varkwso

The 2006 Hot Rod Power Tour was totally hot. It had hot cars, hot locations, hot weather, hot vendors and some really hot participants.

Pre-Tour Friday.

After running through the currently available fleet of vehicles capable of making the tour we ended up taking my wife's 2005 GTO. A bright yellow, 6 speed, 400 horsepower, 25 mpg+, air conditioned coupe was not exactly out of place on the HRPT and was a lot of fun. Trunk space is a bit limited though. We were able to keep up with traffic without too much effort. After a early (to some) morning rendezvous we went looking for the rest of the convoy - the Hall contingent decided to catch the (much) later train for the tour. The run down to Kissimmee was flawless with mild traffic and good weather. I even managed to work in some phone calls for work. We hooked up with Dennis (North Augusta), and his Dad, in his twin turbo ZO6 when he pulled into the parking lot looking for a room - talk about luck! Sign up and registration went well when they finally decided "Jake" was an acceptable variation of "Jack" on the registration form. We then hit the pool waiting for the Peak/Splitfire pre-Tour cruise-in on Friday night. Along with free t-shirts, food and other giveaways we managed to look at a few cars and meet some folks at the pre-Tour event. The turn out of late model GTOs was pretty incredible.

Saturday at Orlando Convention Center.

We hit it for a full day in the sun, after the Mobil 1 guys made it possible for us to wash our cars down in the hotel parking lot, at the Convention center. The cars in attendance were, once again, world class. The freebies ranged from T-shirts to oil filters to stickers and all items in between. Painless Performance kicked in for a sub sandwich lunch and our cooler was raided hard for water and soft drinks. The heat and humidity finally had us crying "Uncle" after 6 hours on the blacktop. Since it was still early we headed over to H&H Corvettes to check out a 1969 L88 convertible and a 1971 LS6 convertible amongst many other Corvettes I am in great need of. After a great family style Italian dinner we checked out a 1964 2 door post 6 speed Chevelle with a ZL1, an all numbers matching 1968 396/375HP 4 speed Camaro SS, a killer 66 2 door post Chevy II and other nice rides at "Poe's Performance Palace". We went to sleep with the sounds of solid lifters rattling in our heads.

Sunday dawned early and we took the non-toll route (I am cheap - what can I say) to the Superchips Brunch. What a great meal - grilled chicken and BBQ - now that is a brunch that will stick to your ribs. We then hooked up with our convoy to head to the Gainesville raceway - we had a 66 Chevy II, 1999 Saleen Mustang, 2000 Corvette, 2002 ZO6, 2005 GTO, 2004 Thunderbird, 1996 LT4 Vette and a Viper. Butch, now aka Magellan, took us on a very scenic tour of central Florida. When we made it to the track Jake, Dave,Tim, Otis and I unloaded the cars (made a large pile in the parking lot!) for tech so Jake, Otis and Dave could make some passes on the drag strip. Jake made a couple of passes in the 14's at 101 mph or so with traction issues all the way down the track - he had great reaction times and terrible 60 foot times (chip off the old leadfoot I would say). Dave also made some 14 second passes at 100 mph. Otis knocked on the doors of a 12 second pass when the lines just got too long for him to bear anymore. We met up with Bob and Robbie in Vicki's C6 at Gainesville. Being their first day on the tour they hung out a lot longer than we did! After a pass for the freebies, hanging out in the shade we could find and checking out the "new" cars on the tour we headed to the hotel and a meal from the cooler.

Monday started a little later than planned when the "early" morning departure at 0900 was a little much for some in our group. About 0940 we hit the route headed to South Georgia Motorsports for some more drag racing. I managed to briefly say hello to a Corner-Carver forum guy (in a nice 68 or 69 Roadrunner) at a rest area in passing. It is hard to keep up with any group on the trip and pre-coordination is almost required to meet on the tour! A Ford GT was out on the drag strip and I must admit it looked out of place there to me. They look much better at a road course or the autobahn. At least he had it at the track! The 2006 ZO6, also belonging on a road course, was knocking down low 12s and took the win over the Ford GT. After the GM hot dog lunch we headed out to Perry for the next stop. Perry had many, many new entries for the Tour and even had some shade trees! I even managed a few phone calls for work and to talk to my old First Sergeant in passing.

Tuesday took us from Perry to Columbia. Since I used to have a AFRES Squadron at Robins AFB and live in Augusta area this was one route I knew very well! It was good to run down the back roads with lots of cool cars. Since we has a split departure from Perry we had to rejoin our convoy on the fly. We added my ZO6 along with my youngest son Josh and Jake's girlfriend to this leg as well as friends in two Fox body Mustangs (we are an all inclusive bunch). The rejoin was very spirited and complete by the lunch stop. The Columbia location had lots of traffic, a nice breeze and very welcome shade. I even bumped into students of mine from Roebling and CMP in the crowd. It was decent place to end the tour for us this year since we could not make the Long Haul - maybe next year we can make the "Long Haul" again.

Bottom line:

* We stayed mostly hydrated
* We managed to keep sunburn to a minimum
* We saw lots and lots of great cars
* We burned less gas taking only one car for most of the Tour
* We ate a lot of meals for free
* We made drag strip runs
* We had a great time with lots of great people
* We had fun
* We decided a 1970 Duster was the one from the Tour we wanted to take home - it was flawless.
* Did I mention it was hot?
* It is still going so dive in!

NEED FOR SPEED

The Tour came by here today. 5 miles from the house.Watched them go by for 4 hours.Really cool cars.

MOOELLA

Wow, Jeff, that's the most I've ever seen you post!!!!

Seriously though...sounds like a really fun trip! Thanks for all the info.


Julie!

2001somws6

Yea the tour was awsome.All the cars were awsome. that 70 duster was perfect. I took a picture of it. Its here in the album i made. Here is the link to the album. there are 71 pictures in here. Post up any comments on how i did.

http://2001somws6.tripod.com/2006_hot_rod_power_tour/

varkwso

The tour came within a mile of my house - it was nice to pick up some more passengers, dump some dirty clothes and hit it again!

You know how afraid I am to speak my mind!

jeff

Which car were you in? Obviously you have good taste in cars if you also liked the 70 Duster!

I really wish I was still on the Tour

jeff

varkwso

Hey you took a picture of my Yellow GTO at Orlando

2001somws6

thaks for the comments.

Im driving the 2001 sunset orange trans am ws6. BY the tour bus

Yea i love mopars. My sis is the art director for mopar muscle also vette mag in tampa.

And yea i love the new gto. Your yellow one is super clean.

I HAD A BLAST AT THE BIGGEST CRUISE.

I wish i was able to go all the way.

I was cruising with my friend norm in his yellow 73 vette.

varkwso

Thanks for pics of my wife's GTO she liked seeing it "in action".

I checked out your "Daytona Orange" WS6 - nice car.

Any idea of the dates and route for next year?

2001somws6

actually its sunset orange metallic. And thanks. Your wifes gto is sweet.

i found out that the next tour is kicking off in dayton ohio and ending in little rock arkansas.

here is a link to the power tour fourm i like to visit with tons of pics and info. IM also 2001somws6 on there.


http://forums.hotrod.com/ubbthreads/...oard=powertour

varkwso

I am Varkwso there also.

Here is the route as known

Cleveland, OH
Kalamazoo, MI
?, WI
Springfield, IL/MO
?, ?
?, ?
Little Rock, AK

I thought the actual GM paint codes (names vary) were the same for a Pontiac, GMC and the new C6 color - my error!

2001somws6

I know in 2001 suset orange was only put on the trans am and camaro. U71 is the code for it. I dont know the code for the one on the vette. I need to look one day.

They put sunburst on the cavalier in 02 or 03. and now the coblt has it now.

mabe someone should and try to photoshop one on a gto.

It will allways look the best on the trans am,camaro and the vette.

iceburgh

I could not make the entire tour but did go to the tour at Harrisburg, This is the most fun I have had at any show in years

varkwso

All other "shows" pale in comparison. Making arrangements to make year 5 for us even now!

IMA 66

I saw your car there but never got a chance to meet you. Very nice car did you see that year one has some shots of it on their website?

http://www.yearone.com/Events/HRPT_2...Day6/1011.aspx

iceburgh

Thanks.... I dont sit still to ofetn but I did see many Vettes there and I saw many guys from the N.E. crew

tbyrne

That was a really good event! Didn't have rain at any of the venues and temps cooled off as we got further north. It was actually kind of chilly in Englishtown on Saturday morning. I'm thinking about doing next year's tour too!

varkwso

U71 is the paint code for the C6 Daytona Orange - I checked out a buddies C6 a week or so ago. Cool color.....