Well guys, I made down to Memphis. As you know Black Beauty was giving me fits all last week. As Justa alluded to in the Dust Off thread, I had AC and "fluid leakage" issues leading up to leaving. Plan B would be to drag out the Buick Roadmonster and take it. I know it has cold cold working AC! I took Black Beauty to the Dust Off. I placed a large piece of cardboard under her while on the show field. When Justa showed up, we took a look at it. It was bone dry.

So I rolled the dice Sunday morning and took her to Memphis. I left Michigan at 4:30 am! It was nearly 12 hours drive. I lost time south of Louisville in a construction zone tha decided to go from 4 lanes down to one! Bastiches! It cost me about 35 minutes but that was the only real slowdown I had.

So here are some shots on the way down to Memphis.....

Welcome to Kentuckystan!

Hi Rex

Wanna guess where I had lunch?

Say some cool cars on the road on the way down....

!

 

This was scary to watch .... I call it the tow trains! One vehicle tow two others 

Cars in my hotel parking lot.....

 

Never seen anything like your tow trains.  Can't even see that being legal.  Glad you made it down there OK.  Keep the sunny side up N the rubber side down.  OH yea.... We were both snubbed for doorprizes.  Mel too now that I think about it.  Donated my last box of Gold Eagle products too.

I probably didn't win an honaable mention in the survivor class this year either. There were more there that I expected to be honest. Hard to complete against those two GTOs.

I donated a Woodward M-1 sign, a NAPA thermometer and barometer sign, and some Pontiac vanity plates to the Chinese raffle.

JustaG6 did not win an award for the 1st time.  But up against the Grand AMino, the Pontiac museum vert G6 that was there less than an hour at the end of voting?? A modified Ventura was out of class and Red's Sunfire.  A beautiful day spent with my daughter and even managed to sneek in a shot of my truck.😎

DAY # 1 - Memphis Tennessee

Liberty Park - Home of the Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium (Home of the University of Memphis  TIgers and the annual Liberty Bowl game).

Driving into Liberty Park, the lines can be longer.....be sure your car can idle and not over heat for a long time!

Note the third row of to the right?

You will see all kinds............oars and a trolling motor? Okay.....obviously he's done this before.

Made it! Black Beauty is parked! That only took about 20 minutes (turns out I was one of the lucky ones). Time to go to registration and get my credentials and good bag. Again I got lucky (because I got there early - right after they opened) and got I didn't have to stand in this god awful line....

,,,,,the line keeps going further back to the right. The building you see has the credentials.

Here are some of the random photos I took today, in no particular order.

Nothing like a little Viper powered Chevy pickup

My first car was a Vega and it was either this color or nearly the same color.

Now we are in the vendor arena. Edelbrock, Petty's Garage, Lingenfelter, Painless Performance, Toyota, QA1, etc.

\Petty's Garage's GTO

 

Justa should remember this car from Woodward, it was in the Mopar group in Pontiac.

Lingenfelter El Caminio and engines

Hemi sauce ? Why not?!?

Yes, this is the General Maintenance from Roadkill. I didn't see Finneigan or Frieburger. But I did see Alex Taylor and I did talk to John McGann (Hot Rod staff editor and now a new face on Motortrend's Car Craft TV Series with Kevin Tetz). I'll have more on that later. Alex is the new host for Hot Rod Garage with Lucky Costa. They've been filming new episodes since April.

 

Edited June 14, 20223 yr by Frosty

When you mentioned the 3rd line,  sure looks like the back of a Roadmonster.  Sweet Pic's!!!  Fav is the Ridge runner.

fantastic pictures!!! 

love the blower !!!!

frosty was that a 426 hellephant engine in that Charger???

28 minutes ago, 64 kiwi boni said:

fantastic pictures!!! 

love the blower !!!!

frosty was that a 426 hellephant engine in that Charger???

Looks like a sucker notta blower.

2 hours ago, JUSTA6 said:

When you mentioned the 3rd line,  sure looks like the back of a Roadmonster.  Sweet Pic's!!!  Fav is the Ridge runner.

It was actually a Caprice wagon. Close though. There was another guy with a similar Caprice wagon, green with simulated wood. He had cut the body of another Caprice wagon and granted part of the front end on it and made it into a trailer. It was very well done. Both the trailer and wagon were painted identically. May be I can get a picture of that in Nashville tomorrow.

50 minutes ago, 64 kiwi boni said:

fantastic pictures!!! 

love the blower !!!!

frosty was that a 426 hellephant engine in that Charger???

Yes, that was a Hellephant crate motor. I think it was the first one.

20 minutes ago, JUSTA6 said:

Looks like a sucker notta blower.

Hoover's daddy? 

Now as I said, some of the Motortrend folks were out and about.

Alex Taylor was pulled up on stage to talk about her new job as co-host of Hot Rod Garage, replacing Tony Angelo. She has been working with Lucky Costa since April shooting new episodes. Tony announced last fall that he is staying on the East coast (Philadelphia) where he lives with his wife and daughters. He has started his own YouTube channel called StayTuned. 

I met John McGann, while waiting in line to park. John was talking photos of cars coming into the complex. I recognized him from the 3-episode first season of Car Craft on Motortrend. I asked him he was doing more episodes with Kevin and he is. The just put an LS engine in a BMW wagon. I was surprised to learn that Ian Johnson is producing this show. Ian, as many of you know, was once the host of Extreme 4x4 (old Powernation show he co-hosted with the late Jessie Combs) and is currently the host of Four Wheeler, also on Motortrend. John said that when he was asked to do the show, he was expecting to be a tech adviser, not the "on set wrench" with Kevin  but they needed someone badly. It seems since the huge downsizing of the magazine industry that TEN did a few years ago (axing titles like Popular Hot Rodding, Car Craft, Muscle Car Review, just to name a few - literally over night) has made things very difficult for writers and staffers like him. So they have had to find new outlets in the new digital age. Young kids today don't really know what a magazine is since their noses are stuck in their cell phones.

I hope I get a chance to talk to John some more at length this week. I found him very approachable.

Now to tell you about the first drama of the trip. I came down to Power Tour alone in Black Beauty, but I certainly didn’t come down to Power Tour alone. I planned all along to meet up with a friend from Virginia named Kenny. Kenny is a Power Tour veteran. We hatched this plan to go Power Tour together last fall.

Originally Kenny was going to drive his big block El Camino. He ended up coming down with a buddy of his named Charlie, in an LS-powered 67 GTO!

The good folks at Edelbrock saw Charlie’s goat and selected him to be part of a special Motortrend on Beale Street in downtown Memphis, starting around 4:00 pm. Ken and Charlie never made it to Beale St. The LS died! It wouldn’t start. It got flatbedded to a mechanic shop that specializes in hot rods instead. Initial diagnosis is a failed fuel pump. However, they will have to wait until morning to get it fixed since this all happened at the end of the day.

i had to come rescue Charlie and Ken from the mechanics shop. We went to dinner and then I took them to their hotel, it was near mine intentionally. The plan is for me to continue on to Nashville in the morning. They will wait for the car and meet me in Nashville as soon as they can.

This is part of the story of Power Tour, car guys helping car guys. I’ll let you know how it ends. Stay tuned.

19 hours ago, Frosty said:

Now to tell you about the first drama of the trip. I came down to Power Tour alone in Black Beauty, but I certainly didn’t come down to Power Tour alone. I planned all along to meet up with a friend from Virginia named Kenny. Kenny is a Power Tour veteran. We hatched this plan to go Power Tour together last fall.

Originally Kenny was going to drive his big block El Camino. He ended up coming down with a buddy of his named Charlie, in an LS-powered 67 GTO!

The good folks at Edelbrock saw Charlie’s goat and selected him to be part of a special Motortrend on Beale Street in downtown Memphis, starting around 4:00 pm. Ken and Charlie never made it to Beale St. The LS died! It wouldn’t start. It got flatbedded to a mechanic shop that specializes in hot rods instead. Initial diagnosis is a failed fuel pump. However, they will have to wait until morning to get it fixed since this all happened at the end of the day.

i had to come rescue Charlie and Ken from the mechanics shop. We went to dinner and then I took them to their hotel, it was near mine intentionally. The plan is for me to continue on to Nashville in the morning. They will wait for the car and meet me in Nashville as soon as they can.

This is part of the story of Power Tour, car guys helping car guys. I’ll let you know how it ends. Stay tuned.

I will cut to the chase. The day started out well for Kenny and Charlie. Turns out a pinched wire along the firewall was rubbed bare and grounded out, this killing the fuel pump. Quick, easy peasy fix. They got to Nashville (followed the wrong directions it seems) and ended up popping one of the air bags. Sadly, this is the kiss of death as there are no bags available anywhere in the NAshville area and it will take at least a week to the get needed parts. So Kenny and Charlie's Power Tour is over.....

I had to rescue them yet again from downtown Nashville (in a very ugly part of town). So I got another free dinner sadly.

I will be heading to Hoover Alabama in the morning without them. Here is what Charlie's GTO looks like. He won many awards with it, one at one of the POCI/GTOAA Co-Ventions.

I will post more pictures tomorrow. Today was a late night after rescuing Kenny and Charlie for the second night in a row. Hotel check-in and dinner was late as a result. I'm beat after driving 245 miles from Memphis and then driving back into downtown Nashville. Tommorow is our shortest drive, only 209 mliles to Hoover Alabama and the Hoover Met Complex.

Edited June 15, 20223 yr by Frosty

Bummer about your friend.  But BB is running well with no probs??  Priceless and earning free meals. 

Yeah, eating steak and baked potatoes is not a bad gig for sure. It just sucks that there are some not-so-pleasant reasons behind the free steak dinner.

BB is running week. She runs a little hot ~220 from time to time so I turn off the AC and roll down the window (the ol 2-60 air trick). When she gets into a long stretch of 55-70mph, she cools down to 180 easy enough. She has a rough idle down low, so she stalls at very low idle but other than that no oil burning, no loss of coolant, no major loss of fluids, etc. She is behaving herself.

Day #2 - Nashville Superspeedway

I found this old gas station on US 412. Look how much gas was when these pumps were shut down....

 

You sure get to see some small town USA on Power Tour and open roads....

Springhill Tennessee....they are building a new EV battery facility just outside GM's Springhill manufacturing complex.

Welcome to Nashville Superspeedway!

 

Going in the tunnel under the track to the infield.

An old Army Laguna

KIds and adults were seen running through the sprinklers outside the garage area - with their clothes ON! Pervets!

Those pics are great, Frosty. A real slice of Americana.

So...any swap meets around? A woodrim steering wheel for a 65 GP??? I'll grab it from you when Kiwi & I get over there!

Day #3 - Hoover Metropolitan Complex

I bid farewell to Charlie and Kenny after breakfast. Their ride back to Virginia had arrived in Nashville and I hit the road headed toward Hoover Alabama.

I made a little side stop for lunch but more on that later. After my lunch stop, I finished getting to the Hoover Met Complex and got my much needed Long Hauler stamp.

This Roadkill-ish Lemans is for some reason being tracked on YouTube. It looks like something Finniegan and Freiburger would drive.

Here is that Caprice Wagon and matching trailer I was talking about on Monday.

Eventually all the mud will take care of the rest of the paint....

This 71 Vette is the epitome of Roadkill

1 hour ago, Fitzy said:

Those pics are great, Frosty. A real slice of Americana.

So...any swap meets around? A woodrim steering wheel for a 65 GP??? I'll grab it from you when Kiwi & I get over there!

Sorry mate....I haven't seen one lick of a swap meet at this evnent. This is primarily a driving/entertainment event organized by Motortrend. I wish I had know about the steering wheel last week, we had our annual car club car show and we did have a swap meet. The next Pontiac car show in our area is mid-July.

Edited June 16, 20223 yr by Frosty

Day #3 Lunch Stop - US Space and Rocket Center - NASA Marshall Space Flight Center - Huntsville Alabama.

The route from Nashville to Birmingham just so happens to go right thru Huntsville. I was last here over 20 years ago with my dad when we were in Lucy, on our way to Cruisin' The Coast back in the early 2000s. At that time, I had the opportunity to witness a lady wearing a oven mit, holding a damaged shuttle head shield tile. She took a blow torch, heated it to white hot and asked if anyone wanted to touch. I raised my hand! My dad freaked! I went on stage, he asked me my name and said this was not staged, we had never met before and if I certain I wanted to hold it. I was sure. I took the white hot object from her mit hand with my bare hand! It was like holding a cup of coffee! Within less than a minute it had gone from white to orange to red to normal. Those tiles dissipate heat that quickly.

Interesting skyline -don't you think!?!

G.I. Joe and his space capsule. I had this when I was a kid.

Star Wars model makers used whatever models they could to come up with new vehicles. The Y-wing used pieces from the Saturn V model kit.

Huntsville is also home to Space Camp - where kids can train like astronauts.

The Pathfinder sans the full size shuttle mockup. These are real solid rocket boasters and full tank that were once used in the space shuttle program. Currently they are being sandblasted and repainted. A full size shuttle replica sat atop the tank, it was called "Pathfinder". 

Welcome to the Rocket Garden!

A T5 jet - a lot of astronauts trained in them. If you look close, this is the same plane that Pete "Maverick" Mitchell shuts down 3 of at the end of the original Top Gun movie....

Skylab and Apollo

Inside the Saturn V building

This building contains a full size / complete Saturn V rocket suspended horizontally. It also contains a lot of interesting and historical artifacts.

This is what greats you when you first walk into the building proper

A piece of Skylab that was recovered near Australia.

Space suits worn by actual father and son.

Backup space suits for Grissom, White, and Chaffee - who died in the Apollo I fire.

Full size practice gantry crane for enter the commanding module.

The lunar rover and the lunar lander

A Moon rock brought back by Apollo 12

The actual Apollo 16 command module. Look at how heavily gashed and pitted it's heat shield is.

This is a small neutral buoyancy tank, essentially a really large warm swimming pool. Astronauts train in tanks like this to get use to working in EV suits and prepare for weightless while prepping for their mission. The tank is the closest thing that can be done to simulate weightless on earth for a sustained period of time.

Tribute to Miss Baker, the first US animal, a monkey into space and safely return.

Miss Baker is buried right outside the entrance to the visitor center along side her mate Big George. I found the banana mildly amusing.

 

1 hour ago, Fitzy said:

Those pics are great, Frosty. A real slice of Americana.

So...any swap meets around? A woodrim steering wheel for a 65 GP??? I'll grab it from you when Kiwi & I get over there!

mate i am sooo keen to set a plan for next year!!!!  so is my boss !!!! 

45 minutes ago, Frosty said:

Day #3 Lunch Stop - US Space and Rocket Center - NASA Marshall Space Flight Center - Huntsville Alabama.

The route from Nashville to Birmingham just so happens to go right thru Huntsville. I was last here over 20 years ago with my dad when we were in Lucy, on our way to Cruisin' The Coast back in the early 2000s. At that time, I had the opportunity to witness a lady wearing a oven mit, holding a damaged shuttle head shield tile. She took a blow torch, heated it to white hot and asked if anyone wanted to touch. I raised my hand! My dad freaked! I went on stage, he asked me my name and said this was not staged, we had never met before and if I certain I wanted to hold it. I was sure. I took the white hot object from her mit hand with my bare hand! It was like holding a cup of coffee! Within less than a minute it had gone from white to orange to red to normal. Those tiles dissipate heat that quickly.

Interesting skyline -don't you think!?!

G.I. Joe and his space capsule. I had this when I was a kid.

Star Wars model makers used whatever models they could to come up with new vehicles. The Y-wing used pieces from the Saturn V model kit.

Huntsville is also home to Space Camp - where kids can train like astronauts.

The Pathfinder sans the full size shuttle mockup. These are real solid rocket boasters and full tank that were once used in the space shuttle program. Currently they are being sandblasted and repainted. A full size shuttle replica sat atop the tank, it was called "Pathfinder". 

Welcome to the Rocket Garden!

A T5 jet - a lot of astronauts trained in them. If you look close, this is the same plane that Pete "Maverick" Mitchell shuts down 3 of at the end of the original Top Gun movie....

Skylab and Apollo

Inside the Saturn V building

This building contains a full size / complete Saturn V rocket suspended horizontally. It also contains a lot of interesting and historical artifacts.

This is what greats you when you first walk into the building proper

A piece of Skylab that was recovered near Australia.

Space suits worn by actual father and son.

Backup space suits for Grissom, White, and Chaffee - who died in the Apollo I fire.

Full size practice gantry crane for enter the commanding module.

The lunar rover and the lunar lander

A Moon rock brought back by Apollo 12

The actual Apollo 16 command module. Look at how heavily gashed and pitted it's heat shield is.

This is a small neutral buoyancy tank, essentially a really large warm swimming pool. Astronauts train in tanks like this to get use to working in EV suits and prepare for weightless while prepping for their mission. The tank is the closest thing that can be done to simulate weightless on earth for a sustained period of time.

Tribute to Miss Baker, the first US animal, a monkey into space and safely return.

Miss Baker is buried right outside the entrance to the visitor center along side her mate Big George. I found the banana mildly amusing.

 

this is sooo cool Dennis!!! 

Thank you for the pictures!!! i have only ever been to cape canaveral and i justA loved it !!! they never taught us half of what i leant by doing the tour!!! 

and here you are in Alabama !!

3 hours ago, Frosty said:

Interesting skyline -don't you think!?!

Huntsville is an interesting place! Was there back in 2016(?). My best friend worked for Lockheed at the time as an aerospace engineer. Full tour and deets, was a very interesting and fun time.

Well done, Frosty. I feel like I was there with you! 

As JustA commented, those tow trains surely can't be legal??? I also noted that quite a few hot rods get to tool around without fenders. In Australia, the authorities are adamant that any wheel must be covered, even to the extent of mandatory fitment of wheelarch flares to cover wheels that protrude from the body, as an example in 4WDs and pickups.

I'll also mention that after decades of screaming for fullsize pickups and having nothing available (the locally assembled F100 died years ago here) finally you can now buy a RAM or Silverado from the dealer...now that petrol is at an all time high. Well done People Who Didn't Listen.

Day #4 - Pensacola FL - Pensacola Interstate Fairgrounds

Or as I like to call it, Black Beauty goes to the beach!

Painless Performance was one of the midway sponsors on Power Tour. They drove all of their display cars each day!

Anyone remember the Dodge Miranda? With a factory hood scope and spoiler? Here's one!

Coming into the Sunshine State!

Here we are at the Fairgrounds

Newborn and Cotton were both on the midway, talking about this '57 they ran at Sickweek earlier this year. The DEI wrap around the brake booster is for real. It prevents the header heat from boiling the brake fluid.

Edited June 17, 20223 yr by Frosty

love the patina 59 caddy !!!

Frosty !!! you should pop around the coast and see Jim!!