Friday, June 10
“Are You Cool Enough?”
How do I begin the story of the end? I could tell you all the fun stuff we did, or the neat things we saw, or a million other things.
But, I guess I’ll just start with the obvious — the weather. In simple, layman’s terms:
It rained.
Big surprise, huh? Watching the weather on television every night and early the next morning was a painful experience. Just our luck a tropical depression had formed in the Gulf and was doing nasty things to our weather, ergo the rain.
But, it wouldn’t be a Power Tour if there wasn’t a little rain. The observant amongst you likely noticed the lack of car pics from yesterday — there’s a good reason, I swear.
All the cars were dirty from the drive, and it just didn’t seem fair to show pics of dirty cars that would otherwise have you drooling.
It was my executive decision, and I stand by it.
During the Tour, I’ve received numerous e-mails from folks like you wanting to know how to go about participating in the Tour. My answer’s always the same: register and make hotel reservations early, start your road food diet several weeks early, and find a cool car to drive.
While these sound like simple points, some folks have trouble deciding what’s a cool car, and what’s not. To help, I’ve shown several examples so you might make a wise choice.
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Cool car:
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Not:
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Cool Car:
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Not:
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Cool:
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Not a snowball’s chance:
Got it?
If you still need help, drop me a line.
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At least we were able to see some significant cool cars today — race cars from our old friend and Mothers Polish Car Show co-host Don “Big Daddy” Garlits. See, Don has this little museum in Ocala, Florida, smack dab between Tallahassee and Kissimmee. It was a great place to stop and stare.
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Finding it was easy — we just followed the signs of I-75.
We didn’t bother looking for that village place — there were nitro-burning drag cars waiting for us!
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We managed to find a parking place amongst the thousands of other Tourers who stopped,
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and headed inside. Big Daddy was in the house, as they say, and was kind enough to sign our admission ticket.
Pretty cool, huh?
The museum was broken into 3 parts: Don’s race cars, other race cars, and his collection of classic cars.
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It was kinda cool to see the cars I remember as a kid. Stuff like wheel standers:
Ah, the Little Red Wagon! What an attention grabber it was.
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There were more versions of Swamp Rats (what Don named his race cars) in the building then red Camaros in the parking lot. It was really something to see them all. Pix will be in the gallery of some of them in a few days.
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I couldn’t wait to get to Don’s collection since I’d heard he had some real unique cars. I was right. How about a Dodge Coronet Hemi four door originally ordered by the FBI?
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That’s pretty cool.
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Don seemed to have a thing for Hemi cars — next to it was a 20,000 mile original ’69 Charger.
Every brand you could think of was represented — Don certainly has good taste. If you ever get a chance, stop on by.
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A frantic call from Jim on my cell told me it was time to go. They were slammed busy selling our new products at the trailer due to the great location, so we hot-footed
it down the highway towards the Florida Turnpike. Unfortunately, the 42,713,842 people all headed to see Mickey Mouse had the same idea. The toll booth was a
little backed-up, to the tune of a half mile, but we finally scooted through and zoomed into Orlando/Kissimmee.
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Thanks to our magic Power Tour sticker, colored blue, we were able to drive right up to the rig to help the guys out. Jim wasn’t kidding about our good spot:
everyone had to come by us at one time or another.
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Crowds are always outstanding at the final stop, and this year’s was no exception.
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Even with the rain, the throngs of humanity filled up Osceola Heritage Park. Rain does equal mud, though,
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so the powers to be wisely agreed to let us use the indoor arena for the final awards ceremony. It didn’t give me much time to check out interesting rides, but in the few minutes available I found a V8-powered Ford Fiesta.
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I remember the SHOgun that Chuck Beck and Rick Titus made some years back with a Ford Festiva powered by a V6 Taurus SHO drivetrain. The mid-engined, rear-wheel-drive SHOguns were so cool that even Jay Leno got one. But this custom Fiesta was WAYYYY over the top.
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While running between raindrops back to the trailer to prepare for the awards, I spotted a Tourer who just made it,
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and Catwoman’s little sister.
Look out Halle, she’s gunning for your job!
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With a last tribute to the Road Divas and their Bentley,
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we ran for the arena.
Those Hot Rod folks have some serious pull, let me tell you. With all the rain and mud, they convinced the powers to be to scrape off the dirt laid down for an upcoming monster truck race so we could use the arena.
Think big area, and little time. In the words of Doc Riley, they did an “outstanding” job.
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There’s nothing like standing in the middle of an arena that seats 20,000 with a mic in your hand. Everyone laughed at my jokes (or laughed at me I
couldn’t tell), and in a few short minutes our buckets o’wax were gone and my obligations complete for the 2005 Hot Rod Power Tour. We stuck
around to see the Road Divas draw their grand prize of a week at the Bob Bondurant Driving School (which, once again I didn’t win) and then headed for the hotel to collapse.
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I gave one look around the lot for a certain 1947 Olds with a blown 409 in it, where Zach from Minnesota was said to be Touring with his Grandpa. His mom was one of the numerous e-mailers who asked for a picture — she wanted to be sure Grandpa and Zach were doing well.
Sorry Stacy, I tried. With literally thousands of cars, I just couldn’t find ’em.
Tomorrow we start our trip back, and I’ll mentally begin composing my epilogue, to be posted in a few days.
I hope you enjoyed our efforts at bringing you the feel of driving along with thousands of other enthusiasts, and hope you’ll join us on the actual Tour in early June of next year when we go from Kissimmee, Florida to Englishtown, New Jersey.
It looks to be a great time. I’m starting to prepare now.
Your humble and obedient servant,
Forrest Tosie
Mothers® Polishes•Waxes•Cleaners
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2005 Cruise Night Schedule
Saturday, June 4
Miller Park, Milwaukee, WI
Painless Performance Kick-Off Cruise Night!
Sunday, June 5
Illinois State Fairgrounds
Springfield, Illinois
Monday, June 6
Indianapolis Raceway Park
Indianapolis, IN
Tuesday, June 7
Gaylord Opryland Resort
Nashville, TN
Wednesday, June 8
Birmingham Race Course
Birmingham, AL
Thursday June 9
North Florida Fairgrounds
Tallahassee, FL
Friday, June 10
Osceola Heritage Park
Kissimmee-St. Cloud, FL
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