We arrived in town yesterday, and found our Hot Rod builder, Gary Turnau (the silver-haired guy), skulking around the parking lot of the Downtown Ramada Inn, checking out a GTO.

Early Saturday morning, we head out to Miller Park for the kick-off party.

Inside the stadium, baseball practice.

Outside, the longhaul registration begins around 9:00 a.m. A little paperwork, a registration fee, and then you can get into the amazingly long line to enter the venue. Here’s a virtual registration trip — without all the summer heat, humidity, mosquitoes and whatnot.

Out on the steamy asphalt, the ultra-cool cars of the 2005 Power Tour bring the mercury down a few ticks.

Coker Tires’ classic roadster. Under the hood, a straight eight.

Our good friend, Chris Young of Toyo Tires will be driving this supercharged 2005 Ford Mustang. It’s part of a Toyo promotional giveaway, so you might want to check out the Toyo website for details on how to enter.

As always, Todd Ryden from MSD Ignition joins us on vendor aisle.

Baer Racing dug up this snapshot for us. Our best guess is that this photo is about five years old. From left to right: John Hotchkis, Ken Holland (i.e. me) and Forrest Tosie. I believe we were in another beer town, possibly St. Louis. Thankfully Forrest was there to hold me up.

Peter MacGillivray heads marketing at SEMA — Speciality Equipment Market Association. Every year we spend quality time with him on the ’tour, as well as time at the huge SEMA Show in Vegas.

A view from the inside of the Power Tour bus: on the left, recently promoted Hot Rod Magazine ex-publisher Ira Gabriel. On the right, Peter MacGillivray.

Hot Rod TV has been “livin’ large” on the Outdoor Channel for the past two years. Hot rods, bow hunting and bovines. It’s a natural. This year we caught up with the Hot Rod camera crew doing a quick pick-up shot for the Outdoor Channel’s new blockbuster TV special, “Nature’s Little Secret: Where Glue Comes From.”

We’ll be driving our completely redesigned 1967 Mothers® El Camino on the Power Tour. It has super-cool, one-off Billet Specialties wheels and a new 572 Chevy under the hood. You’ll find it featured in a build-up article and poster in this month’s June 2005 Issue of Hot Rod Magazine.

We also brought our new PowerBall™ and PowerMetal™ products. They’re a huge hit, and one of the coolest things to come along for polishing aluminum wheels and diamond plate since we introduced Mothers® Mag & Aluminum Polish — the product that started it all.

For sale, one custom Santa Fe Train. Tracks optional.

Early morning, setup.

Early afternoon, same location.