and was half way thru replacing it with a spare. Everyone kids me about carrying so many tools/spares but here we were solving our problem in 15 minutes when others would have been driving round looking for parts for a 1972 Chevy.
Happily the distributor cap seemed to do the trick as I buzzed around the block in mere minutes with no issues. Man beats machine! Time to rock and roll.
After taking almost an hour to clear construction in Muskegon, the roads opened up as the rain continued to push down on us. The cars liked the cool mid 60 temperatures but the rain still made life unpleasant inside our cars. And then we hit a wall of traffic. Creeping uphill ahead of me, Morgan signals on the walkie talkie that the Cammie is coughing. It stalls.
A restart , a cloud of black smoke, and 30 feet later another stall.
It repeats the process.
And yet again repeats the process. My heart sinks. Teaming rain. No
shelter. No indoor lighting overhead. The clock is ticking.
160miles to go. Will the Cammie get to Detroit?
We find shelter under a portable carport that is for sale by the roadside. The tools go out. Then the first spark plug is out. It's coated in black powder- soot.
Uncombusted gasoline deposit. I have replaced the distributor cap/coil. The timing seems fine. What is it going to take to burn this gas and get going again? All I can think of is clean the spark plugs for better combustion.
Over my shoulder I here, “Whats the verdict dad?” says one of Morgan’s new found friends – Mike from Wisconsin in the’ Evil Doer’ Nova.
And there is Alex and his Iowa team, and Kevin the Canadian, and Mike’s
friend Frank. One GTO, one Nova, one Chevelle and now three Corvettes have protectively circled the wagons around the ailing Camino. A comrade is hurt.
Mike and Kevin are all about TOO MUCH GAS and the carburetor. John and I had never thought about too much gas. We had always been taught to make sure you have ENOUGH gas, ENOUGH air and ENOUGH ignition. TOO MUCH was an entirely new concept –out of the box – hell it was radical!
Fifteen minutes later having disassembled part of the carburetor, Mike and Kevin concluded the choke was cutting off air to the carb and thus the gas to air ratio was too rich. So it was not so much too much gas as it was not enough air after all. A quick twist of the choke adjustment and Cammie was idling better. We were back in the game. Thanks to Mike and Kevin and Alex and….
And then we really rocked and rolled!! Clipping along at 80. The cars are in their zone. Each with 400+ horsepower burning down the road. Gotta get the miles under our belt before another surprise tries to stymy us in achieving our goal.
And we do it! We get there. All of us.
Because we are a team. A team of 2500 cars and 4500 people committed to getting to our cars to our destination. And committed to helping our brethren get there too.
We are Long Haulers!!